The Saxons Fight Back: Alfred and Aethelstan

The Vikings’ unfortunate victims came to believe that no one could get rid of them and to begin with, they were right. But in 871 a warrior named Alfred and his brother, Aethelred, King of Wessex, decisively defeated a Danish invasion at the Battle of Ashdown, in Berkshire. Aethelred died shortly after and Alfred succeeded to the crown. He was well aware that the Danes were determined to destroy Wessex and in 878 the Danes were back in force under their king, Guthrum.
Most modern Britons remember Alfred as the king who burned his hostess’s cakes. Yet he was the only English king ever to have been called ‘the Great’. He was a scholar and a law giver, a good administrator, an astute soldier, and the man who gave England a navy capable of tackling the Danes at sea. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he never devoted much time to cookery! After Ashdown, things went very badly for Alfred. The Danes forced him into hiding (where he burned the cakes), but he ran an effective guerrilla campaign gathering his strength all the time, and then fell on the Danes at Edington (in Wiltshire), inflicting so convincing a defeat that Guthrum asked for terms and promised to leave Wessex alone. Alfred didn’t trust the Danes and continued to build up his navy. He also established an early warning system based on beacons and set up local militias known as the fyrd that could be assembled quickly in an emergency.
In 886, following renewed Danish raids, Alfred drove the Danes out of London and gained territory north of the Thames. In 893 the Danes raided again, this time hoping to split Alfred’s forces with a seaborne landing on the south coast and an invasion from the north. The Saxons quickly blockaded the first landing, although some of the Danes managed to escape. Alfred and his son Edward the Elder defeated both invasion forces in fighting that ranged across southern and western England. Their grand plan may have been in tatters, but the Danes were unwilling to give up. In 895 they sailed up the river Lea, a tributary of the Thames east of London, in large numbers. Alfred responded by building two forts at the mouth of the river, which he blocked with a heavy boom.
Trapped, the Danes had to abandon their ships and scuttle back to the Danelaw on foot. In Alfred’s reign, the Saxons probably adopted some of the Danes’ methods of warfare, including fighting with axes from behind interlocked shields. Alfred died in 899, but Edward, his son and successor, continued his work. In 903, having repulsed a fresh Danish raid, Edward advanced deep into the Danelaw itself, inflicting one defeat after another. For years an almost permanent state of war existed, with the Saxons steadily gaining the upper hand.
Edward’s son Aethelstan did even better than his father. He recovered Mercia, threw the Danes out of York (their principal stronghold in the north), reconquered Northumbria, and campaigned successfully in Scotland and Wales, receiving the homage of their rulers. In 937 the resentful King Constantine III of Scotland attempted to halt Aethelstan’s runaway progress, but his army took a fearful hiding at the Battle of Brunanburgh

Viking invasion of Britain

Things had been looking rosy for the Saxons – they’d ousted the Britons from what was to become England (and the Saxons gradually became known as the English, too) and had carved the country up into several kingdoms. But that was not to last – in 789 the first Viking raid on England took place on the coast of Dorset. In 793 Vikings sacked the monastery on Lindisfarne, an island off the Northumbrian coast. The following year they raided the Scottish coast and the year after it was the turn of Ireland. Soon, raids were coming in thick and fast all round the coast of Britain, and the Vikings were establishing themselves on the Scottish islands. In 851 they sacked London and Canterbury, although on this occasion the raiders were caught and defeated. The year after marked the first Viking settlements in England. Viking was originally a Norse word describing a journey with lots of fighting, rape, and pillage along the way, although now it has become synonymous with those who took part in these activities. The Vikings came from all over Scandinavia. They were fine seamen and navigators who made voyages to Iceland, Greenland, and even to the North American coast. They also travelled deep into Russia along its great rivers. They made wonderfully intricate carvings and fine wooden buildings. But mostly we remember the Vikings as ferocious raiders and formidable warriors who employed shock and terror as psychological weapons.
In addition to the more usual weapons of sword and spear, the Vikings brought the terrible one- or two-handed fighting axe to the battlefields of Britain. As if that was not enough, they held a particular type of warrior, the berserker, in high esteem. Whether it was the joy of battle or simple blood lust, the berserker fought like a madman, hacking and killing regardless of his own wounds, until he either dropped dead or no one was left to kill. People avoided berserkers on the rampage if at all possible, even if they did add a
new word to everyone’s English dictionary. One element making the Vikings so dangerous was an understanding of strategic principles that had not been seen in Britain since Roman times. For example, when attacking a specific kingdom in force, they sometimes did so from different directions, forcing the defenders to split their resources. Some Vikings settled in territory they had overrun, others enjoyed the annual cycle of raiding. Such was their energy that even when they were defeated they kept coming back again and again. By 866 the Vikings, or Danes as they had become commonly known, had taken York and within eight years they had been able to conquer the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia. Everywhere north of Watling Street, running from London to Shrewsbury, was now known as the Danelaw, after the new owners.
In recent years some historians have attempted to rehabilitate the grizzly reputation of the Vikings by describing them as economic tourists seeking investment opportunities. It’s a point of view, but names like Eric Bloodaxe and Sven the Skullsplitter give us more than a hint about their business methods

The Tale of Unbeatable Offa

Militarily speaking, the eighth century was Mercia’s property. Mercia’s central position gave it what later strategists call interior lines (the ability to transfer troops from one frontier to another without leaving their own soil). This enabled the Mercian kings to throw their weight about in no uncertain manner.
Aethelbald of Mercia successfully invaded Wessex in 733 and Northumbria in 744. His cousin Offa won a violent internal struggle for the Mercian throne and, in a comparatively short reign ending in 769, made his mark not only on British but also on European history, being hailed as ‘brother’ by the Emperor Charlemagne and ‘King of the English’ by the Pope. He campaigned against everyone until of the old heptarchy only Wessex remained outside his direct rule.
Offa is best remembered for leaving his mark on the landscape in a way that no one since the Romans had done. His principal enemies were the Britons in Wales, who frequently raided across the border. To stop this Offa mobilised his subjects and set them to building a huge ditch and bank, topped by a fence, stretching all the way along the frontier from the Severn estuary to that of the Dee (roughly along the line of the modern border between England and Wales). Watchtowers equipped with beacons provided warning of an impending raid and the local communities mobilised to meet it. Most raids were for cattle, and even successful raiders were unable to drive them over the ditch. This ditch became known as Offa’s Dyke and much of it remains visible to this day.

Saxon timeline in Britain

One reason the Saxon invaders did not press on into the western extremities of the mainland was that the land was less fertile in these regions. Another was that they had established kingdoms of their own in the conquered territory and were too busy squabbling among themselves. There were seven such kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. The troubled seventh century saw the following military action take place as part of the on-going politicking:

• 606 Aethelfrith of Northumbria defeats a Scottish invasion.
• 615 Aethelfrith defeats the Britons at the Battle of Chester, separating the Britons in north Wales from their kinsmen in Cumbria.
• 617 Redwald of East Anglia defeats Aethelfrith of Northumbria. Edwin becomes the first Christian king of Northumbria. He defeats the Britons of North Wales.
• 633 An alliance consisting of the British king Cadwallon and Penda, the Saxon king of Mercia, defeats and kills Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase.
• 633 Oswald, Edwin’s successor, defeats and kills Cadwallon at the Battle of Rowley Water, driving the Britons right out of northwest England.
• 641 Penda defeats Oswald at the Battle of Maserfeld. He has Oswald tied to a tree and shot full of arrows. The site becomes the town of Oswestry.
• 654 Oswy, Oswald’s younger brother, defeats and kills Penda at the Battle of Winwaed.
• 685 Oswy’s successor, Ecgfrith, invades Scotland but is defeated and killed at the Battle of Dunnichen Moss. This battle ensured the independence of Scotland from the Saxons.

Dark Ages battles were very much rough-and-tumble infantry affairs with little or no tactical finesse. A commander was considered to have real ability if he occupied the high ground and secured both his flanks, both of which would be second nature to a modern commander.

The King Arthur Folktales

With the Saxons and their chums on the up (see the preceding section), the future looked wretched for the Romano-Britons. Few suspected that they were about to produce a leader of legendary fame. Yet little doubt exists that a Romano-British leader of real military ability did live at about this time. In the early part of the ninth century a monk named Nennius compiled a book called Historia Britonum. He drew on many earlier sources from all over England, Wales, and Ireland. He tells us that a certain Arthur became the Britons’ dux bellorum (war leader) and that he was the victor in 12 major battles against the Saxons; significantly, Nennius does not refer to Arthur as ‘king’. Of Arthur’s victories, Mount Badon, fought in AD 517 near Badbury in Wiltshire, is the best known and seems to have halted the Saxon advance for the better part of a generation. In all probability Arthur was a charismatic leader who managed to persuade other leaders from various parts of Britain that their only hope of survival lay in cooperation.

He probably created an alliance of equals, hence the reference to the Round Table that has filtered down the years. For an alliance between leaders in different parts of Britain, it made sense to form a strategic mounted reserve to deploy from one threatened area to another, particularly as the sites of Nennius’s 12 battles range across a wide area, including one fought in Scotland. This may be the original version of King Arthur’s knights. Nothing is certain, however, not even the name Arthur, for our sources rely on the misty realm of Welsh and Cornish folk memory. Following Arthur’s death in about AD 534 (at the hands of his blood relative, Mordred, according to legend), the Saxons renewed their inexorable advance across Britain. The Romano-Britons were forced steadily west until all they possessed were Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria, and Strathclyde. Small wonder that they spoke wistfully of Good King Arthur’s golden days and promised each other that one day he would return.

Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in Britain

When the Romans left at the start of the fifth century AD, the problems facing the Romano-Britons (Britons living in the Roman way after the legions left) were numerous:

• They lacked a central authority with the ability to raise taxes to use to establish a standing army.
• They did not agree on the best way to govern themselves.
• They were unable to defend themselves, after centuries of soft living under Roman protection.

Meanwhile, Saxons continued to raid at will and were joined by three more groups, the Angles from northwestern Europe, the Jutes from the Jutland peninsula, and the Picts from the north. The Romano-Britons had to do something very quickly. Among those who had risen to the top of the Romano-British pile was an influential leader named Vortigern. In about AD 450 he decided to invite two Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, to provide protection against the raiders in exchange for permission to settle in Kent. This was rather like asking professional criminals to look after the family silver. On arrival in Kent, Hengist and Horsa promptly reached the conclusion that life in Britain was good and that Britain was there for the taking. They invited large numbers of their chums to join them and turned on their hosts. But they encountered some resistance and in AD 455 the Romano-Britons killed Horsa at the Battle of Aylesford, on the river Medway.
Such isolated successes were too few to hold back the Saxon flood sweeping across southeastern England. The raiders eagerly stripped Romano-British towns of their riches and burned them down. Anyone unwilling to submit they killed or drove off their land, while the inhabitants of towns and villages took refuge in the ancient hill forts and made them defensible again. As farmers, the Saxons were not interested in towns save as a source of plunder. Consequently, the towns crumbled to ruins and even when quieter times returned, many centuries passed before they recovered anything like their original population.
By the end of the century, the Saxons controlled all of southeastern England. They already possessed Kent and their later acquisitions provided the names for future counties: Essex (the East Saxons); Middlesex (the Middle Saxons); and Sussex (the South Saxons). Add to this Surrey and Hampshire, the latter forming the basis of the powerful West Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and you can see how tight was the Saxon hold on the southeast of the island. Meanwhile, the Jutes had established themselves on the Isle of Wight and the Angles had taken over in what became Norfolk and Suffolk (respectively the North and South Folk).