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.