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02-15-2012, 09:23 AM

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تابع ...Alfred the Great

King at war

Early struggles, defeat and flight

Alfred the Great plots the capture of the Danish fleet.

In April 871, King Æthelred died, and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, despite the fact that Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf in his will had left jointly to his sons. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the ongoing Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's succession probably went uncontested. Tensions between Alfred and his nephews, however, would arise later in his reign.[citation needed]
While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the English in his absence at an unnamed spot, and then again in his presence at Wilton in May.[9] The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. He was forced, instead, to ‘make peace’ with them. The sources do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the 'pagans' agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise; and, indeed, the Viking army did withdraw from Reading in the autumn of 871 to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.[10] Hoards dating to the Viking occupation of London in 871/2 have been excavated at Croydon, Gravesend, and Waterloo Bridge; these finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England.[11]
In 876 under their new leader, Guthrum, the Danes slipped past the English army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault.[9] Accordingly, he negotiated a peace which involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor.[5] The Danes, however, broke their word and, after killing all the hostages, slipped away under cover of night to Exeter in Devon. There, Alfred blockaded them, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. They withdrew to Mercia, but, in January 878, made a sudden attack on Chippenham, a royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas, "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe".[5] From his fort at Athelney, an island in the marshes near North Petherton, Alfred was able to mount an effective resistance movement, rallying the local militias from Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire.[9]
A popular legend, originating from 12th century chronicles,[12] tells how when he first fled to the Somerset Levels, Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some cakes she had left cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn.
870 was the low-water mark in the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was still resisting.[13]

Counterattack and victory

In the seventh week after Easter [4–10 May 878], around Whitsuntide, Alfred rode to ‘Egbert's Stone’ east of Selwood, where he was met by "all the people of Somerset and of Wiltshire and of that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea [that is, west of Southampton Water], and they rejoiced to see him".[5] Alfred’s emergence from his marshland stronghold was part of a carefully planned offensive that entailed raising the fyrds of three shires. This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormen, royal reeves and king’s thegns (who were charged with levying and leading these forces), but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer Alfred’s summons to war. Alfred’s actions also suggest a finely honed system of scouts and messengers.[citation needed]
Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Ethandun, which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire.[9] He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at Chippenham and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity; and three weeks later the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Aller, near Athelney, with Alfred receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son.[9] The "unbinding of the chrism" took place with great ceremony eight days later at the royal estate at Wedmore in Somerset, after which Guthrum fulfilled his promise to leave Wessex. There is no contemporary evidence that Alfred and Guthrum agreed upon a formal treaty at this time; the so-called Treaty of Wedmore is an invention of modern historians. The Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, preserved in Old English in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Manuscript 383), and in a Latin compilation known as Quadripartitus, was negotiated later, perhaps in 879 or 880, when King Ceolwulf II of Mercia was deposed.[15] That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms the boundary between Alfred’s and Guthrum’s kingdoms was to run up the River Thames, to the River Lea; follow the Lea to its source (near Luton); from there extend in a straight line to Bedford; and from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street. In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf’s kingdom, consisting of western Mercia; and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia (henceforward known as the Danelaw). By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of London and its mints — at least for the time being.[16] The disposition of Essex, held by West Saxon kings since the days of Egbert, is unclear from the treaty, though, given Alfred’s political and military superiority, it would have been surprising if he had conceded any disputed territory to his new godson.

The quiet years; Restoration of London

With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, an event most commonly held to have taken place around 880 when Guthrum’s people began settling East Anglia, Guthrum was neutralised as a threat.[17] In conjunction with this agreement an army of Danish left the island and sailed to Ghent. Alfred however was still forced to contend with a number of Danish threats. A year later in 881 Alfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships “On the high seas”.[18] Two of the ships were destroyed and the others surrendered to Alfred’s forces.[19] Similar small skirmishes with independent Viking raiders would have occurred for much of the period as they had for decades.
In the year 883, though there is some debate over the year, King Alfred, because of his support and his donation of alms to Rome, received a number of gifts from the Pope Marinus.[20] Among these gifts was reputed to be a piece of the true cross, a true treasure for the devout Saxon king. According to Asser, because of Pope Marinus’ friendship with King Alfred, the pope granted an exemption to any Anglo-Saxons residing within Rome from tax or tribute.[21]
After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace, the king was still forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid taking place in Kent, an allied country in Southeast England, during the year 885, which was quite possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser’s account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester,[18] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part of Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer.[
Not long after the failed Danish raid in Kent, Alfred dispatched his fleet to East Anglia. The purpose of this expedition is debated, though Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder.[22] After traveling up the River Stour, the fleet was met by Danish vessels that numbered 13 or 16 (sources vary on the number) and a battle ensued.[22] The Anglo-Saxon Fleet emerged victorious and as Huntingdon accounts, “laden with spoils.”[23] The victorious fleet was then caught unaware when attempting to leave the River Stour and was attacked by a Danish force at the mouth of the river. The Danish fleet was able to defeat Alfred's fleet which may have been weakened in the previous engagement.[24]
A year later, in 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again.[25] Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. The restoration of London progressed through the later half of the 880s and is believed to have revolved around a new street plan, added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls, and, some believe, the construction of matching fortifications on the South bank of the River Thames.[26] This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred.[27] This was not, however, the point in which Alfred came to be known as King of England; in fact he would never adopt the title for himself. In truth the power which Alfred wielded over the English peoples at this time seemed to stem largely from the military might of the West Saxons, Alfred’s political connections from having the ruler of Mercia as his son-in-law, and Alfred’s keen administration talents.
Between the restoration of London and the resumption of large scale Danish attacks in the early 890s, Alfred’s reign was rather uneventful. The relative peace of the late 880s was marred by the death of Alfred's sister, Æthelswith, who died en route to Rome in 888.[28] In the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelred also passed away. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptised name, Alfred’s former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk.[29] Guthrum’s passing marked a change in the political sphere Alfred dealt with. Guthrum’s death created a power vacuum which would stir up other power–hungry warlords eager to take his place in the following years. The quiet years of Alfred’s life were coming to a close, and war was on the horizon.

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