The fall of East Anglia left Wessex as the one Anglo-Saxon kingdom still standing. It had grown rapidly throughout the ninth century, absorbing Sussex, Essex and Kent, and becoming England's premier power. But it was fighting for its life now, struggling as best it could to hold and resist the Viking surge.
The Danes drove deep into the heart of Wessex, towards Reading and the Thames Valley. Aethelred the King engaged them there but was forced to pull back west to Ashdown. Battle was joined again, and Alfred, the King's brother, distinguished himself by leading the charge that won the encounter and brought temporary respite.
Aethelred died in the spring of 871 and Alfred was chosen to succeed him. Year after year, campaign after campaign, he soldiered on until the Danes turned their attention to Mercia and he was given some time to take stock. But they returned in a three-pronged attack – one army bearing down from the East, another closing in from the West, and a mighty fleet harrying the coast from the South. Exeter was captured and surrender seemed the only choice, but a storm rose up and smashed the Norse ships and subjugation was averted. Then in 878, on Twelfth Night when men were asleep, the Viking leader Guthrum seized the key town of Chippenham. Great slaughter ensued, with the Saxon leaders either killed or dispersed. The resistance was broken and the whole of England lay in the palm of the enemy's hand.
But Alfred was alive. He fled across the Somerset marshes to a patch of solid ground called Athelney. He built a hidden fortress there where loyalists could gather and plot the reconquest. Word spread, and thousands of Saxons crossed the marshland paths to rally to his standard. One March night a spy reported back (some said it was the King himself) and told how he had sneaked into Guthrum's camp and saw the Danes feasting day and night, using up their supplies because they assumed that Wessex was all washed up.
But Wessex was far from washed up. It was alive, awake, and ready to pounce. Alfred left his hide-out and rallied his troops at Egbert's Stone, high above the Wiltshire Downs. He proceeded to Ethandune, fifteen miles from Chippenham, where the Vikings marched out to meet him. But Alfred's men were irresistible, and they cut the foe to pieces, skewering the Danes on the points of their spears. They chased them back to their basecamp and laid siege for two weeks. When Guthrum saw his men start to die of hunger and gold he sued for peace, though without any hope, for he fully expected Alfred to take exact vengeance and order a massacre. So did the Saxons. But the King surprised everyone by presenting the enemy with food and drink instead of death by fire or sword.
Deeply moved by such clemency, Guthrum became a Christian and promised to permanently withdraw his forces from Wessex. Two years later, Alfred felt strong enough to reoccupy London, which had been pulverised by multiple Viking assaults, and repair its broken walls. The Danes were not expelled from England – they were too well-established by now for that – but they had to keep to the Danelaw, the land lying east of a line from Chester to Essex. They turned their talents to farming and trade, but their fighting ability was burned into Alfred's memory, and he could never rest easy. So like Carausius of old he constructed a fleet that would be able to handle any Viking naval revival. Forts were built all across Wessex and towns and villages made strong with earthen banks and wooden palisades.
Almost single-handedly then, Alfred remade and restructured the kingdom. Up and down he travelled, from one end of his realm to the other, personally participating in the work of reconstruction, learning new crafts in wood and stone, praising and encouraging, and giving jobs and roles to those who needed them. Wherever he went, he brought order, purpose, and direction. 'Unity and Coherence.' That was his motto and those were his watchwords. Where there had been chaos and dissipation before, now under Alfred there was clarity and a single point of focus and command.
Alfred's interests were wide and universal - law, language, literature, theology, geography, and astronomy. He revitalised the arts as much as he did the crafts. His reign was a Dreamtime for the English people – a cultural and political Book of Genesis – a fresh start and a new foundation, the fount and origin of modern English history. He replenished the springs, restoring old Songlines and singing new ones into being. He was a moulder and a shaper, a scholar and a saint. In his days and in his person, Christ's prophecy at the end of St. Mark's Gospel saw its fulfilment:
'And these signs shall attend those who believe. In my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak in new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. And they shall lay hands on the sick and the sick shall get well.'
God save the King 🏴