Alfred the Great – 9

That Alfred’s soul was on fire that morning, on finding himself once more at the head of a force he could rely on and before the enemy he had met so often, was obvious.

Continuing Alfred the Great’s Reign,
with a selection from Life of Alfred the Great by Thomas Hughes published in 1869. This selection is presented in 10.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Alfred the Great’s Reign.

Time: 871-901
Place: Wessex

There is no trace of any such speech in the Saxon Chronicle or Asser and the one reported does not ring like that of Judas Maccabaeus. That Alfred’s soul was on fire that morning, on finding himself once more at the head of a force he could rely on and before the enemy he had met so often, we may be sure enough but shall never know how the fire kindled into speech, if indeed it did so at all. In such supreme moments many of the strongest men have no word to say — keep all their heat within.

Nor have we any clew to the numbers who fought on either side at Ethandune or indeed in any of Alfred’s battles. In the Chronicles there are only a few vague and general statements, from which little can be gathered. The most precise of them is that in the Saxon Chronicle, which gives eight hundred and forty as the number of men who were slain, as we heard, with Hubba before Cynuit fort, in Devonshire, earlier in this same year. Such a death-roll, in an action in which only a small detachment of the pagan army was engaged, would lead to the conclusion that the armies were far larger than one would expect. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine how any large bodies of men could find subsistence in a small country, which was the seat of so devastating a war and in which so much land remained still unreclaimed. But whatever the power on either side amounted to we may be quite sure that it had been exerted to the utmost to bring as large a force as possible into line at Ethandune.

Guthrum fought to protect Chippenham, his base of operations, some sixteen miles in his rear and all the accumulated plunder of the busy months which had passed since Twelfth Night; and it is clear that his men behaved with the most desperate gallantry. The fight began at noon — one chronicler says at sunrise but the distance makes this impossible unless Alfred marched in the night — and lasted through the greater part of the day. Warned by many previous disasters the Saxons never broke their close order and so, though greatly outnumbered, hurled back again and again the onslaughts of the Northmen. At last Alfred and his Saxons prevailed and smote his pagan foes with a very great slaughter and pursued them up to their fortified camp on Bratton hill or Edge, into which the great body of the fugitives threw themselves. All who were left outside were slain and the great spoil was all recovered. The camp may still be seen, called Bratton Castle, with its double ditches and deep trenches and barrow in the midst sixty yards long and its two entrances guarded by mounds. It contains more than twenty acres and commands the whole country side. There can be little doubt that this camp and not Chippenham, which is sixteen miles away, was the last refuge of Guthrum and the great northern army on Saxon soil.

So, in three days from the breaking up of his little camp at Athelney, Alfred was once more King of all England south of the Thames; for this army of pagans, shut up within their earthworks on Bratton Edge, are little better than a broken and disorderly rabble, with no supplies and no chance of succor from any quarter. Nevertheless he will make sure of them and above all will guard jealously against any such mishap as that of 876, when they stole out of Wareham, murdered the horsemen he had left to watch them and got away to Exeter. So Bratton camp is strictly besieged by Alfred with his whole power.

Guthrum, the destroyer and now the King of East Anglia, the strongest and ablest of all the Northmen who had ever landed in England, is now at last fairly in Alfred’s power. At Reading, Wareham, Exeter, he had always held a fortified camp, on a river easily navigable by the Danish war-ships, where he might look for speedy succor or whence at the worst he might hope to escape to the sea. But now he, with the remains of his army, is shut up in an inland fort with no ships on the Avon, the nearest river, even if they could cut their way out and reach it and no hopes of reinforcements overland. Halfdene is the nearest viking who might be called to the rescue and he, in Northumbria, is far too distant. It is a matter of a few days only, for food runs short at once in the besieged camp. In former years or against any other enemy, Guthrum would probably have preferred to sally out and cut his way through the Saxon lines or die sword in hand as a son of Odin should. Whether it were that the wild spirit in him is thoroughly broken for the time by the unexpected defeat at Ethandune or that long residence in a Christian land and contact with Christian subjects have shaken his faith in his own gods or that he has learned to measure and appreciate the strength and nobleness of the man he had so often deceived, at any rate for the time Guthrum is subdued. At the end of fourteen days he sends to Alfred, suing humbly for terms of any kind; offering on the part of the army as many hostages as may be required, without asking for any in return; once again giving solemn pledges to quit Wessex for good; and, above all, declaring his own readiness to receive baptism. If it had not been for the last proposal, we may doubt whether even Alfred would have allowed the ruthless foes with whom he and his people had fought so often and with such varying success, to escape now. Over and over again they had sworn to him and broken their oaths the moment it suited their purpose; had given hostages and left them to their fate. In all English kingdoms they had now for ten years been destroying and pillaging the houses of God and slaying even women and children. They had driven his sister’s husband from the throne of Mercia and had grievously tortured the martyr Edmund. If ever foe deserved no mercy, Guthrum and his army were the men.

Thomas Hughes begins here. John R. Green begins here.

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