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While this episode said a great deal about the fragility of royalty, the experience never harmed Alfred – his victory was imminent. The key demand was that Guthrum be baptised into the Christian Church, taking the name Æthelstan and accepting Alfred as his adopted father. Battle of Edington Alfred defeated the Viking army and forced the leader, Guthrum, to accept baptism and peace terms. In A.D. 878, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, led by Alfred the Great, defeated a Viking force led by Guthrum the Old at Edington. The Battle of Edington is one of the most important events in Anglo-Saxon history, because in the months afterwards, Alfred made a peace treaty with the Danes and forced them to convert to Christianity. The Danes settled into their new kingdoms, the Danelaw, and a general peace existed for over ten years. However, he was not prepared to give up and he and his followers defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington. The Viking king of East Anglia, Guthrum, had launched invasions of Wessex in 875 (taking Wareham) and 876-877 (targeting Exeter), but he was twice bribed to retreat by King Alfred in order to buy time. No chronicler, however, claims that Alfred was built for warfare, and his life was plagued by ailments now thought to stem from the excruciating bowel disorder, Crohn’s disease. Meanwhile, the Danish raider Skorpa of the White Horse, dismayed at the loss of ground, led a raid on the Anglo-Saxon camp, slaughtering the camp followers, including Queen Iseult of Cornwall, Uhtred's lover. As for Alfred himself, no more remains of him than of King Arthur – he was buried with fitting majesty in Winchester, before being moved to Hyde Abbey just outside the city in 1110. 878 (after 5th May) Treaty of Wedmore This was a peace treaty between Alfred and Guthrum. Alfred needed a decisive victory in this battle and he achieved one. The final episodes are out, the victors have been decided, and Valhalla – the hall of slain warriors presided over by Odin – has a few new members. the Battle of Edington- King Athelstan also had strong links with : In AD 937, Athelstan fought at the Battle of religious leaders and he founded many Brunanburh to stop an invasion by the Scottish churches. The example of the Roman Church stayed with Alfred, who would fight for a more civilised form of government, firmly built on Christian piety, for the rest of his life. Although never a warlord in the mould of his pagan adversaries, the cerebral prince was said to have ridden to a perforated sarsen stone (a large boulder, as used at Stonehenge), known as the ‘Blowing Stone’, and used it to summon the people from miles around to defend their lands against the invaders. Basing himself in the Somerset marshes, Alfred later that year assembled an army and laid siege to Guthrum at Edington in what came to be known as the Battle of Edington. Coins struck just after the battle depict Alfred and Ceolwulf II of Mercia sitting side by side, suggesting that he enlisted – or perhaps accepted – help from Ceolwulf to fight a common foe. In … The Battle of Ethandun (Edington) Who knows what really happened on the battlefield that May morning in 878? 4. While Alfred commissioned his own biography, all that hard work could easily be undone by one imaginative later writer hoping to add to the legend. 3. The Anglo-Saxon warrior Leofric of Winchester killed the treacherous ealdorman Wulfhere, who had sided with the Danes, only to suffer an axe wound to the neck and die of his wounds. Unwilling to return until the service was finished, he left Alfred in command. Well, rather than a Danelaw scenario which set the stage for unified kingdoms on each side leading to a single England, you have had mini Conquests (or Cnut rule) instead for the Heptarchy. One may also ask, who won the battle of Wessex? What was the name of the treaty between King Alfred and King Guthrum? The Battle of Edington During the 9th century, Vikings conducted raids over Britain regularly. Even though the English had managed to beat them in battle, they did not have the numbers to drive the Vikings from their shores. Thirteen years earlier, a Viking force known as the Great Heathen Army had landed in Northern England, quickly conquering most of the country. Only the victory of Alfred the Great at Edington saved Anglo-Saxon independence. After hearing of Guthrum's success, the Frisian Viking leader Ubbe Ragnarrsson led a fleet of 23 ships from South Wales to northern Devon near the fortress of Arx Cynuit, intending to corner Alfred in a pincer movement. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. In the year 878 he fought the Danes at Edington, which he eventually won. This certainly happened with the Normans, although they undoubtedly made some profound changes. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. In 878 Alfred defeated the Viking Great Army at the Battle of Edington. Alfred gave a rousing speech to his men, urging them to fight against the rapacious Danes and show no mercy. The Turning Point: The Battle of Edington Edington is one of the decisive battles of English history, yet we know maddenly few details. Even while Alfred was arranging his brother’s funeral, the Danes continued to stage attacks on Wessex and, by May, he was forced to pay the Great Heathen Army to withdraw to Mercian London. He overthrew the Pagans with great slaughter, and smiting the fugitives, he pursued them as far as the fortress.” The White Horse at Westbury is said to commemorate this, Alfred’s greatest victory. There, Danish law and custom applied. Battle of Edington was an event which occurred in The Saxon Stories novel series, and The Last Kingdom television series. Once a sufficient force of levies had been raised, they marched to Edington, where Alfred engaged Guthrum's warriors in one final, definitive battle. At the other end of the country, in the Kingdom of Northumbria, during AD 793 the Holy Island of Lindisfarne was raided. The simplest way to envisage the region is to imagine a line drawn between London and Chester in the north-west – everything to the east of that line was under the Danelaw. At the Battle of Edington, an army of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May AD 878, resulting in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year. This setback to the Viking forces gave the lands of Wessex enough time to begin to create a strong standing army and fortifications that would continue to stifle the Viking incursion. Peace, however, was brief. The Battle of Edington was a fierce battle in which King Alfred and his men drove back at the attacking Vikings, who surrendered. Battle of Ashdown - The Armies Collide: Though both armies were in place, neither appeared eager to open the battle. What happened when the Vikings invaded Wessex in AD 878? Chippenham was a royal court, Alfred’s home, and the pious King was celebrating Twelfth Night when Guthrum’s forces attacked, laying waste to everyone they found, unprepared, with many forces away for the yule period. The Saxon army spent the night before the battle at Iley Oak, just to the south of Warminster, before moving out at dawn to meet Guthrum, who was occupying high ground at Edington, then known as Ethandun, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. They afterward settled East Anglia, a region that came to be known as the Danelaw. Over the next five years, the invading Danes bloodily took hold of northern kingdoms including Northumbria and East Anglia, and at the start of 871 – ‘the year of nine battles’ – Æthelred suffered a humiliating defeat against them at Reading. Overturning this desperate state, and forging some kind of peace with the Danes, must surely be Alfred’s greatest achievement. In the 9th century, the Danes had been steadily invading England, pushing and prodding the Anglo-Saxon residents. He died in East Anglia after 12 years of relative peace. The yarn remains that, after the Danish successes of 878, when Alfred was fighting for his survival guerilla-style in the marshes around Athelney in the central Somerset Levels, he was taken in by a charitable peasant woman and offered shelter on the understanding that, while she went out to search for wood, he was to keep an eyes on the ‘cakes’ (actually some form of simple bread), which were baking by her fire. It would be wrong to depict the late 9th century as a time of peace and rebuilding – and ironically, it was the death of his old enemy Guthrum that caused the trouble, creating a power vacuum that a whole host of Danes were itching to fill. Alfred the Great: do we overplay his ‘greatness’. This increased force wasn’t just for defence either, but for raids on the Danes to fill the royal coffers. It seems the main reason for why the Vikings under Guthrim lost the battle of Edington was because the opposing forces were relatively evenly matched, and with the Saxons under King Alfred fighting on familiar ground, they therefore had the advantage. Battle of Edington Alfred defeated the Viking army and forced the leader, Guthrum, to accept baptism and peace terms. The Battle of Edington. The fact that he was short of supplies and to avoid starvation he did what was pretty much expected from him – he opted for an open battle. Previously, the Vikings had come to raid and settle around the coast; this force came to conquer. The battle was one of the bloodiest ever seen, with heavy losses on both sides. "Battle of Ethandune" -wikipedia, 544 hits, "Battle of Ethandun" -wikipedia 413 hits "Battle of Edington" -wikipedia 3770 hits.-- The battle that followed was fought in a place known as the Holme (‘island’) and was a catastrophe for almost everyone concerned. Guthrum had fled to his own stronghold, removing all food from them in a sortie. All heroic figures have to have nadirs to fight back from, adversity to overcome – and there’s a reason that the Saxon King Alfred is the only English ruler ever to be popularly known as ‘The Great’. For instance, DNA evidence shows that Derby residents still bear strong hereditary connections to Denmark. A nation in numbers: 100 years of British life in 7 statistics, Traitor or triple agent? The arrival of a Danish "great army" in East Anglia in 865 marked the start of a new phase of Viking attacks on Britain. Hi Andrew, there is no proof whatever that the Battle of Edington took place at or near Edington in Wiltshire. It may have been a real event, which survived locally through storytelling. Edward, perhaps realising the difficulties of the terrain, ordered a retreat, but the Kentish contingent refused the summons. At that point, Vikings long years of pagan religion ended, and they became Christians, same as English they were attacking. The WW2 spy Mathilde Carré. Everything you ever wanted to know about... Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, plus 7 more Viking myths busted, 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons. What Happened After Ragnar’s Death? However, at the present time, if I had to make a call on a specific location, I would go for Edington (Wiltshire) or the area around that settlement. 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