The Battle That Saved England - Saxons vs Vikings - Edington 878

0:05 It is the year 878, on a cold, windy spring afternoon,

0:10 in southern England, and the fate of an entire kingdom hangs in the balance.

0:14 King Alfred of Wessex had reigned for seven years

0:17 and found himself unable to drive the Vikings from his realm.

0:21 When the Danish warlord Guthrum ambushed him at Chippenham,

0:24 he fled for his life to the Somerset marshes.

0:27 It appeared that the last surviving English kingdom,

0:30 Wessex, was finally lost to the Vikings.

0:33 But now, after several months, Alfred had re-emerged from the marshes,

0:37 gathering his forces in the west.

0:40 He stood at the head of a vast army from Somerset, Wiltshire,

0:43 and Hampshire to put an end to Guthrum’s ambitions once and for all.

0:47 The Battle of Edington was about to begin.

1:32 In April 871, Alfred succeeded his brother, Æthelred, as the new King of Wessex.

1:39 The West Saxons had already suffered several defeats

1:42 at the hands of the Norsemen in battle.

1:45 And after Alfred failed again at the Battle of Wilton,

1:48 he paid their leader, Halfdan, to withdraw from Wessex.

1:51 Halfdan led his army back up the River Thames in the autumn.

1:55 Crossing from the kingdom of Wessex into Mercia,

1:58 he captured the great trading hub of London.

2:00 The wealthy town was a prize worth keeping.

2:04 However, in 872, messengers from the north brought bad news for Halfdan.

2:09 The Northumbrians were rebelling against Viking rule.

2:12 Their vassal king, Ecgbert, had been deposed at Bamburgh,

2:15 and Archbishop Wulfstan had been driven from his seat

2:19 at York for collaborating with the invaders.

2:21 So when King Burgred of Mercia offered to pay Halfdan to leave his kingdom,

2:26 the Viking leader quickly accepted and rode north with his army.

2:31 He arrived in 873, striking York

2:33 first before securing the surrounding countryside.

2:36 Yet the northern reaches of the kingdom,

2:39 centred on the coastal fortress of Bamburgh,

2:41 would remain in the hands of the Northumbrians.

2:46 Halfdan then moved his army to a new camp at Torksey,

2:49 Lincolnshire, in the far northeast of the Mercian kingdom.

2:52 From here, he could defend both York and East Anglia.

2:56 He also extracted a third danegeld peace payment from Burgred,

3:00 in return for not attacking the Mercian kingdom.

3:03 Burgred, now, on two occasions, had not even put up a fight against the Vikings,

3:08 and to Halfdan this was a great show of weakness.

3:11 So, the following year, in 874, he went back on his word and struck

3:16 a lethal blow at the heart of the Mercian kingdom.

3:20 He sailed down the River Trent, capturing Repton.

3:23 As the burial site of several Mercian kings,

3:25 it was an essential royal centre for the Mercians.

3:29 Yet King Burgred was caught off guard and unable

3:31 to raise an army large enough to repel the invaders.

3:35 The attack demonstrated Burgred’s inability to defend his subjects,

3:39 and he quickly lost the support of his nobles,

3:42 who were unwilling to pay a fourth danegeld.

3:47 Observing the fate of Edmund of East Anglia and the Northumbrian kings,

3:50 who fought against the Vikings and died, Burgred decided to abdicate his throne.

3:55 He fled across the Channel and spent his final days in Rome.

4:00 Mercia was now partitioned.

4:01 Halfdan took control of its eastern half,

4:04 joining up his territories in York and East Anglia.

4:07 While Ceolwulf, a prince from one

4:09 of the many branches of the Mercian royal family,

4:12 would rule over western Mercia.

4:15 It is much debated whether he was appointed by the Vikings

4:18 to govern on their behalf or supported by the ealdormen of western Mercia.

4:22 He was, however, very much at the mercy of Halfdan’s army.

4:26 To appease the Vikings, he allowed them to pass through his kingdom

4:30 and use his towns as military bases whenever they wished.

4:33 Wessex now stood as the last fully independent English kingdom.

4:40 After retaking York and chasing King Burgred into exile,

4:44 the great Viking army split up again.

4:46 Halfdan went north to rule York,

4:48 gifting Yorkshire’s farms and estates for his soldiers to settle upon.

4:53 Guthrum, meanwhile, took charge of the Vikings’

4:56 southern affairs from his fortress at Cambridge.

4:59 He would lead the war against Alfred

5:01 and attempt to finally conquer the Kingdom of Wessex.

5:04 He returned to Wessex in 876.

5:06 Marching south, he caught the West Saxons off guard

5:10 and led his army unopposed through the West Saxon heartlands.

5:14 He captured Wareham on the southern coast.

5:16 Here, a makeshift fortress was quickly built

5:19 to guard against the incoming West Saxon attack.

5:22 Alfred arrived at Wareham shortly after.

5:25 Yet, remembering the failed siege at Reading, he was more cautious this time.

5:30 Rather than attacking the fortress,

5:31 he offered a danegeld payment to secure Guthrum’s departure from Wessex.

5:35 While Guthrum was safe behind his walls,

5:38 he was surrounded by the West Saxons and would soon run out of food.

5:43 So he accepted Alfred’s offer.

5:45 However, this was merely a deception and part of Guthrum’s broader plan.

5:50 He had already secretly sent messengers to his followers in East Anglia.

5:54 They were ordered to sail around Kent,

5:56 along Wessex’s southern coast, and join his army in the west.

6:00 On the night the peace was agreed, Guthrum’s army abandoned Wareham.

6:03 Riding westward, they crossed into Devon

6:06 and captured the coastal town of Exeter.

6:09 Expecting his fleet to join him,

6:11 this would be the rallying point for a vast army.

6:16 And yet Guthrum’s fleet never arrived.

6:19 During their journey,

6:20 the Viking fleet was hit by a storm off the coast of Dorset.

6:24 It sank 120 ships, bringing Guthrum’s campaign to an end.

6:29 Once again, he was stranded in southern Wessex.

6:32 He was soon surrounded by Alfred’s army,

6:34 and without the support of his fleet, he was forced to sue for peace.

6:38 Guthrum agreed to leave Wessex and marched north into Mercia.

6:42 He would station himself at Gloucester, in the south of Ceolwulf’s kingdom.

6:47 As 877 drew to a close, Alfred withdrew to Chippenham.

6:51 After a year of pursuing and negotiating with Guthrum,

6:54 he could finally set aside the serious duties

6:57 of kingship and celebrate Christmas with his friends and family.

7:01 For the Anglo-Saxons, the Christmas festivities lasted 12 days,

7:05 from 25th December to 6th January.

7:08 For Alfred, this meant both attending the religious rituals of Christmas

7:12 at Chippenham and enjoying the festive feasting with his warriors.

7:19 Yet Guthrum was once again proven untrue to his vow of peace.

7:23 On the 6th January, the final night of celebrations,

7:26 under the cover of darkness,

7:28 he led his army south and ambushed Alfred at Chippenham.

7:32 With the English distracted, the town was easily captured.

7:35 Yet somehow, amid the chaos and violence, Alfred escaped.

7:40 With his family and a small troop of household warriors,

7:43 he fled westward into the night.

7:46 Without a standing army or time to make defensive arrangements,

7:49 Alfred now had to rush towards safety from Guthrum’s army.

7:53 He found refuge in the Somerset marshlands.

7:56 Surrounded by swamps, marshy islands, and bogland,

7:59 the large Viking army would have great difficulty chasing after him.

8:03 Guthrum would have to content himself

8:06 with consolidating his position in Wiltshire,

8:08 raiding nearby estates and villages and attempting

8:10 to win over the local aristocracy.

8:13 As in Mercia and Northumbria, some among the West Saxon nobility certainly

8:17 saw this as an opportunity for self-advancement.

8:20 The most prominent of these defectors was Wulfhere, Ealdorman of Wiltshire.

8:25 He allied with the invaders, perhaps hoping that Guthrum would appoint him King

8:29 of Wessex to govern on the Vikings' behalf.

8:32 The rest of the West Saxon nobility was now leaderless.

8:36 Many believed Wessex was a lost cause and fled to the continent,

8:40 but most returned to their estates,

8:42 hoping Guthrum would leave them alone and praying for Alfred’s return.

8:49 Still fearing Guthrum’s army,

8:51 Alfred would remain in the Somerset Marshes for several months.

8:55 It is this setting, a defeated wandering king seeking refuge in these idyllic,

9:00 peaceful wetlands, that gave rise to several myths about Alfred.

9:04 The most famous of these records the king travelling alone through the marshes,

9:08 disguising himself as an ordinary man for his own safety

9:12 when he was offered refuge at the home of a swineherd.

9:15 While his host was out working in the field,

9:18 his wife assigned Alfred several household chores,

9:20 including watching over the cakes she was baking.

9:24 Yet the king was lost in his own thoughts, dwelling on his failings as king.

9:29 Having lost track of time, the cakes burnt.

9:32 The swineherd’s wife furiously rebuked Alfred, telling him, "Look here, man,

9:36 you hesitate to turn the loaves which you see to be burning.

9:39 Yet you're quite happy to eat them when they come

9:42 warm from the oven." Rather than revealing his true identity,

9:45 Alfred humbly apologized and helped the woman with her baking.

9:52 First recorded more than a century after Alfred’s time in the marshes,

9:56 the story is probably not true,

9:58 yet it shows that future generations remembered the king for his humility.

10:03 In reality, Alfred likely spent most of this time hunting and fishing for food,

10:08 caring for his family, and writing to local landowners to secure their support.

10:13 Yet things were about to get much worse for Alfred.

10:16 To the west, another Viking fleet was active in southwest Wales.

10:21 Ubbe, the brother of Ivar and Halfdan, had been raiding the Kingdom of Dyfed.

10:25 Now– perhaps in alliance with Guthrum– he crossed the Bristol Channel.

10:31 With 23 ships and 1200 warriors, Ubbe landed on the northern coast of Devon.

10:36 From here, he hoped to trap Alfred between

10:38 himself in the west and Guthrum to the east.

10:42 However, the local nobleman, Ealdorman Odda of Devon, remained loyal to Alfred.

10:46 He gathered a small army at Countisbury and fought with Ubbe’s forces.

10:51 During the battle, Ubbe’s famous Raven banner was captured,

10:54 and the Viking leader was killed in the fighting.

10:56 800 of the invaders died with him,

10:59 and a small group of survivors fled to their ships.

11:03 This victory gave Alfred and the West Saxons

11:06 hope that they could gradually begin to fight back.

11:09 As winter turned to spring, Æthelnoth, Ealdorman of Somerset,

11:13 arrived to his aid in the marshes.

11:15 He provided troops, supplies, and knowledge of the local landscape.

11:19 By Easter 878, they had built a fortress

11:23 on an island in the marshes, known as Athelney,

11:26 meaning “The Isle of the Princes.” This would serve

11:29 as their base of operations for the first stage of the fightback.

11:35 Alfred did not yet have the numbers to confront Guthrum directly.

11:39 Instead, he began to wage a guerrilla war.

11:42 Leading small groups of Somerset warriors,

11:44 Alfred would disrupt Viking supply lines, ambush small raiding parties,

11:47 and plunder the estates of the West Saxons who had sided with Guthrum.

11:52 With each attack, he let it be known that the king

11:55 still lived and still expected loyalty from his subjects.

11:58 By the beginning of May,

12:00 he was confident enough to finally leave the safety of the marshland.

12:04 With a small but growing army, he began marching east towards the Vikings.

12:09 He sent messengers to landowners in Hampshire, Somerset, and Wiltshire,

12:13 demanding that every man capable of bearing arms join his army.

12:17 The rallying point on the Somerset-Wiltshire border was

12:20 Ecgbert’s Stone– a monument built to honour Alfred’s grandfather,

12:24 King Ecgbert, and a reminder of his own lineage.

12:27 A contemporary biographer of the king, Bishop Asser,

12:31 described the reaction of the West Saxon soldiers upon Alfred’s arrival:

12:35 “When they saw the king, receiving him as if one restored

12:38 to life after suffering such great tribulations,

12:40 they were filled with immense joy.” Now supported by the armies of Hampshire,

12:46 Somerset, and Wiltshire, many of which had abandoned their traitorous lord,

12:50 Wulfhere, Alfred was ready to face the Vikings.

12:53 Guthrum, meanwhile, left Chippenham to meet Alfred’s army.

12:57 Both leaders knew this would be a single

12:59 decisive battle to decide who would rule Wessex.

13:05 The next day, Alfred continued his march east, crossing into Wiltshire,

13:09 and set up camp near the village of Warminster.

13:12 Alfred’s scouts had informed him of how close the Vikings were.

13:16 He now knew that tomorrow he would fight for the survival of his kingdom.

13:21 The army awoke at dawn and continued its march.

13:24 After several hours,

13:25 they spotted Guthrum’s banners near the royal estate of Edington.

13:29 It had been seven years since the fateful year of 871,

13:33 when Guthrum arrived in England, and Alfred had become king.

13:36 The two men would now, for the first time,

13:39 fight one another as the sole leaders of their armies.

13:43 We know little about the size of each army,

13:46 though it is estimated that they were similar in size,

13:49 perhaps between 2,000 and 3,000.

13:53 As the two sides drew closer, they formed their ranks, preparing for the battle.

13:58 Alfred ordered his army to form a shield

14:01 wall– a long line of shields locked together.

14:03 As they slowly moved towards one another, they exchanged war chants,

14:07 insulting their enemies and calling on their gods for aid.

14:11 When they came within range, arrows and javelins flew between the two sides,

14:15 lodging themselves into shields, armour and flesh.

14:18 Then came the final push as the two frontlines clashed.

14:22 The Viking army hurled itself against the West Saxon shield wall.

14:27 Armed with axes, swords and spears, they hacked, jabbed and slashed,

14:31 trying to smash shields and find gaps in the wall.

14:35 Alfred fought bravely on the frontlines, as expected of an Anglo-Saxon leader.

14:43 The battle continued late into the day, with both sides sustaining heavy losses.

14:48 Only after several hours of fighting did the discipline

14:51 of Alfred’s shield wall prevail over the Viking army.

14:54 Unable to break through and with casualties mounting,

14:58 Guthrum ordered a full retreat.

15:00 He led his warriors northward to his base at Chippenham.

15:03 But the town was 15 miles from Edington,

15:05 and his army was pursued all the way into the night by Alfred’s troops.

15:10 Guthrum was safe at Chippenham for the time being.

15:13 But Alfred swiftly followed him, killing the soldiers,

15:15 horses and cattle he found outside the town’s walls.

15:20 Chippenham was surrounded by the River Avon on three sides.

15:23 As Alfred set up his camp to the south,

15:25 just outside Chippenham’s front gates, there was now no way out for Guthrum.

15:30 His supplies were dwindling,

15:31 he was cut off from his allies to the north, and completely isolated.

15:38 Alfred did not need to attack Chippenham’s walls.

15:41 He would patiently wait for Guthrum’s food to run out.

15:44 And thus, after two weeks, Guthrum sent a messenger to the West Saxon camp.

15:50 He begged Alfred to allow him and his men to leave Wessex,

15:53 promising never to return.

15:55 Alfred had won.

15:56 But he now had to decide what to do with his defeated foe.

16:00 Guthrum had already broken peace treaties twice,

16:03 so he was not a man Alfred could trust.

16:06 In Alfred’s view, Guthrum’s deceitfulness

16:08 derived directly from his pagan beliefs.

16:11 Thus, there was only one solution that would

16:14 allow him to trust his opponent’s promise of peace.

16:17 Thus, he offered to let Guthrum live

16:19 and return to the Viking-settled lands in the east,

16:22 on condition that he renounce the pagan gods Odin,

16:25 Thor, and Freya and convert to Christianity.

16:28 Only then, as a fellow Christian prince,

16:32 could Alfred trust him to keep the peace with Wessex.

16:35 With no alternative, Guthrum agreed.

16:38 Three weeks later, the two leaders

16:40 rode west back toward the Somerset marshlands.

16:43 Alfred had chosen a church in the village of Aller,

16:46 near Athelney, for the baptism.

16:48 This was perhaps where Alfred had prayed during his exile,

16:51 and it was a symbolic reminder of the events of the previous months.

16:56 In early April, Guthrum entered the small church,

16:58 packed with the nobles of Wessex,

17:00 who had come gleefully to witness his surrender to their faith.

17:04 Leading a troop of his 30 most trusted advisors and generals,

17:08 who were to join their ruler’s new faith,

17:11 Guthrum approached the altar, kneeling at the feet of the church’s priest,

17:15 who was flanked by King Alfred and Ealdorman Æthelnoth.

17:21 Guthrum affirmed that he “renounced the devil and all

17:24 his works” and declared his belief in “God the Father,

17:27 Son and Holy Spirit.” The priest then sprinkled holy water across

17:32 his forehead and dressed him in a white robe as he rose,

17:35 a sign of his newly found Christian purity.

17:39 Alfred stood as Guthrum’s godfather,

17:40 a symbol of both his friendship with and superiority over his former enemy.

17:46 To mark his transformation from a pagan warlord to a Christian king,

17:50 he was given a new name, Æthelstan.

17:53 The party of West Saxons and Danes then travelled to the village of Wedmore.

17:58 Here, Alfred and Guthrum feasted together, exchanged gifts,

18:01 and agreed on the final terms of a new peace treaty,

18:04 known as the Treaty of Wedmore.

18:09 Guthrum then collected his army at Chippenham

18:11 and moved north of the West Saxon border,

18:14 first to Cirencester and then the following year,

18:16 east to East Anglia, where he would rule as king.

18:20 It is questionable how seriously Guthrum took his conversion.

18:25 He did, after all, have no choice if he wished to live.

18:28 However, the coins he minted as King of East

18:31 Anglia bore the name 'Æthelstan' rather than 'Guthrum'.

18:34 This suggests that, even when he was far beyond Alfred’s reach,

18:38 he continued to present himself publicly as a Christian.

18:42 He and Alfred would work to maintain this imperfect

18:45 peace as best they could for the following decade,

18:48 and their close diplomatic relations continued until Guthrum’s death in 890.

18:55 Alfred had saved Wessex.

18:57 Had he been defeated at Edington,

18:59 the last English kingdom would almost certainly have fallen.

19:03 But he could now look to the future and was

19:06 determined to ensure that something like this could never happen again.

19:10 In our next episode, we will look at how Alfred reformed Wessex’s defences,

19:15 expanded his influence beyond his kingdom’s

19:17 borders and dealt with future Viking attacks.

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