The strength of the West Saxon polity is conventionally interpreted from the perspective of its most obvious beneficiaries, the house of Ecgberht; the success of this dynasty is the more remarkable given Ecgberht's obscure origins. Although several eighth-century kings enjoyed stable reigns, the West Saxon polity had remained regularly disrupted by brief but violent periods of strife over the throne. Ecgberht seems to have begun his career as another minor member of the West Saxon royal house, initially more concerned to pursue a claim to the kingship of Kent, than to try his luck in Wessex itself. Even according to the West Saxons’ own genealogical material, when Ecgberht finally gained the throne in 802, he had been the first West Saxon king in his lineage for at least seven generations. Yet by the time this material was compiled the only viable athelings were Ecgberht's descendants; genealogy could be recorded in justificatory celebration, rather than self-defence.

This dynastic achievement shifts the focus onto other beneficiaries, the West Saxon secular nobility, whose support was the more powerful for its investment in a single family. Naturally this owed much to the efforts of Ecgberht himself, and the new rewards secured in the south-east. Both Ecgberht and Æthelwulf seem to have built very effectively on pre-existing structures of West Saxon royal power.