My first encounter with the work of Ann Williams was as an undergraduate student in the early 1990s when she presented what was to become chapter two of her magisterial The English and the Norman Conquest to the Norman Conquest special subject group at the University of Oxford. In this paper she outlined the intricate linkages between local networks of kinship, allegiance and interest and political events on the larger, national scale. Subsequently, I was in the audience at a conference on medieval prosopography, some fifteen years ago when Ann gave her paper on Beorhtric, son of Ælfgar. In her exploration of Beorhtric's career, Ann demonstrated very clearly that the late Anglo-Saxon state, precocious, oppressive and efficient as it was, rested on dozens of men like Beorhtric. In other words, that the networks of local kinship, affiliation and shared interest that bound regional elites together were a vital cog in the functioning of the kingdom of the English and that local and national politics were inextricably intertwined. There are many facets to Ann's work on pre- and post-Norman Conquest English society, but it is an investigation of these links between the local and the national that will underpin this essay. The following discussion concerns another Anglo-Saxon family of regional significance and will, briefly, explore the relationship between local and national politics in the second half of the tenth century.