Alfred the Great’s Reign

This series has thirteen easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: The New King.

Introduction
Alfred the Great was the grandson of Egbert, King of the West Saxons, who during a reign of thirty-seven years consolidated in the Saxon heptarchy the seven Teutonic kingdoms into which Anglia or England had been divided, since the expulsion of the Britons by the Saxons about 585. In the latter part of Egbert’s reign the Danish Northmen appeared in the estuaries and rivers of England, sacking and burning the towns along their banks. Ethelwulf who had been made King of Kent in 828 and succeeded his father Egbert as King of Anglia in 837, was early occupied in resisting and repelling attacks along his coasts and by several successful pitched battles with the Danish invaders obtained comparative freedom from their visits for eight years. Ethelwulf had married Osburga, the daughter of Oslac his cup-bearer and had a daughter and five sons, of whom Alfred, the youngest, was born in 849. Part of Alfred’s childhood was spent in Rome. At Compiègne and Verberie among his playmates were Charles, the boy king of Aquitaine and Judith, children of the French king Charles the Bald. Judith at fourteen years of age became Ethelwulf’s second wife and when the old King died two years later, to the amazement and scandal of the nation married her stepson Ethelbald.

According to Ethelwulf’s will, Ethelbald became King of Wessex, Ethelbert, the second son, King of Kent, while Ethelred and Alfred were to be in the line of succession to Ethelbald. Ethelbald died in 860 and Judith returned to France, subsequently marrying Baldwin, Count of Flanders. Ethelbert as successor joined the kingdoms of Wessex and Kent. Alfred lived at the court of Ethelbert and became noted for the intelligence and studious activities which were to make his future reign the conspicuous epoch in English history, so brilliantly commemorated a thousand years after his death in 901, in the millenary celebrated in Winchester and its neighborhood in 1901.

Ethelbert died in 866 and was succeeded by Ethelred. In 868 Alfred married Elswitha, the daughter of Ethelred Mucil of Mercia. Meanwhile the Danes had resumed their predatory excursions and in the winter of 870-871 Ethelred accompanied by Alfred attacked them at Reading but after an initial victory was repulsed. Four days later, Ethelred and Alfred with their forces were attacked on Ashdown near White Horse Hill; after a heavy slaughter the Danes were out to flight. The Danes, however, reinforced by Guthrum with new troops from over the sea, within a fortnight resumed offensive operations and at Merton, two months later, Ethelred was mortally wounded. He died almost immediately after the battle and “at the age of twenty-three Alfred ascended the throne of his fathers, which was tottering, as it seemed, to its fall.”

The selections are from:

• Life of Alfred the Great by Thomas Hughes published in 1869.
• The Conquest of England by John R. Green published in 1883.

For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

There’s 10.5 installments by Thomas Hughes and 2.5 installments by John R. Green.

We begin with Thomas Hughes (1822-1896). He was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author.

Time: 871-901
Place: Wessex

The throne of the West Saxons was not an inheritance to be desired in the year 871, when Alfred succeeded his gallant brother. It descended on him without comment or ceremony, as a matter of course. There was not even an assembly of the witan to declare the succession as in ordinary times. With Guthrum and Hinguar in their intrenched camp at the confluence of the Thames and Kennet and fresh bands of marauders sailing up the former river and constantly swelling the ranks of the pagan army during these summer months, there was neither time nor heart among the wise men of the West Saxons for strict adherence to the letter of the constitution, however venerable. The succession had already been settled by the Great Council, when they formally accepted the provisions of Ethelwulf’s will, that his three sons should succeed, to the exclusion of the children of any one of them.

The idea of strict hereditary succession has taken so strong a hold of us English in later times that it is necessary constantly to insist that our old English kingship was elective. Alfred’s title was based on election; and so little was the idea of usurpation or of any wrong done to the two infant sons of Ethelred, connected with his accession, that even the lineal descendant of one of those sons, in his chronicle of that eventful year, does not pause to notice the fact that Ethelred left children. He is writing to his “beloved cousin Matilda,” to instruct her in the things which he had received from ancient traditions, “of the history of our race down to these two kings from whom we have our origin.” “The fourth son of Ethelwulf,” he writes, “was Ethelred, who, after the death of Ethelbert, succeeded to the kingdom and was also my grandfather’s grandfather. The fifth was Alfred, who succeeded after all the others to the whole sovereignty and was your grandfather’s grandfather.” And so passes on to the next facts, without a word as to the claims of his own lineal ancestor, though he had paused in his narrative at this point for the special purpose of introducing a little family episode.

When Alfred had buried his brother in the cloisters of Wimborne Minster and had time to look out from his Dorsetshire resting-place and take stock of the immediate prospects and work which lay before him, we can well believe that those historians are right who have told us that for the moment he lost heart and hope and suffered himself to doubt whether God would by his hand deliver the afflicted nation from its terrible straits. In the eight pitched battles which we find by the Saxon Chronicle (Asser giving seven only) had already been fought with the pagan army, the flower of the youth of these parts of the West Saxon kingdom must have fallen. The other Teutonic kingdoms of the island, of which he was overlord and so bound to defend, had ceased to exist except in name or lay utterly powerless, like Mercia, awaiting their doom. Kent, Sussex and Surrey, which were now an integral part of the royal inheritance of his own family, were at the mercy of his enemies and he without a hope of striking a blow for them. London had been pillaged and was in ruins. Even in Wessex proper, Berkshire and Hampshire, with parts of Wilts and Dorset, had been crossed and recrossed by marauding bands, in whose track only smoking ruins and dead bodies were found. “The land was as the garden of Eden before them and behind them a desolate wilderness.” These bands were at this very moment on foot, striking into new districts farther to the southwest than they had yet reached. If the rich lands of Somersetshire and Devonshire and the yet unplundered parts of Wilts and Dorset, are to be saved, it must be by prompt and decisive fighting and it is time for a king to be in the field. But it is a month from his brother’s death before Alfred can gather men enough round his standard to take the field openly. Even then, when he fights, it is “almost against his will,” for his ranks are sadly thin and the whole pagan army are before him, at Wilton near Salisbury. The action would seem to have been brought on by the impetuosity of Alfred’s own men, whose spirit was still unbroken and their confidence in their young King enthusiastic. There was a long and fierce fight as usual, during the earlier part of which the Saxons had the advantage, though greatly outnumbered.

John R. Green begins here.

More information here and here and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history