Importantly, what resulted from the reconquest was not a reconstitution of the former English kingdoms the Vikings had destroyed—instead, the liberated Danelaw was in effect transformed into greater Wessex. Edward the Elder would come to inherit the throne of Mercia on the death of his sister, Aethelflaed, in 918, and further territorial gains by his successor, Aethelstan, would see all of England come under the rule of Wessex in 927. In a curious sense, then, the Vikings were responsible for the creation of England itself, perhaps the element of their legacy that in later centuries would
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