In 1801, Abercromby was sent to Egypt to help
drive the French out of that country. When the English
army landed at Aboukir Bay on 2 March 1801, 5,000
English soldiers faced a large French force under the
command of General Louis Friant. Historian George
Bruce writes: “The landing [of the English] was effected
under a heavy musketry and artillery fire, which cost the
assailants 1,100 killed and wounded. The French were
driven from their positions with a loss of 500 men.”
Aboukir is known to historians as an important
English military victory. After this success, Abercromby
advanced to the important French threshold of Alex-
andria. In the midst of the battle on 21 March 1801,
Abercromby was hit in the thigh by a rifle ball. He was
taken from the field and placed on the English flag-
ship Foudroyant, but surgeons were unable to remove
the ball. As Abercromby lay dying, according to one ac-
count, one of his men placed a blanket under his head.
“What is it you have placed under my head?” he in-
quired. When told it was a soldier’s blanket, he replied,
“Only a soldier’s blanket? Make haste and return it to
him at once!”
Seven days after being shot, Abercromby suc-
cumbed to his wound at the age of 66. His body was
moved to Malta, and he was laid to rest there. The battle
of Alexandria, where he lost his life, was a significant one
for the French, who found the English troops to be their
equal and whose casualties were extremely heavy. The
English lost 1,464 men, including Abercromby.
A wave of sympathy for the dead general swept over
England, and the House of Commons voted to erect a
memorial in his honor in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
His widow was made Baroness Abercromby of Aboukir
and Tullibody, given a pension of £2,000 a year, and al-
lowed to keep the title in her family for two additional
generations. A memoir of the later years of Abercrom-
by’s life (1793–1801) by his third son, James (who was
Speaker of the House of Commons, 1835–39, and be-
came Lord Dunfermline), was published in 1861.
References: Dunfermline, James Abercromby, Lord, Lieu-
tenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, K.B., 1793–1801: a
Memoir by his son James Lord Dunfermline (Edinburgh,
Scotland: Edmonston and Douglas, 1861); Rough, Sir
William, Lines on the Death of the Late Sir Ralph Aber-
cromby. (London: J. Bell, 1801); Windrow, Martin, and
Francis K. Mason, “Abercromby, Sir Ralph,” in The
Wordsworth Dictionary of Military Biography (Hertford-
shire, U.K.: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1997), 3–4;
Bruce, George, “Abukir II,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars
(Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 1.Abrantes, duc de See Junot, Jean-andoche
alexandre, duc d’abrantes.Æthelstan (Athelstan) (ca. 894–95–939) English
king
Crowned on the King’s Stone at Kingston-upon-
Thames (with a claim to be the first undisputed king
of all England), Æthelstan is most remembered for his
warfare against the Scots and Welsh. According to sev-
eral sources, he was born in either 894 or 895, the son
of Edward the Elder (870–924), who served as king of
England from 899 to 924, and Edward’s wife Egwina
(or Ecgwyn). Edward’s father was Alfred the Great (ca.
849–899), the great Saxon king whose battles to save
England from Danish invasions culminated in the cap-
ture of London and victory at the battle of Edington
(878). When Edward the Elder died, his son Æthelstan
succeeded on 4 September 924, and he was crowned at
Kingston-upon-Thames shortly afterward. A year later,
the new monarch signed a treaty with Sihtric of York,
to avoid warfare for Northumbria. However, when Sih-
tric died in 927, Æthelstan expelled Sihtric’s brother,
Guthfrith, and as his forces moved into Northumbria.
He met with several tribes, including the Northumbri-
ans and Strathclyde Britons, who agreed to allow him
to take control, the first southern English king to do so.
Thereafter he called himself rex totius Britanniae (king
of all Britain).
In 934, Æthelstan’s forces invaded Scotland by land
and sea; his land forces quickly moved as far north as
Dunottar, while the navy seized Caithness. He took con-
trol over Scotland, but three years later a mighty con-
federation formed by King Constantine III of Scotland,
the Welsh of Strathclyde, Owen of Cumberland, and
two Norwegian leaders, Anlaf Godfredsson and Anlaf
Sihtricsson, set out to end his reign. These forces con-
fronted Æthelstan’s army—which was supported by his
half brother Edmund—at Brunanburh. Since the 12th
century, historians have tried to locate the exact site of
the battle, to no avail; many historians believe it was
fought in either northwestern England or southwestern
Scotland, near the Solway Firth. What little informa-ÆthelStAn