Historians are scarcely, even at the present day, unanimous in their views as to what monarch ought to be regarded as the first "king of England." Some say Egbert; but his authority rarely if ever extended over the whole of the country now so named, and a very large proportion of it was merely a kind of nominal "over lordship," which carried with it very little governing influence, and, such as it was, it was held on a very precarious tenure. Others contend that the distinction belongs to Alfred the Great. Yet Alfred, though beloved by all the English-speaking people in the land, was compelled to share the territory with his Danish rival, Gothrun. Sharon-Turner says--"The truth seems to be that Alfred was the first monarch of the _Anglo-Saxons_, but Athelstan was the first monarch of _England_." He adds--"After the battle of Brunanburh, Athelstan had no competitor; he was the _immediate Sovereign of all England_. He was even _nominal_ lord of Wales and Scotland." This seems to be the true solution of the query. It is a most remarkable circumstance that the site of this great victory, notwithstanding the magnitude of the contending armies and the importance of its political and social results, was, until recently, at least, absolutely unknown, and it cannot yet be said that the true locality has been demonstrated with sufficient clearness to entirely remove all doubt. Many places have been suggested on the most frivolous grounds. The question where is, or was, Brunanburh is still sounding in the ear of the historical student, and echo merely answers "Where?" Yet I think I have made the nearest approach to the solution of this problem, in the "History of Preston and its Environs," that has yet been attempted, and further investigation enables me to add considerably to the evidence there adduced. It is, perhaps, necessary that some attempt should be made to determine the cause or causes why the site of so important a victory, celebrated in the finest extant short poem in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and so important in its political results, should have become lost both to the history and tradition of the English victors. At first sight there appears something singularly exceptionable in the fact. But a closer inspection of the details of what may be termed the Anglo-Saxon period of conflict with their Scandinavian enemies, Danish, Norwegian, or Norman-French, soon removes this impression, the sites of many other, almost equally important struggles, and notoriously some of those in which the Great Alfred was engaged, having been subjected to similar doubt, if not oblivion.