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Alfred and the Danes
Alfred and the Danes; Part 3

Alfred and the Danes; Part 3

Ethelred and Alfred did not make a promising beginning. They tried to storm the Danish camp situated in the tongue of land between the Kennet and Thames, near Reading. The assault failed, and though the Danes, being emboldened by success to abandon their usual tactics and risk a battle in the open, were routed by Alfred at Ashdown, yet the English lost so many men that they were beaten at Basing, and again at Marden in Wiltshire, in which latter fight Ethelred was killed. He left children, but Alfred was chosen to succeed him. It was no time for a child on the throne. Alfred tried his luck once again at Wilton, but although his men at first forced the Danes back, yet they rallied and once more were victorious.

This was desperate fighting. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, "Nine battles were fought this year south of the Thames", and the balance of victories did not rest with Alfred. But though the English did not win the battles, yet they won the campaign, for in the next year the Danes, having no stomach for more of such bloody work, withdrew eastward and northward to regions where they met less stout foemen, and Alfred had a little breathing space.

In 877 the storm gathered afresh. In the depths of winter Guthrum and Hubba declared war. Guthrum swooped down on Alfred's royal town of Chippenham before Alfred could gather a force. The king himself, almost without followers, had to take refuge in the isle of Athelney, a marshy stronghold protected by the waters of the Tone and Parret. Never before or after were his fortunes at so low an ebb, but he did not despair. By degrees men joined him. He fell on the Danes at Ethandun (Edington), and drove them in headlong flight to their stockade. Here they were surrounded and starved into submission.

It would, no doubt, have been a more effective blow had the stockade at Chippenham been stormed. A crushing defeat might have struck such terror into the Danish counsels that they might well have judged it wise to leave Alfred alone for the future. But the risk of defeat was great, and it was not Alfred's policy. He no longer hoped to clear the Danes out from England altogether. To carry on war to the death might be attractive to a king, thirty years old, at the head of a victorious army. But Alfred never made war for his own glory. He was a statesman who looked to the good of his people. So he put aside glittering dreams of conquest, and was ready to allow the Danes to settle down in the north and east, provided they would be quiet neighbours. This is clear from the terms which he made with Guthrum.

The first condition was that Guthrum and his men should become Christians. Thus one great hindrance in the way of a peaceful union was removed; and, as the Danes were of much the same race as the English, spoke a kindred language, and had very similar institutions, there was no racehatred between the two, such as had prevented the Saxons and Britons from living together in amity. The Saxon had hated the Dane, not because he was a Dane, but because he plundered and robbed. When he gave up these habits he could be tolerated.

Alfred and the Danes; Part 3

Chronology