The Making - and Undoing - of "Englaland"

Edward the Elder – Aethelflaed, the “Lady of Mercia” – Aethelstan and Edmund – Eadred and Dunstan – The End of the Danelaw – Eadwig and Eadgar – Edward the Martyr – Aethelred the Unready – The Campaigns of Swein Forkbeard of Denmark – The St. Brice’s Day Massacre – Edmund Ironside – Cnut the Great – The Reign of Harthacnut – Edward the Confessor and the Rise of Godwine – The Norman Threat

Welsh Warriors - and their severed heads

Alfred’s son Edward took the throne of Wessex after the death of his father, and when Aethelred, “Lord of Mercia,” died shortly thereafter, his wife (and Alfred’s daughter) Aethelflaed took the reigns of Mercia. Both Edward and Aethelflaed continued their father’s program of retaking England from the Danes. Aethelflaed was known as “The Lady of Mercia” rather than as Queen of Mercia, since Mercia still belonged to Wessex. Her focus was on the re-conquest of northeast Mercia, which was in Danish control and known as the Five Boroughs. Each borough had its own earl with his contingent of warriors, and each borough had twelve lawmen who administered Danish law. Her strategy against the Boroughs was one of sieges and fort-building, but she also had to march against the Welsh in Gwent who were in cahoots with the Danes. They rose up to be utterly squashed, and the Gwent king fled to his Danish allies in the Boroughs. As Aethelred warred against Danish-occupied Mercia, Edward ousted a Viking incursion from France and constructed forts along Wessex’s border with Danish-occupied East Anglia. When his sister Aethelflaed died in 918, Edward annexed Mercia and began conquering the Danelaw. He moved steadily north, systematically taking town after town. He took East Anglia, which had been in Danish hands since the death of Guthrum during Alfred’s day, and when East Anglia fell something shocking happened: England began submitting to him. The Danish in Northumbria, the Scots far to the north, and the Britons of Strathclyde bowed to him as “father and lord.” By 924, a year before his death, Wessex dominated England. Alfred’s dream of an English-ruled Britain had come to pass—but it was a fragile unity soon to break.

The Battle of Brunanburh

Edward the Elder died in 925, and his son Aethelstan took the throne. Though his father had received the submission of Britain, that submission didn’t last, and Aethelstan’s reign was marked by a struggle to keep hold of what his father had won. The Scottish king Constantine rebelled against submission to Wessex and organized a league of Scot, Cumbrian, Welshmen, and Vikings to oppose the armies of Wessex. In 926 Aethelstan marched against the North Welsh and forced them to submission, making them pay an annual tribute, march in his armies, and attend his councils. He treated the Welsh of Cornwall in the same way and expelled all Welsh folk from Exeter, which became a purely English town. In 934 he marched north against King Constantine while his fleet harried the Scottish coast. The Scottish kingdom was laid waste, but Scotland found a new ally in Northumbria in 937. A confederacy of Scots, Cumbrians, and Vikings arrayed themselves against Aethelstan, but he crushed their forces at the Battle of Brunanburh and won peace for Wessex until his death.

Aethelstan’s brother Edmund succeeded him at eighteen years of age, and the north once again rose in revolt. The men of the Five Boroughs allied themselves with Northumbria. The young Edmund was forced to make peace with the rebels, leaving him a much-depreciated kingdom: he ruled everything south of Watling Street. Much of his reign would involve reclaiming that which he had lost at the beginning of his reign: he retook Cumbria and, in a brilliant move, granted much of Scotland to King Malcolm if he would be his ally. Malcolm, delighted to expand his borders without having to fear Wessex’s armies, agreed; thus the Scot and Briton alliance was torn, and now Malcolm would need Wessex’s help if the Britons ever rose against him. By the pen rather than the sword Edmund had turned the tables on the Britons. The reign of Edmund the Magnificent—and that of his successors—was helped by the brilliance of a priestly monk named Dunstan who had been accused of sorcery. Dunstan had been part of Aethelstan’s court but had been banished; he showed his face again during Edmund’s reign, much to the peoples’ dismay. But Edmund saw something in Dunstan that his brother hadn’t, and he made him not only Abbot of Glastonbury but also one of his prized counselors. Dunstan likely played a hand in Edmund’s clever diplomacies with King Malcolm of Scotland, and Dunstan’s value—and his reputation—would rise under Edmund’s successors.

Edmund was murdered by an exiled thief during a church service on St. Augustine’s Day, and his brother Eadred took the throne. Northumbria rose against him, but he secured it by 954. That had been the last gasp of the Danelaw, and Eadred stifled it. Now the Danelaw would become enfolded within the English. John Green, in England During the Dark Ages, notes that

“[when] the English ceased from their onset upon Roman Britain, Roman Britain had disappeared, and a new people of conquerors stood alone on the conquered land. The Northern storm [of the Northmen] on the other hand left land, people, government unchanged. England remained a country of Englishmen. The conquerors sank into the mass of the conquered, and [Odin] yielded without a struggle to Christ. The strife between Briton and Englishman was in fact a strife between men of different races, while the strife between viking and Englishman was a strife between men whose race was the same… [The] viking was little more than an Englishman bringing back to England which had drifted far from its origin the barbaric life of its earliest forefathers.”

In only a few years a Northman of blood would be made Archbishop of Canterbury, and another would be made Archbishop of York. Green continues, “[With] Eadred’s reign the long attack which the viking had directed against western Christendom came, for a while at least, to an end. On the world which it had assailed its results had been immense. It had utterly changed the face of the west. The empire of Ecgberht, the empire of Charles the Great, had been alike dashed to pieces. But break and change as it might, Christendom had held the vikings at bay. The Scandinavian power which had grown up on the western seas had disappeared like a dream. In Ireland the viking’s rule had dwindled to the holding of a few coast towns. In France his settlements had shrunk to the one settlement of Normandy. In England every viking was a subject of the English king.” But though the ultimate aims of the Norse in the west had been foiled, the effects of their ravages were paramount to the unfolding of European history. John Green captures the essence of English nationalism as an inadvertent byproduct of the Viking invasions:

In shattering the empire of Charles the Great [the Viking] had given birth to the nations of modern Europe. In his long strife with Englishmen he had created an English people. The national union which had been brought about for a moment by the sword of Ecgberht was a union of sheer force which broke down at the first blow of the sea-robbers. The black boats of the vikings were so many wedges that split up the fabric of the roughly-built realm. But the very agency which destroyed the new England was destined to bring it back again, and to breathe into it a life that made its union real. The people who had so long looked on each other as enemies found themselves fronted by a common foe. They were thrown together by a common danger and the need of a common defence. Their common faith grew into a national bond as religion struggled hand in hand with England itself against the heathen of the north. They recognized a common king as a common struggle changed Alfred and his sons from mere leaders of West-Saxons into leaders of all Englishmen in their fight with the stranger. And when the work which Alfred set his house to do was done, when the yoke of the viking was lifted from the last of his conquests, Engle and Saxon, Northumbrian and Mercian, spent with the battle for a common freedom and a common country, knew themselves in the hour of their deliverance as an English people.

The back end of Eadred’s reign marked a high watermark for the English people, but after his death things began to go downhill yet again—but now the danger wasn’t from without but from within. From Eadred’s death to the Norman Conquest of 1066, English history is marked by a contest between the king and the nobles. “Who will have the power?” The rise of feudalism throughout Europe, and in England in particular, meant that nobles were rising to power with lots of people underneath them. The most powerful nobles could rival the king, but the English monarch, though forced to deal with the heavy-hitting nobles, had the support of the Church as the “Lord’s Anointed” and could curb their power—but they could also curb him. These political struggles weakened England from the inside, and at times they spread like a cancer that rendered the king impotent against his foes.

During Eadred’s reign Dunstan rose to become the see of Canterbury, so that he was the virtual head of the Roman Church in England. Working behind the scenes in Eadred’s court, Dunstan kept England unified by allowing the folk of the Daneland (the new designation for those wide tracts of land where the Danes had previously ruled but who were now subject to the English king) live by their own peculiar rules and customs. Dunstan recognized the men of the Daneland as Englishmen, employed them in royal services, and even elevated them to high positions in both church and state.

Eadred died in 955, and the throne went to the child-king Eadwig. Aethelgifu, a woman of high birth, manipulated Eadwig to the outrage of Eadred’s former counselors. Tensions exploded at Eadwig’s coronation feast, and Eadwig, sullen by the despoiling of his party, retreated to his bedchamber. Dunstan, at the bidding of the Witan, drug him back to his seat. No sooner had the feast ended than was Dunstan declared an outlaw. Because an outlaw could be killed without repercussion, Dunstan fled across the sea. Aethelgifu married Eadwig to her daughter, securing her line to the throne, and she trashed Dunstan’s monasteries. But because the new queen was Eadwig’s kinswoman, the Church called foul on the marriage, and in 958 Archbishop Odo dissolved the marriage. The Northumbrians and Mercians rose in revolt, claiming Eadwig’s brother Eadgar as king, and Dunstan was recalled from Frankia. Eadwig died shortly afterwards, and thus civil war between his supporters and those of his brother was avoided. Eadgar was only sixteen when he took the throne, but Dunstan was by his side. It was during Eadgar’s day that unified England was first called “Engla-land” (or England). Commerce abounded, justice thrived, and peace reigned—though how much of this was due to Eadgar and how much to Dunstan’s work behind the scenes is unknown.

Eadgar died in 975 and was succeeded by Edward (who would become known as “the Martyr”).  A host of nobles rose against him, and the Ealdorman of East Anglia, Aethelwine, wanted to put a young child, Aethelred, on the throne. The primates of Canterbury and York stood by young Edward, and Dunstan continued as master of the realm. A religious debate between the monastics and their opponents threatened the peace of his reign, and that conflict boiled over when Edward was murdered in 979. Edward’s death opened the door for Ealdorman Aethelwine’s ambitions, and he got his wish: Aethelred was put on the throne. Dunstan’s power transferred to Aethelwine and Aethelred’s mother. Dunstan’s ousting over the realm would have dire consequences, for Aethelred would face a renewed threat from the north by King Swein of Denmark.

Norway had been the first to become a monarchy under King Harald Fair-Hair, but Sweden and Denmark followed suit. As Aethelred neared manhood, the Scandinavian monarchies—no longer quasi-independent warrior bands under individual chieftains but Scandinavian armies under Scandinavian kings—set their sights on the land in Britain that had been ripped from them. But as the threat of a northern invasion loomed, Aethelred was intent on securing his throne against restless nobles rather than saving his kingdom from foreign invaders. So determined was he on establishing his rule that he rejected the advice and wisdom of his counselors, winning himself the nickname “Aethelred the Redeless,” a play on words that roughly translates to “Aethelred the Unready.”

Ealdorman Aethelwine died in 991 just as Viking raiding parties descended on England. Ealdorman Aelfric, who was supreme in central Wessex after the death of his rival Aethelwine, feared that Aethelred might want his head to consolidate power and defected to the Danes in 992. In 994 King Swein Forkbeard of Denmark and King Olaf of Norway sailed up the Thames and anchored off London. Aethelred preferred diplomacy rather than force and was able to divide the rival Scandinavian kings until troubles back home drew their fleets from Britain. Aethelred’s fleets then harried Norse ships in Cumberland and off the Cotentin Peninsula. As he countered the Danes, Aethelred replaced the ealdormen in his court with court-thegns, who were the first seeds of the king’s ministers. But the rise of these court-thegns alienated Aethelred from the support of his nobles, and so the nobles were less willing to cooperate with Aethelred—and when Swein returned, Aethelred lacked the support he needed to fight back. Turning again to diplomacy, Aethelred hoped to make the cost of seizing England too high for the Danes by taking the Norman Duke’s daughter, Emma, to be his wife. The marriage alliance meant that any Danes intent on taking England would have to watch their backs against the rising Norman state on the west coast of Frankia. Aethelred’s alliance may have helped him in the moment, but it initiated a connection that would cause heartbreak and bloodshed down the centuries.

Aethelred’s marriage to Emma sparked panic among the Danish mercenaries Aethelred had hired to garrison his borders. Hearing of their panic and interpreting it as an uprising, Aethelred ordered them killed in what’s gone down in history as the St. Brice’s Day Massacre. Though numbers of the slain are unknown, it was likely in the hundreds. The massacre, little more than an overreaction on the part of the insecure Aethelred, only made things worse: receiving news of the slaughter, Swein of Denmark was moved to action. Disregarding the Norman threat, he sought vengeance in a retaliatory raid on English soil, and in 1003 his royal forces landed and cut swathes through southern and eastern England, avenging the deaths of the Danish mercenaries by slaughtering commoners and torching towns. Aethelred paid him off, and he returned to Denmark to prepare for a more permanent invasion. 

Before Aethelred could rebuild after Swein’s raid, a flurry of jarls from Norway descended on England and war spread through Mercia and East Anglia. Canterbury was sacked in 1012, and its archbishop was captured and held for ransom. When the money didn’t come, the archbishop was stoned with bones and ox skulls before being cleaved in the head with an axe. Aethelred, lacking the support of his nobles, could only watch as the Northmen closed in on Wessex. His court thegns were vying for power, and some rose to the rank of ealdormen and declared their feudal independence. The king was impotent, and in 1013 Swein returned to inaugurate a short but brutal war. Towns were burned, the countryside was harried, and hundreds were slaughtered. Oxford and Winchester opened their gates to the Danes, and London alone resisted. The thegns of Wessex submitted to Swein at Bath, and shortly thereafter London collapsed. Aethelred fled to Normandy, and in a heartbeat all of England—Wessex included—had become Danish. All the work of Alfred and his successors had been undone.

But it wouldn’t last long. King Swein died in 1014, and Aethelred was recalled by the Witan. He arrived to find the Danish fleet, now under Swein’s son Cnut, returning north to consolidate the throne in Denmark, where he ousted his brother and prepared for a fresh invasion of England. Aethelred’s son, Edmund, revolted against his father and seized the Danelaw for himself. Before he and his father could come to blows they were forced to reconcile with the appearance of Cnut in 1015. Mercia and Wessex bowed before Cnut, and Aethelred met up with Edmund at London to defend the city against the Danes. Edmund’s prowess in battle was such that he became known as “Edmund the Ironside.” Aethelred died in April 1016, and Cnut tasted victory against Edmund at the Battle of Ashingdon in October. Cnut and Edmund struck a peace treaty by which Edmund was given rule of Wessex while Cnut took the Danelaw; but when Edmund died in November Cnut annexed Wessex and became, like his father, master of all England.

Cnut went on a killing spree to solidify his hold on England: he killed Eadric, the ealdorman of Mercia, who had given him the crown; he slew Eadwig, the brother of Edmund; and Edmund’s children sought exile in western Europe and were hunted as far as Hungary. But once he had a stern grip on his power, Cnut simmered down and ruled both wisely and fairly. He didn’t change the government, and he ruled justly as if he were English. He dismissed his troops except for a number of house-carls (or huscarls) who served as his bodyguard. He relied on good judgment and wise rule to keep his throne secure. He didn’t treat Danes any differently than Englishmen; he gave money to the Church and protected pilgrims; and he put earls in charge of the four major districts (Mercia, Northumbria—now known as Northumbraland—, Wessex, and East Anglia). The earl of Wessex, Godwine, served as Cnut’s favored counselor. Cnut’s rule was so benevolent that English ships and English soldiers didn’t mind fighting for him against rival Scandinavian monarchies. In 1018 King Malcolm of Scotland won a victory against Earl Eadwine of Northumbraland and took the northern part of the district; in 1031 Cnut struck a deal with Malcolm, giving him a tract of land in Northumbraland that would henceforth be known as Lothian. Scottish kings ruled from Edinburgh, but theirs was a mixed kingdom of Scots, Welsh, and Englishmen.

When Cnut died in 1035 his rule had truly been great, but his sons were made of far less quality than their father. Cnut had chosen his son Harthacnut to succeed him as king over both England and Denmark, but his absence (he was in Denmark at the time of his father’s death) enabled his brother Harald Harefoot to take all England minus Godwine’s Essex (though Godwine would, in time, capitulate). Harthacnut was prepared to use force against his brother to take what was rightfully his, so England was poised for a Danish civil war; but Harald died in 1040, and Harthacnut bloodlessly took England. The bloodlessness of his coronation was countered by the bloodiness of his reign; he lacked the temper and wisdom of his father. When Alfred, a brother of Edmund Ironside, returned to England from exile in Normandy, Harthacnut seized him and his men. Every tenth man of his entourage was murdered, the rest were sold as slaves, and Alfred’s eyes were gouged out. Harthacnut then dug up Edmund’s body and cast it into the marshes. An uprising in Worcester against his huscarls ended with the burning of the town and the pillaging of its shire. Harthacnut died in 1042, and the English nobles, who had been content under Cnut the Great but who, under his son, yearned for the good days of time’s past, called for a revival of Alfred the Great’s line.

Earl Godwine - the future King Harold II

Earl Godwine, who had tried his best to keep England unified even under Harthacnut, succumbed to popular feelings. Aethelred’s one living son, Edward, was called to the throne from Normandy, where he had spent his youth in exile after Cnut’s seizure of the throne. History would enthrone Edward the Confessor, the last king of the old English stock, with a halo of piety. John Green notes that “legends told of his pious simplicity, his blitheness and gentleness of mood, the holiness that gained him his name of ‘Confessor’ and enshrined him as a saint in his abbey-church at Westminster. Gleemen sang in manlier tones of the long peace and glories of his reign, how warriors and wise counsellors stood round his throne, and Welsh and Scot and Briton obeyed him. His was the one figure that stood out bright against the darkness when England lay trodden under foot by Norman conquerors; and so dear became his memory that liberty and independence itself seemed incarnate in his name.” But the greatness of Edward’s reign was a mask, for the real power lie with Godwine of Wessex. Edward was the face of the government while Godwine was at the helm. Godwine’s son Swein secured an earldom in the southwest; his son Harold became the earl of East Anglia; his nephew Beorn had power in central England; and the marriage of his daughter Eadgyth to Edward secured Godwine’s power. But power struggles and murders among his ambitious sons weakened his hold.

Edward the Confessor may shine bright against the dark backdrop of the coming Norman Conquest, but in his day he was viewed as a stranger. His focus was on his friends and family in Norman exile; he spoke the Norman language and used a Norman seal for his official documents; and he put Norman favorites in high church and state posts. Looking back from 1066, the reign of Edward the Confessor could be viewed as the first phase of the Norman Conquest. Indeed, it is likely that William of Normandy’s claim to the throne would have been vacuous had Edward not been such a friend to Normandy. The Norman foreigners filling state and church offices were a check against Godwine, but when Godwine asserted his power they dared not resist him. Godwine and Edward came to blows in 1051, and Godwine gathered his forces and marched on Gloucester, demanding the expulsion of Edward’s Norman entourage. Because Edward had the support of the earls of Northumbria and Mercia, England stood poised for civil war. Godwine knew he didn’t stand a chance, so he fled England. He returned in 1052 with an armed fleet, and Edward yielded. The Norman officials fled England, and Godwine was restored to his earldom. Shortly thereafter Godwine died, and his responsibilities passed to his son Harold. For twelve years Harold stood at the helm of the English government, and under his guidance peace and justice and commerce boomed. He crushed an uprising of the Welsh, and when the Earl of Northumbria died, Tostig of the Godwine line took his place—now the House of Godwine was entrenched throughout England, except for a small part of Mercia. Edward began to sicken, and his heir, returning from exile in Hungary, died. Harold bided his time, waiting for Edward to croak so he could make a bid for the throne. But Normandy had its eyes on England, as well.

In AD 911 King Charles the Simple of the West Franks gave a tract of Frankish land to the Vikings under Rollo; that tract of land became known as Normandy (“the Land of the Northmen”). The Norse population of Normandy intermingled with the French and became French in culture and language. England’s connection with Normandy began with the marriage of Aethelred and Emma, and it had become stronger during the reign of Edward the Confessor. The Duke of Normandy, known as William the Great (to be known as William the Conqueror in due time) was a bastard born to a low-born woman. When his father Robert went on a pilgrimage and never returned, William became the Duke when he was only a child. Treason and anarchy consumed Normandy, and in 1047 in a cavalry battle near Caen, William squashed open rebellion. He ruled Normandy with an iron fist. During Godwine’s exile, as rumor goes, William traveled to England and received the promise of succession from Edward; but absent confirmation from the Witenagemot, Edward’s promise was valueless.

When Godwine returned to England, William considered his English ambitions written off and was forced to deal with violent barons at home. For six years he fought hard against the barons, winning significant victories at Mortemer and Varaville, securing his duchy by 1060. Those rebellious barons who hadn’t been slain in battle either rotted in Norman dungeons or fled to exile. Norman peace led to a boom in wealth, culture, and learning. William married Matilda, a daughter of the Count of Flanders, much to the chagrin of the Church. William’s ambitions were revived when, in a twist of fate and according to legend, Harold Godwine was sailing the Channel when his fleet was hit by a storm. His ship wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, and the count captured him and sold him to William. William treated him courteously and, seeing his chance, held him for a strange ransom: Harold had to buy passage back to England by promising and swearing on holy relics that when Edward the Confessor died, he would support William’s claim to the English throne. Harold agreed and swore on the relics and returned home.

Edward the Confessor died in 1066, but Harold had no intentions of abiding by his oath: he took the throne of England. William decided to sail to England and put in his for the throne based on Edward’s promise. He didn’t believe Harold’s hasty succession was legitimate, and he made a personal vow to make him pay for his broken oath. England and Normandy would come to blows.

The Reign of Alfred the Great

Alfred Takes the Throne – Guthrum in Wareham and the Siege of Exeter – Ubba Joins Guthrum – The Winter March and the Seizure of Chippenham – The Marshes of Somerset – Odda Slays Ubba – The Battle of Ethandun – The Peace of Wedham – The Rebuilding of Wessex – Alfred Goes on the Offensive – Retaking London – The “Lord of Mercia” – The Birth of the English Monarchy – The Campaigns of Haesten – The New Scottish Dynamic – The Death of Alfred

Alfred the Great

Not only would Alfred keep Wessex intact, but he would spearhead the re-conquest of England from the Danes. The young king the Danes thought would roll over and beg for mercy would go down in history as “Alfred the Great.” He is the only English monarch to be called Great, and he earned that title and then some.

Alfred’s truce gave breathing room for the Danes to solidify their hold on Northumbria and Mercia. Though Mercia had bowed the knee to the Danes, it had yet to be fully conquered, and when the Danes marched on the kingdom, the Mercian king Burhred fled to Rome without offering battle. The Danes installed Ceolwulf on the Mercian throne as a puppet king, and Ceolwulf proved his loyalty by burning the great abbey at Repton that had been the burying place of Mercia’s kings. The Danes pushed north from Northumbria into Strathclyde, of present-day Scotland, and warred against the Scot king Constantine. Pinned between two Norse forces, Constantine sued for peace.

Guthrum went to Cambridge to prepare what he hoped would be his final victorious assault on Wessex, and his summons drew boatloads of warriors from Ireland and Gaul. In AD 876 he sailed south, but Alfred’s paltry navy didn’t stand a chance against Guthrum’s fleet. Guthrum landed on a neck of land in Wareham, and Alfred promptly marched on Wareham and bottled him up. Alfred tried to break through Guthrum’s entrenchments but failed. He struck another peace whereby the Danes promised to leave Wessex; but as soon as Alfred’s forces returned to their homes, half of the Danish force mounted horses and rode on Exeter. The West Saxons were outraged at this breach of the peace, but Guthrum insisted that since Exeter lay within British land (albeit land controlled by Wessex), he didn’t violate his promise. Alfred feared that the Danes in Exeter would stir up a Welsh uprising, so in the spring of 877 he laid siege to the town. Guthrum dispatched a rescue force from Wareham to relieve the besieged Norse, but a savage storm scattered and wrecked the Danish fleet. Alfred starved the Danes in Exeter until they had no choice but to surrender. Guthrum, still in Wareham, swore to leave Wessex, and his forces withdrew into the Severn Valley. There they were joined by Ubba, Ivar’s brother, who had sailed up the River Severn to link forces.

a dramatization of the Battle of Edington
(from BBC's The Last Kingdom)

Any thought of abandoning Wessex died with Ubba’s reinforcements, and at the turn of 878 Guthrum and Ubba split their forces for a two-pronged attack on Wessex. Ubba sailed to the coast of Devonshire while Guthrum marched on Chippenham. No one suspected a winter attack, so their surprise was complete. Those who didn’t flee the Danes either perished on their swords or bent the knee. Alfred couldn’t summon his armies in time to meet the threat, so he and a band of warriors fled to the marshes of Somerset. He drew up a fort at Athelney and for three months he prepared to take back his kingdom. Both Ubba and Guthrum would have to be dealt with, and the ealdorman Odda moved against Ubba first. He gathered his fyrd (the common-folk militia) and struck Ubba’s encampment, slaying Ubba and defeating his forces. In the second week of May 878 Alfred set out from the marshes to take on Guthrum, who had by far the larger force, and he gathered the West Saxons to him at Ecgberht’s Stone and met Guthrum’s forces at Edington. Guthrum was defeated in the so-called Battle of Ethandun, and he and his survivors fled to their camp. Alfred besieged them for fourteen days, forcing their surrender. Guthrum struck a peace—known as the Peace of Wedham—in which he promised not only to leave Wessex but to become a Christian (adopting the Christian name Aethelstan), and the Danes abandoned everything south of the Thames and west of the old Roman road known as Watling Street. The upper valley of the Thames, and the whole Severn Valley, was returned to Wessex’s hands. John Green reflects, “In the dark hour when Alfred lay watching from his fastness of Athelney, men believed that the whole island had passed into the invader’s hands. Once settled in the south, as they were already settled in central and northern England, the Danes would have made short work of what resistance lingered on elsewhere, and a few years would have sufficed to make England a Scandinavian country.”

Alfred had secured Wessex, but nevertheless most of Britain remained in Danish hands. All northern, eastern, and half of central Britain was Danish, and it was known as the “Danelaw” (or “Where the Danes Rule”). “From the Tees to the brink of the Thames valley,” writes Green, “from the [Irish Sea] to the German Sea, every inch of territory lay in Danish hands. The Danelaw was, in fact, by far the most important conquest which the northern warriors had made. In extent, as in wealth and resources, it equaled, indeed, or more than equaled, the Scandinavian realms themselves.” The towns of the Danelaw were linked in loose confederacies, lacking any single ruling Danish king. The Danes settled down to till the land and make a living, but Alfred wasn’t going to leave them in peace. Thus far Wessex had been on the defensive, but it was time to take the fight to the Danes—and to reclaim Alfred’s dream, the dream that had been at the heart of King Ecgberht’s aims: a unified England.

But first Alfred would have to rebuild Wessex. Fifty years of struggle, and the last half decade of bloodletting against the Danes, had turned much of Wessex into an apocalyptic wasteland. Towns were ruined and entire regions decimated. Law, order, and the machinery of government had to be rebuilt. Though Alfred feared another Danish invasion at any time, he had purchased six years of peace. The period of 878 to 884 was marked by a restoration of Wessex and a reorganization of the military. Alfred built forts on the major rivers and passes and built defenses around the major towns, turning them into burghs. He started work on a Wessex fleet, building ships that were far larger than those of the Norse. This was a painstaking process that would take years to become what he wanted it to be. His successors would bring the English fleet to prominence, but Alfred’s vision was nonetheless the beginning of England’s dominance of the seas. His most important work was the reorganization of the military. The backbone of Wessex’s forces was the fyrd, the common folk who were summoned in times of need and required to serve for only two months. These weren’t trained warriors, and they often showed up with farming equipment and no armor—a poor match against mail, spears, swords, and battleaxes. Alfred made the thegns (or noblemen) the backbone of the Wessex military. The thegns were divided into three classes, and each was required to provide men, equipment, food, and pay to the army when needed. The king’s thegn was the predecessor to the English baron; the middle thegn was the forerunner of the country knight; and the lesser thegns were the private landholders. Alfred stipulated that every five hides of land was required to provide one man, with victuals and pay, to the army. Every borough had to send twelve men. The fyrd remained in effect, but Alfred divided it into two halves: one half took a turn in the field while the other half remained at home, required to defend their homesteads and burghs if needed. Having learned from Guthrum’s surprise attack on Chippenham in the winter of 878, Alfred decreed that half of the fyrd would always be “on service” year-round; thus if the Danes attempted another surprise attack, there would be, by default, a force ready to meet them. Thus Alfred had created both a perpetual standing army and a reserve. His reorganization of the military would be put to the test in 884.

A Viking fleet from Frankia sailed towards Wessex, intent on raiding and plunder, but Alfred’s newfangled fleet intercepted them and sunk or captured four of their ships. The Vikings fled from Wessex’s waters, but more were coming. A party of Danes landed on the coast and besieged Rochester, but the burgh’s defenses kept them out. Alfred marched to the rescue and repulsed them. Alfred’s new fleet and fortified towns had excelled in defense, and now Alfred made a historical move: he went on the offensive. Because the Danes who had besieged Rochester had done so with contingents of Danes from East Anglia—now ruled by the Christian Aethelstan, formerly known as Guthrum—Alfred ordered his ships to “go a-viking” in East Anglia. West Saxon ships raided Guthrum’s territory, and the East Anglian Danes retaliated by burning a number of Alfred’s ships. Alfred didn’t back down, and in time be brought Guthrum back to submission.

As a price for East Anglian treachery—they had vowed not to fight against Wessex and to refuse assistance to any Danes who did so—Alfred annexed London, which had been part of Guthrum’s territory. The city, which had been Britain’s prime commercial hub during the Roman occupation, had been ravaged and almost brought to ruin by the Danes, but under Alfred it would begin its steady rise back to greatness. The seizure of London gave Wessex control of the Thames, which cut the Danes off from the arterial waterway they favored for their seaborne invasions. London, on the northern bank of the river which served to separate Wessex from Mercia proper, was given into the hands of Aethelred, the “Lord of Mercia.” The Danes occupied the northern half of Mercia, but the southern half belonged to Alfred, and Aethelred ruled over southern Mercia not as king but as the “Lord of Mercia,” since he was subject to Alfred.

At this point, the year AD 886, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that “all the angel-cyn turned to Alfred, save those that were under bondage to Danish men.” This is taken by some historians to be the establishment of the English monarchy. The jealousies and rivalries that had characterized the first half of Anglo-Saxon history, with the constant struggles between Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, passed into a phase marked by a sense of national existence. Territorial jealousies became subject to national patriotism. In a twist of irony, the unification of England for which Ecgberht had longed, and which had been cut at the root by the coming of the Danes, now reached a high watermark precisely because of the Danes. “If the Dane had struck down the dominion of Ecgberht,” John Green writes in The Conquest of England, “it was the Dane who was to bring about even more than its restoration. Set face to face with a foreign foe, the English people was waking to a consciousness of its own existence; the rule of the stranger was crushing provincial jealousies and deepening the sense of a common nationality.” And the head of this common nationality, thanks to the strength of Alfred, was Wessex; but the English (or, rather, the angel-cyn) weren’t yet out of the woods.

When Guthrum died in 890, East Anglia slid from Alfred’s grasp—and it wouldn’t be back in Wessex’s hands until it was reclaimed by Alfred’s successor. The loss of East Anglia was like a green light to the Danes in Gaul, prompting a resurgence of Viking activity, but it could have been worse. To the north, in Scandinavia, the social and political structures were changing. Norse tribes that had been at odds with one another were being drawn together, and a sense of nationalism among the three major Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) was growing. Norway was the first to become a monarchy under King Harald Fair-Hair. Not all the Norse were fond of the changes, and the discontented fled from Harald. Some joined Guthrum, others allied with independent Scandinavian chieftains, and still others flocked to Iceland, which had superseded Britain as the main hub of Norse activity. The Danelaw was a “stepping-stone” to Iceland, and of the Danish names in the Landnama, Iceland’s Domesday Book, more than half were settlers uprooting from the Danelaw. Harald focused his nationalistic activities on the Orkney Islands in northern Britain, where he set up an earldom as a base for operations against the Scots. The Scots would face a much harder struggle against the Norse than Alfred and his successors, and not just because it became a pet project of King Harald of Norway. In southern Britain the Danish warrior class was corroding: Christianity began to spread among the Danes after Guthrum’s conversion, and a majority of the Danes in the Danelaw had fought against the English to seize arable land, and having taken that land they had no more reason to fight (except in self-defense); the Danes, though renown for their prowess in and love for battle, were just as passionate about agriculture and homesteads. Furthermore, Alfred’s rough treatment of Wessex’s enemies dispirited many of the Danes, who chose to cross the Channel and try their luck in Gaul. Viking ships filled the Scheldt, Rhine, and Meuse rivers.

The Danish Shield Wall

But the Norse weren’t doing too hot in Frankia against King Odo and in present-day Germany against King Arnulf. Discouraged by failures in Gaul, two raiding parties made an alliance, abandoned Gaul, and moved on Wessex. The smaller force was led by a Norseman named Haesten who sailed up the Thames River and built a camp in Kent. In the spring of 894 his forces pushed into Wessex, hoping for help from the Danelaw. Alfred’s oldest son, Edward, kept a wary eye on Haesten’s movements, and Alfred fortified London on the Thames to protect the western part of his kingdom from further Norse incursions. Alfred spent a good part of a year keeping the two Norse forces pinned in the east, and Edward’s forces kept them divided. When the larger Norse force tried to link up with Haesten, Edward moved to attack and defeated them at the Battle of Farnham, leaving Haesten, with the smaller force, now overwhelmed by the combined might of Alfred and Edward’s armies. Haesten had to move quick to strike peace with Alfred before the West Saxons attacked, so he met with Alfred under a flag of truce and promised to refrain from ravaging the land and gave two boys—whom he claimed were his sons—to be baptized and held as hostages. But Haesten hadn’t handed over his sons, it had been a trick, and when Alfred’s guard was down Haesten marched deeper into Wessex, torching and pillaging and killing, with help from the Danelaw. Haesten set up his base of operations at Benfleet in Essex, and while he was pillaging Wessex Alfred, his son Edward, and Aethelred, the Lord of Mercia, joined forces and attacked his weakened encampment, burning three of his ships and capturing some of Haesten’s family members. Haesten began making overtures to the Welsh, hoping to incite an uprising that would force the West Saxons to split their forces, so Alfred hurried to Exeter to keep an eye on his Welsh subjects while Edward and Aethelred joined hands and began preparing a final and fatal blow against Haesten. They caught up with Haesten in the Severn Valley, drew them into a confrontation, and bloodily defeated them at Buttington. The Danes retreated to Essex—but Haesten wasn’t about to give up.

Haesten: The Viking

Haesten gathered fresh men from the Danelaw and made a hurried march into Wessex, capturing the old Roman town of Chester. Chester lie close to the Welsh border, and before Haesten could incite the Welsh to revolt, Aethelred of Mercia marched on Chester and expelled him. Haesten retreated through Welsh country, releasing some pent-up anger at his mounting failures by sacking several Welsh towns, and he cut up into Northumbria and began preparations for another invasion. In 896 he led a force up the Thames and up the River Lea, a tributary of the Thames that led north into Mercia. Haesten set up a winter camp, but though he figured he was far enough from Wessex to be bothered by Alfred, his camping spot wasn’t well-chosen: the Lea didn’t empty into the sea. Alfred ordered a pair of forts built north of the Thames on the Lea to block Haesten’s long-ships from the Thames and thus from the sea. Haesten had no choice but to abandon his fleet, and he made a quick march across Mercia to the Severn River. Haesten’s reputation had been deflated by his constant defeats and being outmaneuvered, and to the Norse reputation was everything. His army disintegrated and scattered. Haesten and his diehard followers cursed Wessex and fled to better pickings in Gaul.

Haesten’s reputation had been destroyed by his campaigns, but Alfred’s reputation had soared to new heights—even among the Welsh. North Wales submitted to him, and Alfred spent the latter years of his reign forging friendships with the Scots north of Danish Northumbria. The Scots had become the target of King Harald of Norway, and because of the constant Norse incursions from without and from undying dynastic struggles within, the political landscape of Scotland was forever altered. By the middle of the ninth century the direct line of the Pictish royal house was wiped out. The king of the Scots of Dalriada, Kenneth Mac-Alpin, ascended the Pictish throne due to his maternal descent. For half a century Kenneth and his successors ruled as the Kings of the Picts. But under the ravages of the Northmen that title passed away and “Pict-Land” disappeared altogether, replaced first with Alban, then Albania, and then with “The Land of the Scots.” By that point Scottish unity had broken, the land was marked by little independent districts, and menaced with extinction from the Norse to the north, the Scots looked south to friendship with Wessex.

But Alfred’s overtures to the Scots were cut short when he died on 28 October 901. His death was mourned throughout Wessex—indeed throughout much of Britain—and people reflected on all that he accomplished. Here we have focused on his military exploits and his rebuilding of Wessex in the wake of the Danes. Alfred will forever be remembered as the last kingly holdout against the Northmen, and it is he who secured the future of Britain as English rather than as Danish. But Alfred accomplished much more: he is known for his piety, for his elevation of the Church, for his literature, his culture, and his justice. He was Great in many ways. He was buried in Winchester’s Old Minster, but later would be disinterred and relocated to the New Minster in a lead-encased tomb. William the Conqueror, in a gamble to keep the English from looking to Alfred as inspiration against his usurpation, had Alfred’s remains disinterred once more and moved them to Hyde Abbey just outside the city. The Abbey would be dissolved by Henry VIII and turned first into a private home and later into a prison. Sometime in the late 18^th century, some prisoners discovered Alfred’s tomb, stripped it of lead, and tossed his bones in the trash. The historian Justin Pollard wagers that Alfred’s bones are still in Winchester, scattered in the topsoil somewhere between a car park and a row of Victorian houses. 

The Coming of the Vikings

The Scourge of God – Ecgberht vs. the Vikings – Aethelbald the Usurper – Aethelwulf Takes the Throne – the Battle of Aclea – Aethelred Leads Wessex – Ivar the Boneless – The Battle of York & The Fall of Northumbria – The Battle of the Trent – The Making of St. Sebastian & The Fall of East Anglia – Guthrum Takes the Reins – The Battle of Reading – The Battle of Ashdown – The Battle of Merton – A Shameful Peace

The Northmen—a.k.a. the Vikings—were a violent people from the regions around Scandinavia, but they weren’t one tribe but many: the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes. From the middle of the 8^th century to the early 10^th century, their raids and migrations throughout western and eastern Europe altered Europe’s landscape. Their migrations were prompted by a lack of resources at home, as Scandinavia’s sparse farmland couldn’t support their growing populations. Some Northmen had left Scandinavia in the 4^th century and joined the Germanic invasions of Rome’s dwindling imperial frontier, but the 9^th and 10^th centuries saw a dramatic resurgence of migration. Contemporary sources called these peoples “Vikings,” “Northmen,” or “Creek-Men,” and the East Slavs called them “Verangians.” In Britain they would come to be known, more poignantly, as “The Scourge of God.”

The Norse were a violent people oriented towards war. Because they had no stable Scandinavian kingdoms, their various tribes were regularly at war with one another. Because of their fighting prowess many would come to serve as mercenaries for the Byzantine Empire, and the best would be employed as body-guards by the Byzantine emperors (these select few were known as Verangian Guards).

The Norse way of life was thoroughly Germanic: they cherished heroic deeds and relished armed struggle; they were violent and made revenge a virtue; they worshipped a number of Germanic gods such as Odin and Thor (whom the Anglo-Saxons, prior to their conversion to Christianity, worshipped). The late historian John Green, writing of the Norse obsession with war, notes that “[a] passion of delight rings through [their] war-saga and song; there are times when the northern poetry is drunk with blood, when it reels with excitement at the crash of sword-edge through helmet and bone, at the warrior’s shout, at the gathering heaps of dead.” So renown was Norse violence that the Christian Anglo-Saxons often prayed, “God, deliver us from the wrath of the Northmen.”

A Norse sailing vessel at sea

As much as they were warriors, the Norse were also sailors—and when it came to sailing and navigation, they were outdone by none. They explored and settled much of Iceland and Greenland as well as some parts of North America, encamping briefly on the coast of Newfoundland in present-day Canada (what they called “Vin-Land”). Though many Europeans at this time believed the world was flat (commonplace knowledge of the earth’s spherical shape had been lost in the “dark ages” after Rome’s collapse), the Norse knew better. They built boats that held between fifty and one hundred men, in addition to horses and provisions. Men manned the oars and worked together to steer and row the long-ships. The shallow keel of Norse boats and the long timber that extended the length of the ship enabled them to steer upriver during raids. A large square sail propelled the ship in winds, and when the wind was unfavorable oarsmen took control of the ships.

Norse Migrations in the British Isles

The Norse migrated to both the east and west. In the east the Norse engaged in both trade and raiding. Around AD 830 Northmen from Scandinavia, known as the Rus, were invited to intervene in wars among the East Slavs. They staked out their own claims in Novgorod and Kiev, eventually establishing a principality composed largely of East Slavs. Thus the seeds of Russia (whose name is derived from the Viking Rus) were planted. The internal river systems of central Europe provided the east Northmen a conduit to Constantinople and the Black Sea; some Northmen came to trade with Byzantium and Persia, and others hired themselves out to the Byzantine emperors. In the west the Norse appeared first as merchants and pirates, and then later as conquerors and colonists. The Danes began raiding England in 787; by 866 a Danish army landed in eastern England and established a permanent settlement; and in Ireland and Scotland, Norwegians both invaded and settled (Dublin was a Norwegian settlement). The Norse also harried the west coast of Europe around AD 800, eventually penetrating deep into Frankia. Norse raiding parties ventured as far south as the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean Sea and up the Rhone Valley. In AD 911 the Viking Rollo secured from Charles the Simple, the King of France, the territory near the mouth of the Seine River, which became known as Normandy (from the name Northmen).

As mentioned above, England got her first taste of the Northmen in AD 787. The tradition in the royal West Saxon house, written two centuries after the events, tells us that in 787 “there was a Danish fleet, not very alarming, consisting of three long ships, [that] came to the ears of the king’s reeve, who was then in the [town] which is called Dorchester, he mounted his horse and with a few men hastened to the port, thinking they were merchants rather than enemies, and addressing them with authority ordered them to be carried to the king’s [town], and by them he and those who were with him were there slain… [Six] years later, in 793, their pirateboats were ravaging the coast of Northumbria, plundering the monastery of Lindisfarne and murdering its monks and in 794 they entered the Wear to pillage and burn the houses of Wearmouth and Jarrow.” The murder of the Northumbrian reeve, the sacrilege of Lindisfarne, and the burning of Wearmouth and Jarrow heralded a new age in Anglo-Saxon England. The first half of Anglo-Saxon England is marked by rivalries between the major kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, but the second half is marked by the English-wide struggle against the Norse invaders. John Green notes, “The descent of the three strange ships did, in fact, herald a new conquest of Britain. It was but the beginning of a strife which was to last unbroken till the final triumph of the Norman conqueror.”

Vikings at task

News of ecclesiastical wealth in England fired the passions of the Northmen as news of Aztec gold stirred the Conquistadores 600 years later. The Norse hit hard and fast, focusing on churches, monasteries, and abbeys, because that was where the Church hoarded its gold. In AD 832, four years after all of England submitted to King Ecgberht of Wessex, these hit-and-run raids gave way to an organized invasion of Ireland. Though Wessex didn’t suffer those inroads, the Norse presence in Ireland prompted the unhappy Welsh of Cornwall to rise against Ecgberht. They allied with the Northmen against Wessex, intent on securing their independence, but Ecgberht defeated their combined forces and Cornwall was reincorporated into Wessex. Though he was victorious, Ecgberht had a foretaste of what was to come. He’d just unified England, bringing all the other kingdoms and principalities under his way, but his ambitions to consolidate that power were checked by the Norse. Ecgberht’s focus—and that of his successors—had to be on self-defense against the attackers. Nevertheless the Norse incursions prompted a stronger union between the Church and the English people; as John Green notes,

[The] inroads of the Vikings supplied a yet stronger ground of union between the Church and [Ecgberht’s Wessex]. Each suddenly found itself confronted by a common enemy. The foe that threatened ruin to the political organization of England threatened ruin to its religious organization as well. In the attack of the northern peoples, heathendom seemed to fling itself in a last desperate rally on the Christian world. Thor and Odin were arrayed against Christ. Abbey and minster were the special objects of the pirates’ plunder. Priests were slain at the altar, and nuns driven, scared, from their quiet cells. Library and scriptorium, costly manuscript and delicate carving, blazed in the same pitiless fire. It was not the mere kingdom of Ecgberht, it was religion and learning and art whose very existence was at stake. It was a common danger, therefore, that drew Church and State together into a union closer than had been seen before.      (John Green, The Conquest of England)

Ecgberht died and his son Aethelwulf succeeded him as King of Wessex. Aethelwulf faced increasing Norse raids and incursions. Battles were won and lost and noblemen slain. Wessex was given breathing space when the Viking Thorgil, who had made a name for himself in his conquest of Ireland, was slain in an Irish uprising. The Norse hold on Ireland was rendered tenuous, and another group of Northmen set their sights on what Thorgil and his followers had lost. The two groups of Northmen battled it out in Ireland and Aethelwulf bolstered his forces. AD 838 saw an increase in Viking activity on the east coast, and a party of Vikings sacked Canterbury and raided London. Aethelwulf moved his forces across their path and defeated them at the Battle of Aclea sometime around 850. The Welsh, emboldened by the Vikings, rebelled; the West Welsh rose against their Wessex overlords, and the North Welsh against their Mercian masters. A joint Mercian and Wessex force pinned and defeated the North Welsh leader at Anglesey, bringing those Britons back into submission. Aethelwulf wanted to forge an alliance with Frankia, whose kings were facing off against the Northmen as well, and in 856 he married Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, sealing an alliance between the two kingdoms. The West Saxon nobles, likely fearing that he would sire a son with his Frankish wife and introduce a new class of rulers into England, nominated Aethelwulf’s eldest son, Aethelbald, to replace him as king. When Aethelwulf returned to Wessex, he learned of the coup but, given his old age, decided not to engulf all of Wessex in a family feud turned civil war. He and Aethelbald decided to split the kingdom, and for a time Aethelbald ruled Wessex proper while Aethelwulf ruled in East Anglia.

pillaging and plunder!

Aethelwulf died shortly after the bloodless rending of the kingdom, and Aethelbald ruled a united Wessex for only two more years before following his father to the grave. Aethelbald’s brother took the throne in 860, and Wessex suffered a handful of Viking incursions before he died. The throne then passed to the next surviving son of Aethelwulf, Aethelred, in 866—and it was during Aethelred’s reign that the Vikings stepped up their attacks. Ireland had been plundered dry and Frankia had been ravaged, but except for a few raids here-and-there, England had been left unmolested. The English of Wessex’s island-wide domain had yet to feel the full force of the Northmen, but that changed under the reign of Aethelred. The Northmen fell on Britain not as raiders but as invaders. The Jutland Norse had focused on Frankia; the Norwegians had focused on Ireland; but the Danes put their sights on England. John Green observes, “The petty squadrons which had till now harassed the coast of Britain made way for hosts larger than had fallen on any country in the west; while raids and foray were replaced by the regular campaigns of armies who marched to conquer, and whose aim was to settle on the land they had won.”

The first Dane to attempt the conquering of England would be Ivar the Boneless, supposed son of the infamous Ragnar Lothbruk of Viking lore. In AD 866 Ivar invaded East Anglia before marching up into Northumbria and sacking the town of York. The northern kingdom was steeped in anarchy as the two main houses (Bernicia and Deira) vied for the throne. The two kings joined forces (a true rarity) and marched to relieve York. The Danes retreated into the town’s defenses, the Northumbrians broke into the city, and there the English were slaughtered. The kings of both Bernicia and Deira were slain. Northumbria became a tributary kingdom of the Danes and was thus wrenched from King Aethelred’s control. The Danes put an end to the religious and scholastic life of Northumbria by torching monasteries and abbeys. Ivar now threatened Mercia, and Mercia called on their West Saxon overlords for help. Aethelred threw his armies at the Danes, but the Danes entrenched themselves behind earthworks on the River Trent, near Nottingham, and repelled the Saxons and Mercians. The Danes held out but suffered greatly, so they struck a truce and retired to York to re-gather their strength. In 869 Ivar and his brother Ubba turned on East Anglia, sacking town after town in an attempt to draw the East Anglian forces against them. Their ruse worked: King Eadmund of East Anglia led his troops against the Danish entrenchments, but the East Anglians couldn’t break through and they were whittled down to scraps. Eadmund was captured, bound to a tree, and shot to death with arrows (he was hailed as a martyr and eventually passed into English legend as St. Sebastian). The Danes thus took East Anglia, and with kingdom added to their string of conquests, they turned their eyes upon Mercia. The Mercians cowed before the Danes, fearing they would suffer the same fate as their neighbors, and they made payments for peace and acknowledged Danish supremacy. Thus the Danes had conquered Northumbria and East Anglia by force, and Mercia by diplomacy; King Aethelred in Wessex was left on his own.

West Saxons vs. the Danes

The conquest of Wessex was put in the hands of a Viking named Guthrum. Aethelred’s younger brother Alfred would be tasked with leading Wessex’s forces against him. Guthrum plowed into Wessex and encamped at Reading. Aethelred’s forces attacked them there, but the Battle of Reading was a defeat for the West Saxons. The Danes gave chase, but Aethelred was able to muster enough reinforcements to turn and attack Guthrum face-to-face in the shield wall. Alfred led his forces against Guthrum, expecting Aethelred’s help, but Aethelred refused to join the battle until he’d finished mass; thus Alfred had no choice but to keep Guthrum’s forces at bay, and he led wave after wave against the Danish shield wall. Aethelred eventually joined the attack, and he and his brother pushed the Danes back. The fighting was fiercest around a thorn tree, where Wessex nobles and Danish jarls slugged it out. The Danes, overwhelmed, retreated to their entrenchments at Reading, so that the West Saxons carried the day in the Battle of Ashdown. Now the West Saxons gave chase, but they couldn’t break through the Danish entrenchments at Reading. The West Saxon militia began to trickle away, Guthrum received reinforcements, and so he sallied forth and attacked Aethelred’s weakened force. The West Saxons lost the ensuing Battle of Merton, and Aethelred suffered a mortal injury. He died shortly after Easter in 871, and his brother Alfred took the throne.

Hearing of Aethelred’s death and hoping to capitalize on the resultant political instability, Guthrum marched into Wessex. Alfred had to hurry from his brother’s funeral to meet the invaders. He harried the invaders but couldn’t repel them, and he was forced to strike a truce. He was ashamed of it, and he made vows of alms to holy sites in Rome and to far-off India and prayed for deliverance from his enemies. The Danes thought Alfred was a pushover, not made of the same mettle as his older brother, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Before the Vikings: The Rise & Fall of Kingdoms

The Political Landscape of the Early 7^th Century – The Unification of Northumbria – Gregory and the Angels – The Splintering of Wales – Northumbrian Rivalries –Penda and Oswald – The Synod of Whitby – Wulfhere and Ecgfrith – Baeda and Alcuin – The Emergence of Wessex – Aethelbald and Eadbert – The Reign of Offa of Mercia – King Ecgberht and the Rise of Wessex – A Unified England

In the early 7^th century Anglo-Saxon Britain was divided into several large kingdoms: Kent, Sussex (the South Saxons), Essex (the East Saxons), Wessex (the West Saxons), East Anglia, Mercia (the “Men of the March”), and Northumbria (composed of Bernicia and Deira). The Venerable Bede tells us that by his time four kings from various kingdoms had gathered lordship over many if not all of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. The first four Bretwaldas (“Kings of Britain”) were Aelle of Sussex, Caewlin of the Gewisse, Aethelbert of Kent, and Raedwald of East Anglia. The last two were Northumbrian rulers: Eadwine and Oswald. The first half of Anglo-Saxon history is marked by the rise and fall of various kingdoms. Northumbria in the north was the first to rise to prominence, followed swiftly by the middle kingdom of Mercia. These two kingdoms were constantly at variance, and their fortunes waxed and waned over the centuries. In the early 8^th century a new powerhouse, that of Wessex, joined the squabbling Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Northumbria, the first to rise, would also be the first to fall; Mercia’s greatness would come to heel under the weight of Wessex; and the West Saxons would then be left alone to slug it out with the third invader of Britain: the Northmen.

Our story begins with the unification of Northumbria. In AD 547 Ida the Flame-Bearer founded the town of Bebbanburg. Ida was the king of Bernicia, the northernmost Anglo-Saxon kingdom. His fourth son, Aethelric, expanded Bernicia’s borders over the Britons to the west. Having conquered the Britons, Aethelric looked across his southern border to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira. Deira’s king, Aella, was dying, and Aethelric took advantage of his weakness and launched an invasion of his kingdom. Aella died in 588, and Aethelric conquered his kingdom. Deira was absorbed into Bernicia, and Northumbria was united for the first time—but the two houses of Bernicia and Deira would be ever at odds with one another, repeatedly tearing asunder Northumbria’s political and social fabric.

Aethelric’s conquest of Deira produced a host of Deiran slaves, and slave traders bought the slaves off Bernicia’s merchants and shipped them for sale to Rome. Legend has it that a group of these slaves was displayed for sale in the Forum of Trajan, and a deacon named Gregory walked by and noticed their white bodies, fair faces, and golden hair. “From what country do these slaves come?” Gregory asked the slave trader. The merchant told him that they were Angles. “Not Angles,” Gregory mused, “but Angels, with faces so angel-like!” Gregory was driven to evangelize the pagan Germanic Anglo-Saxons, initiating the transformation of Anglo-Saxon England from paganism to Christianity.

In the height of the Roman Empire, Christianity flourished from Italy to Ireland, but Roman Christianity had all but fizzled out under the onslaught of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The Anglo-Saxons were Germanic, and they worshipped their own pagan gods. Odin, the war-god, was their chief deity; he was known as the guardian of ways and boundaries, was the inventor of letters, and the first ancestor of tribal kings. They worshipped many other gods, and their names are with us today in the English days of the week: Wednesday is Odin’s Day, Thursday is Thor’s Day, and Friday is Frigg’s Day. They also worshipped deities of the wood and fell and the hero-gods of legend and song. They brought their religion to Britain, and thus they put a wedge between Christian Ireland to the west and Christian Gaul, Spain, and Italy to the east. Gregory’s missionary activities reintroduced Christianity into eastern Britain. At first the Roman Catholic missionaries attached themselves to kings as royal chaplains, and as the king’s chaplain’s became bishops and the kingdoms their dioceses, the chaplains of nobles became priests and the nobles’ manors their parishes. One-by-one the pagan Anglo-Saxon kingdoms became Christian, starting with the rulers and filtering down to the people, but while the social changes wrought by the conversion of Britain were remarkable, they weren’t immediate. The conversion of England was gradual, and it happened amid the rising, falling, and striving of kingdoms.

Anglo-Saxon Warriors

In 613 the Bernician ruler of Northumbria, Aethelfrith, continued his predecessors’ westward expansion. Northumbria had yet to become Christian, and when his forces met those of the British he was bewildered by the hundreds of Celtic priests praying and chanting behind the British ranks. He ordered his men to kill every priest, and they did just that at the ensuing Battle of Chester. After his victory northern Wales disintegrated into squabbling British kingdoms. Far to the south the West Saxons beat the British at Deorham, driving a wedge of Anglo-Saxon territory between northern and southern Wales (thus henceforth known as North and South Wales). Aethelfrith’s westward expansion didn’t placate the nobles of Deira, and in 617 Eadwine of Deira conquered Bernicia in an about-face. Eadwine ushered in an era of peace for Northumbria, and he built a city in the north and named it after himself (modern Edinburgh). Eadwine gained lordship over Mercia and ruled all of the Anglo-Saxons except for Wessex. A West Saxon envoy tried to assassinate him at an Easter court, but Eadwine survived. He marched on the West Saxons, delivered a vicious and vengeful blow, and then returned back to Northumbria. Eadwine converted to Christianity, and after his death the House of Bernicia reclaimed the Northumbrian throne. The houses of Bernicia and Deira would quarrel down through the centuries, undermining Northumbria’s political stability.

Eadwine’s conversion to Christianity wasn’t widely embraced, and King Penda of Mercia, hoping to check Northumbrian expansionism westward, used religious discontent to fire his people to war. Penda was hailed as the “Champion of the Heathen Gods,” and in 632 he forged an ironic alliance was Cadwallon, the Christian king of Gwynedd (a British rather than Anglo-Saxon kingdom), and marched on Northumbria (now ruled by King Oswald of the Bernician line). He and Cadwallon defeated the Northumbrians at the Battle of Heathfield in 633. King Oswald recovered power shortly thereafter and launched a counter-attack against Cadwallon and slayed him on the field in 635. Restless Deirans submitted to him, solidifying his tremulous hold on Northumbria. Oswald embraced the Christian faith and called for missionaries from Iona, in Scotland, to evangelize the heathens of Britain. Missionaries established a launching pad on the rocky island of Lindisfarne. The island’s missionaries spread throughout pagan Mercia, and Penda’s son became a Christian. Penda tolerated the missionaries; in truth he was less concerned with matters of creed than with getting the upper-hand on Oswald, whose power had reached a zenith; a writer of the Picts called Oswald “Emperor of the Whole of Britain,” a title Penda coveted.

The Shield Wall

Despite Cadwallon’s death under Oswald’s blade in 635, the Welsh continued supporting Penda (Mercia was the lesser of two evils). In 642 Oswald marched into East Anglia to wrench it from Mercian control, but he suffered the same fate as Cadwallon and was slain by Penda’s forces at the Battle of Maserfeld. Penda capitalized on Oswald’s death by seizing Deira, leaving Bernicia alone in Northumbria. Penda marched north from Deira and assaulted the Bernician fortress at Bebbanburg, but he couldn’t get through the fortress’ defenses. Oswald’s Bernician successor, Osuiu, struck out from Bernicia and retook Deira, bringing it back into the Northumbrian fold. The reunification of Northumbria wasn’t something Penda could tolerate, so he marched against Osuiu but died at the Battle of Winwaed. Pagan Penda’s death—and the Mercian defeat—was interpreted as a victory for Christ, and the days of the old Germanic gods in Mercia came to an end. At Penda’s fall Mercia became a vassal state of Northumbria, and it was ruled by Northumbrian thegns reporting directly to Osuiu.

Having extinguished the Mercian threat from without, Osuiu now faced a threat from within, and this one was religious in nature. Northumbria was wholly Christian, but two Christian sects—that of the Irish Church, with its patron saint of Columba, and the Roman Church, with its patron saint of Gregory—threatened to tear Northumbria apart. The matters of contention were trivial, but passions flared. In 664 Osuiu called the Synod of Whitby to determine Northumbria’s religious course. The Roman Church won out, and a number of adherents to Irish Christianity dejectedly retired to Iona. Rome sent a Greek monk named Theodore of Tarsus to Britain with orders to consolidate the English church. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury and focused on the organization of the episcopate; in a lot of ways the Church of England today is the work of Theodore.

Osuiu had simmered the religious passions just in time for another outbreak of hostilities: the Mercian nobles rose up, expelled the Northumbrian thegns from their land, and lifted Penda’s Christian son Wulfhere to the Mercian throne. In 670 the Northumbrian throne passed into new hands, those of Ecgfrith, and Wulfhere sought to take advantage of the new king by marching against Northumbria. Ecgfrith met him on the field and utterly defeated him. Wulfhere bought peace by surrendering Lincolnshire, a region built up around an old Roman town, and Ecgfrith was willing to make peace to focus on westward rather than southward expansion. Wulfhere was left to focus on expanding Mercia southward (by the 670s he had lordship over all the southern Anglo-Saxon kingdoms), and Ecgfrith focused on expanding into North Wales. He ousted the Britons from Cumbria and seized Carlisle, bringing Northumbria to the height of its power. Ecgfrith, perhaps emboldened by his success against the Welsh, attempted an invasion of Mercia, but he was checked by defeat against the new Mercian king, Aethelred, at the Battle of Trent in 679. Checked in the south, Ecgfrith looked to expand northwards. The Picts to the north were a client state of Northumbria, but Ecgfrith was determined to conquer the Picts completely. He marched on them in 685, but this was a bad move: the Picts met his forces and slaughtered them. King Ecgfrith and a host of Northumbrian nobles were killed. At Ecgfrith’s death Northumbria descended into chaos: the rival houses vied for power, and Mercia rose to prominence as her northern enemy devolved into anarchy.

Despite her inexorable decline, southern Northumbria, with its religious sanctuaries, experienced a flourishing of learning and culture and became the center of learning in Britain with schools in York and Jarrow. Baeda—who would come to be known as the Venerable Bede—was the star of Northumbrian scholarship. He taught from the monastery of Jarrow and completed forty-five works by the time of his death, the most notable being his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. He was familiar with Plato and Aristotle, Seneca and Cicero, Lucretius and Ovid and Virgil. He compiled encyclopedias on astronomy and meteorology, physics and music, arithmetic and medicine, philosophy, grammar, and rhetoric. He’s considered the founder of medieval history and the first English historian. Baeda rubbed shoulders with another scholar, Alcuin, who was admired by Frankish and German scholars and beloved by Charlemagne of Frankia. Charlemagne brought Alcuin across the Channel to his court where he spearheaded the so-called Carolingian Renaissance.

Northumbria’s jeweled scholarship didn’t make up for her bloody political feuds, and King Aethelred of Mercia cared little for knowledge and much for land. He marched against Northumbria, but though he was victorious he couldn’t capitalize on his gains. He bought peace and security to the north, thus freeing him to look further south. Wulfhere had stretched Mercia’s southern border, but a new rival—the House of Wessex—was emerging.

the Dragon Banner of Wessex

Wessex was formed by a confederation of Hampshire and Wiltshire Saxons with the Welsh of the Upper Thames. Their confederation may have been prompted by a desire to check the increasing pressure of Mercia on the south. The West Saxons formed their power base around modern-day Winchester and Southampton Water, and by 685 King Caedwalla had annexed the kingdoms of Kent, Surrey, and the South Saxons. King Ine of Wessex (r.688-726) elevated Wessex to the edge of greatness. Ine won a smashing victory against King Ceolred of Mercia in 715, stilting Mercia’s southern ambitions. Ine’s victory showed that Anglo-Saxon England now had three major heavy-hitters: Northumbria to the north, Mercia in the middle, and Wessex in the south. The last century had been marked by contests between Northumbria and Mercia, but now Wessex had joined the fray. Though Ine had brought Wessex to the edge of greatness, he didn’t see it through; he retired to Rome in 726, and in his wake fragile Wessex fell into civil war and anarchy. The new king of Mercia, Aethelbald, took advantage of their weakness and launched an army against them, capturing the royal town of Somerton in 733. For the next 20-odd years all of southern Britain recognized Mercian lordship.

As Mercia rose back to greatness under Aethelbald, and as the West Saxons toiled under Mercian governorship, Northumbria continued passing between different hands. One of the last great Northumbrian kings was Eadbert, who ruled from 737-758. He had a vision of an imperialistic Northumbria, and he tried to bring order from chaos. He was able to repel a Mercian invasion under Aethelbald, and he dealt the Mercians such a blow that not only were their northern ambitions checked but they were also severely weakened to the south. Though his reign was a time of economic prosperity for the kingdom, he failed in his ambitions, and in 758 he gave up on the throne, handing it to his son, and packed his bags for the monastery on Lindisfarne. He would later retire as a monk to York. His son fared no better, and the late historian John Green notes in his England During the Dark Ages, “From the death of Baeda the history of Northumbria became in fact little more than a wild story of lawlessness and bloodshed. King after king was swept away by treason and revolt, the country fell into the hands of its turbulent nobles, and the land was scourged by famine and plague.” This was for the benefit of Mercia, whose attentions had to be focused on the belligerent vassal state of Wessex.

Discontent under Mercian rule and hoping to capitalize on Mercia’s weakened state after its rough-handling by Eadbert of Northumbria, the West Saxons rose up and fought for independence. Though their resistance was sporadic and local at first, it led to a relentless Wessex-wide revolt. In 755 the West Saxon forces marched against Aethelbald. The Mercian king fought valiantly at the Battle of Burford, but at the last moment he was overwhelmed with panic—perhaps his rough treatment by Eadbert weighed heavy on his mind—and he fled the field. The West Saxons won, securing their independence from Mercia. Aethelbald’s defeat at the hands of Eadbert had been embarrassing, but his panicked rout from the West Saxons was nothing short of humiliating; small wonder he lost the trust of the Mercian nobles and was assassinated in 757. Aethelbald was soon succeeded—and avenged—by King Offa, who would be hailed as the greatest king in Mercian history.

a reconstruction of Offa's Dyke

Aethelbald of Mercia had called himself, at least before Wessex’s War of Independence, “King not only of the Mercians but of all the provinces called by the general name Southern English,” and he had influenced affairs in Kent and controlled London on the Thames. Those grand titles would be overshadowed by King Offa, who ruled from AD 757 to 796. Offa would be the most powerful English king until the reign of King Ecgberht of Wessex. Offa brought stability to Mercia and enlarged her borders. In 775 he seized Kent from the Wessex, bringing it under Mercian control, and he squashed a retaliatory West Saxon assault in 779. That same year he marched against Wales and drove the king of Powys (a British kingdom) from his capital. Offa captured the city and changed its name to Shrewsbury, or “The Town in the Scrub.” He didn’t think it worthwhile to push deeper into Wales, so he secured his expansion by building an earthwork military barrier on the Mercia-Welsh border known as Offa’s Dyke. He turned his attention against Wessex once more, seizing Essex, Surrey, and Sussex from their hands. Kent had the nerve to rebel, but Offa squashed the coup and exterminated the Kentish dynasty forever. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle—a collection of annals in Anglo-Saxon Britain that were kept from the late 9^th to the mid-12^th century—reports in 794 that “In this year Offa, king of Mercia, ordered [Kentish King] Aethelberht’s head to be struck off.” The following year Offa captured East Anglia, restoring Mercia to its widest bounds since the days of Wulfhere. Offa’s power was recognized by King Charlemagne of the Franks, who hailed Offa as an equal—a testimony to the Mercian king’s prestige beyond the British Isles. Offa returned the compliment, emulating Charlemagne in many respects, altering the Mercian government along Frankish lines, shuffling local organization, and reconfiguring the way he exercised royal power.

Under Offa’s guidance, Mercia stretched from the English Channel to the Irish Sea, but it was held together by the sword—and this was an inherent weakness. Mercia’s administrative caliber was less than that of both Northumbria and Wessex, to the point that she even lacked a capital. Northumbria was ruled from York, Wessex from Winchester, but Mercia’s Tamworth was little more than a villa where the Mercian kings preferred to spend their time. Despite Offa’s advances in governorship and administration, the changes wrought weren’t enough to keep his kingdom together absent the threat (and use) of force. Offa’s power came on the coattails of blood, and when his son Egfrith died shortly after Offa himself, the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin noted, “The vengeance for the blood shed by the father has now reached the son; for you know very well how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom on his son.”

an Anglo-Saxon mead hall

Mercian dominance declined after the death of Egfrith. King Coenwulf was able to keep hold of Kent and Sussex and even gained some territory from the northern Welsh, but he couldn’t wrap his fingers around Wessex. Mercia fell into civil war after Coenwulf’s death, and the political instability couldn’t have come at a worse time: a new dynasty was emerging in Wessex that would usurp Mercia. Across the Channel, the late Offa’s admirer, Charlemagne, was giving sanctuary to a West Saxon named Ecgberht. Ecgberht had claimed the throne of Wessex but had failed in his bid, and he had sought refuge in Charlemagne’s court. He was there until 802, witnessing the emergence of Charlemagne’s “Empire of the West.” Upon returning to Wessex, Ecgberht was quietly embraced as king by the West Saxons. He made good on his kingship by conquering the last tidbits of British Cornwall. In 825 the Mercian king Beornwulf marched into Wiltshire, but Ecgberht defeated him at the Battle of Ellandun. All of England south of the Thames now belonged to Wessex. The East Anglians, under the lordship of Mercia since the days of Offa, took courage from Beornwulf’s defeat and successfully revolted against their Mercian masters. Ecgberht expelled a Mercian under-king from Kent, and then he annexed not only Kent but also Essex, Surrey, and Sussex. Mercia could only watch as her borders shrank, and in 828 Ecgberht went for the jugular: he crossed the Thames and Mercia, cowed into submission, knelt before him and offered her submission. Dreaming of a unified England, Ecgberht marched against Northumbria, which was riven with social strife and reeling from Viking attacks. The Northumbrian thegns met Ecgberht and pledged their allegiance.

The rapid rise and dominance of Wessex has been attributed to two primary factors: Wessex’s wealth skyrocketed after she conquered British Cornwall and took over its mineral resources, and Ecgberht’s wisdom in securing inheritance and royal succession by agreement rather than bloodshed strengthened the Wessex monarchy. Under Ecgberht, England reached a milestone: she was, for the first time ever, unified. But it wouldn’t last. The Northmen—known popularly as the Vikings—would see to that.