EGBERT, or Ecgberht, king of the West Saxons, was born about 775, and laid claim to the throne in 786, but Brihtric w as elected, and he was compelled to take refuge with Offa, king of Mercia. Although Offa refused to surrender him when requested by Brihtric, he declined to give him further protection. Egbert thereupon fled to France, and took up his residence at the court of Charlemagne; and it is doubtless to the training he received from that great general and statesman that the success of his reign in Wessex is in a large measure to be traced. When Brihtric was poisoned by his queen Edbrugha in 800, Egbert was recalled and ascended the West Saxon throne. From his reign may be dated the supremacy of the West Saxon kings in England. In 823 he defeated Beornwulf, king of Mercia, at Ellandun (near Wilton); and in the same year he united Kent, Essex, and Sussex to his crown, aud compelled East Anglia to acknowledge him as its over-lord. In 827 he compelled the submission of Mercia, and leading an army into Northumbria received its submission without trial of battle. In 828 he conquered Wales, and thus the isle of Britain, with the exception of the Picts, the Scots, and the Strathclyde Welsh, acknowledged a West Saxon king as its over-lord. During the last period of his reign his kingdom was subjected to repeated attacks by the Danes. In 832 they ravaged Sheppey,and in 833 defeated Egbert at Carrum (thought by some to be Charmouth, in Devon), but in 835 he gained a great victory over a united force of Danes and Welsh at Hengestesdun, in Cornwall. He died in 836.