The rise of Alfred the Great

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. We've got the second installment today of our four-part Sunday series exploring the Viking Great Heathen Army, as Dr Eleanor Baraklough tells James Osborne about the rise of a figure whose name has become famous down the centuries – Alfred the Great. As it became clear that the Vikings' Great Heathen Army had no intention of leaving Anglo-Saxon How did the Anglo-Saxons respond and how did this land's fate fall into the hands of Alfred the Great? I'm James Osborne and in this second episode of a four-part series on the Viking invasion of Anglo-Saxon England in the late 9th century, I'm joined by historian Dr Eleanor Baraklough to discuss the Anglo-Saxon lands that fell victim to the Vikings and the rise of the man who would become Alfred the Great. Eleanor, we should probably begin this episode by talking about the land that this Great Heathen Army has actually landed at. What is the Anglo-Saxon context at this time? Culturally, socially, politically, religiously and for ordinary people. Ooh, okay. So let's start at the top. We can look at the overall structure. By this point, pretty much there's four main independent kingdoms. There's smaller ones hanging on or sort of, but for the most part, the north we've got Northumbria, in the east we've got East Anglia, across the west and south we've got Wessex and in the middle we've got Mercia. So that's our basic pattern. And at this point, Mercia has been dominant for quite a long time, but Wessex is on the rise. And again, Northumbria has had its moments and maybe slightly less so now, but that's the basic structure, which is sort of important to picture. Coming down a level, we're talking maybe somewhere between half a million and a million people are living in these various kingdoms that make up what we call Anglo-Saxon England at the moment. For each of those kingdoms, for the most part, again, hugely simplifying, but we've got a king and then we've got the royal family, but then we've got the elder men, so sort of the king's chief advisors and they partly form what is called a witton, which is basically the council. They come together to advise the king. And then under that, we've got the local lords, the landowners, and they basically are responsible for the great, mostly unwashed masses, but we're talking about free, peasant, agricultural labourers, and then we're talking about enslaved people as well. And estimates are sort of maybe as much of quarter of the population was enslaved. And that's really important to remember because sometimes when we're talking about this period, and partly because the Vikings are very much heathen and associated with slavery, we tend to forget that that is also true of Christian kingdoms and it's certainly true of Anglo-Saxon England. For most people, we're talking rural lives, lived on farmsteads where you have the livestock in enclosures and you have very intensively cultivated lands directly around the farmstead and then bits further afield that you know you can take your animals for grazing and so on. That's what most people are doing. Most buildings are made from wood, churches and monasteries are the big structures, they're more likely to be stone, but it's not at that point yet where every locality has its own church, it's not that sort of parish system that comes in later at this point. So it's more dispersed than that. Then we can think about there are some trading sites, a trading site was called a witch, we can WIC, we can see that still places like Ipswich for example, but in the ninth century, although these are royal for the most part, they're royally controlled, they're in decline and part of the reason so many of them seem to be going through a tough time is because of the Viking raids, but it's still really important to remember that they're there. In terms of everyday life for people, it's sort of fairly nasty, brutish and short. Obviously, childbirth for women is particularly dangerous. Child mortality is certainly higher than now, it's pretty high. Life expectancy, I think it's possibly higher than it was say in the industrial revolution, but it's still sort of significantly lower than it is today. The age of legal responsibility seems to be around 12. That gives us a sense of some of the parameters we're working within. That's scary, 12 year olds having legal responsibility over there. Well, for the most part in the law code, if they've killed someone, are they responsible for that? Let's hope not too many people had to have to sort of answer to the law in that respect. But yeah, certainly childhood was again, yet nasty, brutish and short as far as it existed. So this is actually a highly stratified hierarchical society, deeply embedded with its religious beliefs and that religious belief is Christianity. Very much so. And that's why it's so important when we look at the source material about the Vikings from whatever period, going back to those first early raids at the end of the 8th century, certainly into the period where the great heathen army that Hathenhera is arriving, that sense of their heathenism is what sets them apart. That's also true on the continent. Again, the Frankish Empire is very Christian. And so that sense of the Scandinavians or the Norse being other because they're not Christian is a really important part of their identity. I think to some extent from both sides, but certainly from the Christian perspective. I think it's really interesting because that word heathen, these Vikings who are coming over there and we've described as like these unintelligible aliens, but actually beyond that word heathen, these two cultures, the Anglo-Saxons and the broader Norse world, actually pretty similar, aren't they? I mean, they both came to exist in a post Roman context. They both have very Germanic links. You had Anglo-Saxon paganism before it was Christianized. These are actually very intertwined cultures in many, many ways. Yeah, exactly. And you just have to look at the languages. So the general idea is that although they are distinct Germanic languages, they're still very much both Germanic languages. And I think I remember someone saying it would be a case of for communicating it's sort of some grunts and some hand gestures and some pointing, but basically you would be able to understand each other to a certain degree. And from the Anglo-Saxon perspective, they are very aware of their origins in what is now Denmark and northern coastline of continental Europe. They're very aware of that's where they came from in the centuries following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. So those connections are still there. And perhaps the most famous example of those connections, culturally speaking, is the Old English poem Beowulf. And Beowulf, of course, is completely Old English, the first lines in a white way, Gardena in yardar gum theod kyning trumjefrinnon. But it's talking about the Danish context because the whole poem is set, that Gardena is Speerdains, it's set in Denmark and Sweden. And so there's very, we don't quite know when that poem was written. There's some debates, the manuscript is from later, but it's how far does that story go back, how far is it in Britain? But it certainly seems to be pre Great Heathen army arriving. And so we have that sense of, exactly as you say, culturally distinct peoples, yes, but also very much culturally connected peoples. They've also been trading for a long time. This isn't just who on earth are these people just tipping up. We didn't even know that there was anything on the other side of the North Sea. It's not that at all. There are connections going way back. You mentioned Beowulf and Beowulf makes me think of burial mounds. And I think a really good example of the fact that these two cultures are so linked and interconnected is they both love burial mounds. Sutton Who is this amazing symbol of Anglo-Saxonism. It's very Viking in a way. Yeah, exactly. And look at that famous helmet from the famous burial mounds, possibly Radwald. Radwald is a king. This is very much pre the period we're talking about. About 200 years. Yeah, exactly. And it's the cusp of conversion. And the story goes that he very much, he had an altar to both types of gods. He's hedging his bets there. But that helmet, which is today in the British Museum, which is so iconic, the nearest parallels for that are in Sweden and in Scandinavia more generally. And so, yeah, exactly that. There are strong connections at all levels as well. So, you know, there we're talking kingship, but we're also talking just normal traders that are moving across these different coastal regions too. So before the Anglo-Saxons had Christianized and formally become Christians, it seems like they are just so similar, so almost identical in many, many ways. Yeah, the religion thing is a really interesting one because we have, relatively speaking, and certainly compared to the Nordic model, we have so little that we can actually piece together about pre-Christian religion in Anglo-Saxon culture. But certainly, yeah, there seems to be, for example, similarities in the types of gods there are. Woden. Yeah, exactly. And even you have some stranger later texts that seem to embed bits of those stories that we know much more readily from the Old Norse mythological text, you know, this idea of, you know, the nine knights that Odin is hanging on the tree, gets wisdom. Those things, there's just these little hints of a version of that that's certainly in Anglo-Saxon England together with things like runes, you know, which again, very sort of North Germanic script, which goes back to at least the second century. It's there in England, it's there in Scandinavia and further afield. So that's why the word heathen in the Great Heathen Army, that's why that's such an imperative word because when the Great Heathen Army arrives, that's what they're seeing as one of the major differences. When it arrives, it lands in East Anglia in 865, and East Anglia is under the rule of a king called Edmund. How does Edmund initially deal with this massive influx of Vikings who've just crossed the sea? So, I mean, to be fair to him, it doesn't say specifically King Edmund gave them horses, but certainly the East Anglians give them horses and it looks like they basically pay them off to keep them quiet. And that makes sense, doesn't it? Because that is how they've been dealing with these Viking raids up until this point. And, you know, I guess they don't know at this point that they're here to stay. No, no, no, exactly. So that makes sense. Exactly. And there's evidence later that it seems, you know, it's like even Alfred, when we get to Alfred, he at some point makes peace with them. And again, the most likely way he did that is to pay them to leave. We see this going on and on. This is still going on by the time we get to sort of the end of the 10th century. It completely makes sense. It's a form of kidnapping, essentially, except what you're holding to ransom is the land in a way. So, yeah, so they make peace. And then the following year, they've got these lovely horses now, and then they've got their ships, they travel north and they get to York in the Kingdom of Northumbria. And at that point, Northumbria is in a bit of trouble. And you remember, it was a bit like, you know, we said, sort of on the continent, the point where there's political turmoil, or sort of internal divisions, the Vikings are really good at taking advantage of that. And in the case of the Northumbrian kings, there's two, there's Osbert and Allah, and they're fighting for control. And what that means is that they don't come together until the following, I think, spring to actually mount a strategically coherent defense against the Vikings, by which point, it's basically too late. And so those two Northumbrian kings get wiped out, they get replaced with what seems to be a puppet king. This is a really interesting change as well. This idea, and they've sort of seen, so the Franks, or the Carolingians, they've done this to the Vikings, or at least to the Scandinavians, they've at points earlier in the 9th century, tried to install puppet kings to make sure that they have some control, for example, in Denmark. And the Vikings are saying, oh, this works quite well, we're going to try this in England. And so they've got their puppet king there. From there, they come down from Northumbria, into the Kingdom of Mercia. Once again, they sort that out, they winter in Nottingham, and then by 869, they're back in East Anglia. Now, poor King Edmund probably hoped that he'd seen the last of this great heathen army, and he most definitely had not. What happens then, it's a little hard. So the Anglican Saxon Chronicle, and I think Assar as well, who later writes the Life of King Alfred, such an important sorceress, basically say that King Edmund is killed, I think in battle is the assumption. So he doesn't try and buy them off this time. This time, they've come back, and he decides, okay, this isn't going to work. Just giving them horses, money isn't going to work. It's only going to empower them. They've just been up to Northumbria, destroyed, well, I say destroyed. They've just been up to Northumbria. No, they have destroyed. Yeah, absolutely. York is wrecked. Come back down, and he realizes, okay, oh dear, I'm actually going to have to deal or try to deal with this. Exactly. So they've overwintered in Thetford, which again is very strategically significant. It's where, you know, Boudicca's a lot, the Iassunai, that's where they go as well. That's a really important place from which to launch attacks, and so they're not playing around now. And you do get this sense throughout this period that there's this sense that from the Anglo-Saxon perspective, it's almost like, hey, that's not fair. You're not meant to do, that's not the rules. And that very much is that you see, for example, there's this tendency for them to attack on Christian religious festivals, like Christmas, for example, happens later on. So for Edmunds, yes, I can imagine there's probably a sense of, oh, I gave you horses and money. This is poor behavior. Yeah, this is not sporting. And so what happens, unfortunately, is he's killed. Now, having said that, the latest story that develops about the death of St. Edmund as he then becomes, and the fact that he then becomes a saint is really significant in how this story develops. This is sort of late 10th century. So we're talking over a century later in the life of St. Edmund by Abo of Flurry in France. He spent some time in Ramsey, sort of in East Anglia. And the story he tells is that Edmund is tied to a tree. He's shot all through with arrows until he looks like a hedgehog. Shades of St. Sebastian here. I'm just saying there is definitely this hagiographical bigging up of this death. And then the story goes, from there, they cut his head off, they throw it into a wood, a wolf finds it, it's guarding the holy head. Everyone's trying to find the head. It sounds real to me so far. Right, I know. What could possibly be embellished with this? And then as the holy head hunters are trying to find the head of St. Edmund as he will be, they hear, hick, hick, hick, which is Latin for here, here, here. And there is the head shouting, here I am. And so, yeah, there's this very much this sense of a story that is growing in the telling. Having said that, and there's a couple of other times where this happens, where stories are obviously, you know, not history in the sense that we would understand history, but maybe have deeper roots than we might think. A bit like we talked about the Blood Eagle in the last episode, where again, it's, we don't quite know what the kernel of truth is. The same is true here, because there is a suggestion that this is actually local oral traditions that go back to certainly sort of the core, you know, a good few decades. And so, you know, who knows what's going on in that telling, which bits of this are true, which bit we let's assume not the head shouting, you know, to the people who are trying to find it. But certainly, there is a story there. And what's interesting about that story is that when we come to the point where East Anglia is being ruled by basically the leader of the, well, one of the leaders of the great Viking heathen army, Gudrum, after that time, the leaders that follow him, the kings that follow him, are also very invested in that story. And so, that becomes a very important part of local East Anglian identity. If you go to Ely Cathedral today, it's one of the chapels, sort of, if you go in, sort of near the octagon, this amazing sort of tower in the middle, chapel to the left, if you go there, you can actually see medieval wall painting of the death of St. Edmund, which is still there on the wall all these years later. It's really important. I think the reason why Edmund's story is so important within this broader story is that, because he's almost the starting point for this invasion, they arrive at East Anglia. He enables them by giving them all this stuff that he thinks is going to make them go away, but actually, they just come back, obviously, for more. And- Stray cat syndrome. Exactly, stray cats. And I think there's something, maybe this is just me, but I find something darkly amusing about that. It just seems naive. And I think it really typifies the fact that the Anglo-Saxons, they just weren't able to deal with this new type of Viking threat. Yeah, exactly. And that's true. And I think how we judge that, sort of retrospect is a wonderful thing, isn't it? You can look back and you can see this didn't work. This is what happened. But the fact is, exactly as you say, they're not set up for these sorts of surprise attacks, but also this overwintering where it's relentless. It's there and they are throughout that winter because they're having to get local supplies and everything. It's like this attrition on the local communities. It's almost like they just don't know how to deal with it. And when we get to Alfred, obviously, we'll see, yes, it works for Alfred, but there are so many points in his story where it almost didn't work in the same way that actually possibly it could have worked for King Edmund. There are so many sliding doors points in the history of this period. The world moves fast. You work day, even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more at microsoft.com slash n365 copilot. When I'm thinking about why the Vikings were able to just storm through these kingdoms, it's partly because, as you mentioned, they're not united. There is a degree of internal disruption in these places like in Northumbria, where it's ruled by divided people. Also, I wonder to what extent these people have come across from harder lands, I guess England, Anglo-Saxon England, at this point, by comparison, is quite mild, even in the winter. You compare that to a Norwegian winter. I wonder if that difference plays any role in why they were able to subjugate these lands so easily. No, it's a really good thought. Yes, only when you think of overwintering, it's absolutely, my Norwegian friends think it's absolutely hilarious. I'll say, look, we've had half an inch of snow, and then we'll see that half inch will raise you three feet. No, this is not. There is that sense of, yeah, I think what they could survive over the winter is probably different. There's also that other factor that, although, yes, they are Scandinavian for the most part, not all, but in terms of their origins and their upbringing, many of them have come from previous campaigns of this sort. That really gives them the upper hand, because, of course, for example, when they were on the continent or when they were in the Mediterranean, whatever it might be, again, they're dealing with the element of surprise, but all the time they're learning. Once again, when it comes to England, it's usually the element of surprise, but they've already seen what works. I guess the average member of this Norse population is just militarised in a way that the Anglo-Saxon farmers aren't. They're just farmers, whereas the Norse farmers, they're also Vikings. It's certainly the ones that are coming over. There's probably plenty of Norse farmers who are like, no, you go and enjoy that. I will stay here and I will mine the sheep. Thank you very much. But certainly, exactly, if you are over here in your longships as part of this warband, by definition, yet you are likely to be battle-hardened, or if you haven't already been, you are likely to become so very quickly. There's also, exactly as you say, there is an issue. It's not like Anglo-Saxon England or the various kingdoms could not be violent places to live in, absolutely no, there's a lot of violence. But in terms of how defence is set up, and we see this with Wessex and Alfred, it's not designed for this sort of warfare, because basically, you have to cool up your army. There's no standing army. That comes with Alfred. That's a really important point that by the time you've assembled your forces, we've called them off their farms, it's too late. The attacks already happened. And so this sense, exactly as you say, of this ability, they are so movable. They are so fluid, literally fluid often because they're on the waterways. This is the key to their success. Okay. So these Vikings, they've landed 865. They've gone up, they've come back down. And at this point, they've been in Anglo-Saxon England for a handful of years, and they have managed to take and control so much territory just through this new form of warfare that Anglo-Saxon England just isn't equipped to deal with. At this point now, they are looking at Wessex as, in the words of Bernard Cornwell, the last kingdom. This is the last major Anglo-Saxon kingdom standing. What's at stake at this moment when it is just Wessex alone? Everything. I think it's really hard to talk about this period without feeling like you're being hyperbolic or over-dramatic. But the fact is, as we say, we've seen in very quick succession here over a couple of years, we've seen the deaths of three kings already at the hands of this world. This is a big deal. This isn't sort of, oh, these are some nasty raiders and they'll go off again. It's like, oh, no, you are toppling kingdoms. You are cutting off, literally cutting off the heads of these kingdoms. This change in strategy and tactics in goals, which is much more about the control, which means that for Wessex, this is a big deal, because they're not just after loot. They are after loot, sure, but they're not just after loot. They are, to all intents and purposes, after the kings themselves. That's why Alfred ultimately becomes such a major figure of resistance, because for him it is, it's literally a matter of life and death. The way we can compare that is to look at, for example, that early first raid on Lindisfarne, 793. After that raid, Alcuin, who's Anglo-Saxon, but he's living at the court of Charlemagne, he's writing to the King of Northumbria saying, this is absolutely awful. What just happened, but it's not like the king himself is seen to be in any danger. This is of a different magnitude. So the Vikings are on the border of Wessex now, and as you just outlined, there is a lot at stake at this moment. Being at Wessex brings us to Alfred. Listeners will know him as Alfred the Great. He actually wasn't known as Alfred the Great in his own time. That was imposed on him much later down the line, centuries after. He was just Alfred of Wessex or King Alfred. So do you think that's how we can call him? I think that's very fair. And to be honest, for a long time, up to 871, he's just Alfred because he was born the youngest of, I think, five brothers and a sister or something. And so there's not this sense that he is, because of his birth order, destined for greatness. That idea of the Great comes later on. It's also implied, I think, in the source material, particularly Assa's life of King Alfred and also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. But we have to remember that these are written very much with Alfred and his achievements and his glorification in mind. So I think just plain Alfred will do for now. Just plain Alfred. And those two sources you just mentioned, Assa's biography of Alfred and Assa is a Welsh monk who comes into Alfred's court and they're probably buddies to some extent. He writes this glowing biography of Alfred praising him and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that was commissioned under Alfred. So these two sources that we've got for him and his life, then, yeah, they're fairly biased perhaps, aren't they? This is it. And it really depends on what angle you take here. I've seen the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example, described as propaganda, wartime propaganda, which makes sense. But at the same time, maybe it's a question of degrees because I think it would be very hard to take away from Alfred's very substantial and important achievements. Maybe it's a question of, are there other important figures? I wouldn't even necessarily say equally important figures, but are there important figures whose biographies here, whose achievements, whose contributions to what's going on at this point, might be slightly blurred or slightly pushed to the edges? That's possible. Certainly with Assa, Assa is writing this biography of King Alfred. Almost it is sort of in the style of the great Carolingian Frankish king biographies that are written on the continent. So, you know, there's definitely a blueprint and that blueprint is big up your king. At the same time, he's also, I think, writing with one eye on the sort of Old Testament kings. And so that religious aspect of Alfred is very much sort of just tweaked up slightly, we might say. Having said that, there would be plenty of others who argue that to label the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for this period, you know, what's being talked about as wartime propaganda is unfair. I don't think I have a particular dog in the fight. I think it's tricky, but we just have to remember that no source ever comes to us without a motive or at least a perspective. So, we've talked about his name, the great. We've talked about the sources from which we can learn about his life. We've talked around him. Who actually is Alfred? What is his context? He is embedded in Wessex beyond that. Yeah. So, Alfred is born in 849, Wantage, and he is the youngest son of the royal house of Wessex. Now, that's actually more incredible than it looks, because for the last 200 years or so, Wessex has tended to be the sort of younger sibling between them and the kingdom of Mercia to the north, that sort of middle kingdom that's going on. But there's been a shift, and that shift really comes with Alfred's grandfather, Edgbert. Now, we're going to hear his name again because of a stone that is associated with him. Every great man has to have a stone. You've got to have a stone, right? And every great woman. I mean, I have several stones myself all in my back garden. I can pat them every morning. So, the fact is that Edgbert is important, because up to that point, I think this is true, but for the couple of centuries prior to that, no king has been succeeded by his son in Wessex because there's just so much political turmoil. Now, we already mentioned the fact that political turmoil is like catnip for these stray cat Vikings. So, we saw that in Northumbria, for example. But what that means is the relative stability that we're seeing in Wessex at this time is important because Edgbert is succeeded by Athelwulf, which means noble wolf, which is a good name, right? We need to bring that back into circulation. And Athelwulf is the father, not only of Alfred, but his older brothers and a sister who marries into the house of Mercia. And so, already we have a closer connection, but Wessex has very much emerged as the dominant force there. So, it's the last kingdom. It's also the most stable kingdom. I think so. I think certainly, well, in comparison to poor East Anglia at this point, yes. And certainly Northumbria as well. Yeah. And then Burgurid, I think, is at that point, King of Mercia. And then, yeah, at that point, I can't remember what year it is, but I think that the Vikings go to him and very kindly suggest that he might want to come on holiday to Rome. It's the King of Mercia. This is the King. And he's like, Rome sounds nice this time. I hear the weather is excellent. Thank you very much. Off I go. You know, so, yeah, there's certainly this sense that Wessex, if there is going to be a famous last stand, Wessex has the best chance of getting through that in one piece. However, having said that, what there isn't a sense of is Alfred ever being the person who's going to accomplish that. So, as the youngest, you know, his brothers have become, I think, his oldest brother, I think it's like 20 years older than him or something. So, there's a big spread. He is closest to his next up brother, Athelred, I think is the fourth son, who at the point where the Vikings are massing on the borders is King and he's ruling and Alfred fights battles together with Athelred. But certainly, you get the, I mean, it's possible even maybe, Alfred, it's been suggested was more likely thought that he would go into the church or something. He's the youngest brother. He's very devout. You know, he goes off to Rome when he's, I think, four and then again a couple of years later. So, there's not a sense from the start that Alfred is destined for kingship or greatness. You mentioned Rome, religion and learning, education. These are really, from what we can tell, these are really big parts of Alfred's life, aren't they? Possibly that is because you didn't think he was ever going to become king. So, the military side of that role was perhaps less emphasized and he was focusing on religion and learning. Yeah, it's a really interesting one there. And part of the reason it's interesting is because again, we talked about our source material and we really have to think about that because of course, Assa writing after the event when Alfred, I think he's sort of, 45th year or something, he dies age 50. So, you know, he's, it's after all this has happened. Assa is writing about Alfred's childhood almost as though this was always going to be the case. So, for example, when he describes Alfred going off to Rome as a child, he gets the blessing of the Pope. But there's the sense that he is getting the blessing of the Pope because the Pope recognizes a future great king. Whereas actually, it's just as likely he's getting the blessing of the Pope because the Pope is recognizing a future great archbishop or whatever it might be, you know, learning. Yes, again, Assa, the very famous story that Alfred's mother has this beautifully, you know, one of these illuminated manuscripts, I think it's a book of poetry and she says, I'll give this to whichever of my children can learn to read it. And so Alfred goes off and gets someone to basically teach it to him. It looks like by rote. And so he's able to do that, he gets the book. Having said that later on, and maybe this is something we'll come back to after because, you know, this is a part of the story that then comes after all the battles. We've got to get through the battles. Alfred's program of learning is absolutely fundamental to the reason he really does seem to be quite an extraordinary monarch. And we should say as well, you know, I mentioned his brother, Athelred. Athelred and Alfred fight battles against the Vikings together. And Alfred is described as sort of charging up the hill in one battle like a boar. In fact, he leaves his brother praying. Like they've both done the pray bit they need to do, but Athelred's still there praying and Alfred's like, right, let's go get them. And so there is very much the sense that he is militarily very accomplished as well, which is really important. You know, he's not just sitting around weederly at home praying with a nice book. You know, he is a he's a battle leader. He's a warrior. He's intelligent and strong. He's the full package. Probably handsome as well. I don't. Well, this is the really interesting thing about him that obviously the other thing that we know about Alfred through asset is that he is physically, he's not very healthy, you know, and there's been lots of debates as he had. Did he have piles? Did he have Crohn's disease? What might he have had? But this sense of sort of constant physical torment becomes quite an important part of mythologizing, maybe it's too strong a word, but certainly bigging up Alfred because it's this sense that he's not perfect and he does suffer. And yet he manages to accomplish so many incredible things. So how does Alfred become king? Because he didn't expect to be king, but suddenly no, Wessex falls into his hand. Yeah. So there's a point where it so Athelred has, I think, two young children, but there's a point where Athelred is king and obviously politically speaking, the whole situation is not goods, Vikings attacks, a lot of general nastiness. And Athelred's children are clearly too young to assume the throne in any capacity. So there is the suggestion that Alfred is going to inherit it. Athelred dies, although it is a period of battles, he doesn't die in battle. We don't know what he dies of. It's, I think it's 871, he appears to just get worn out. The way it's described, it's like he struggled valiantly for years against the Vikings and then he was, he just basically, that was it and he died. And so suddenly Alfred is there. I think by the time Alfred becomes king, it's not a horrible shock that he's becoming king. I think the writing was on the wall by this point. And certainly, you see them fighting these battles. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. There is this sense that they're fighting them together. Alfred at this point at least seems to be the natural successor to his brother. And I guess the next really major moment is probably Chippenham. However, there are a few battles. Can we talk about those? Yeah, so many battles, many dates. Reading is quite an interesting one because this is the point where really they've reached that boundary of Wessex. And the Great Army, it's sort of, you see typical Great Army tactics in play here. They build a rampart between the two rivers, the Thames and the Kennet. And then it's this sense once again of really hurting the local community essentially because what we're told is two Yarls, like Scandinavian Viking Yarls, ride out basically to pillage to get local supplies. At this point, they run into one of the Anglo-Saxon Yelda men, one of these sort of the King's men advises, Athelwulf. And he and his band kill one of the Yarls. And then the whole thing escalates basically in Athelred's and his brother Alfred's at this point, not yet King. They get to the fortress with the reinforcements, the Vikings pour out like wolves, we're told. There's a great slaughter. Eventually, we're told the Christians basically turn their backs, they run away and the Vikings are successful. Four days later, and we're talking January 871 at this point, we have the famous Battle of Ashton. And this is the one where Alfred is said to sort of run up the hill like a wild boar where his brother is still praying and all the rest of it. But there's more defeats to come. So they're successful that time. But then there are defeats at Beijing and Meirotun and all the rest of it. So it's just this series of really nasty skirmishes. And really, it's like now read on basically, because the big event that we need to get to where everything kicks off is chippin'em. And for that, we're coming forward in time. The Viking army is sort of being and gone. It looks like Alfred has tried to make peace with them again. He's tried these tactics. They've gone off to Exeter and not sort of kept their part of the bargain. Burgred meanwhile has sort of gone off on his holidays to Rome and everything. And we reach chippin'em and possibly 12th night in January 878. And once again, it's this idea of the Viking army being heathens not playing by the rules because they are attacking at the time of a very holy Christian holiday, you know, just after Christmas 12th night. And of course, Alfred is very religious. So this would have been important to him. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And they're also attacking just in winter, which is again, not you don't attack in winter, that's to no one's advantage, except apparently if you're the Vikings, because this does seem to be playing off. Chippin'em is this royal estate. Alfred and his warband managed to escape. They're surprised. They managed to get out. And then according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Anglo-Saxons who can get out, the Wessex men sort of are driven across the sea. We don't know, is that the Bristol Channel? Are they in Wales or if they actually cross the channel? Who knows what's going on? But the important bit is that Alfred and his warband, we're told, it journeyed in difficulties through the woods and fend fastness with a small force. And basically they are heading for the marshes and for the fortress as it becomes on Athelney, Somerset marshes, very boggy, very hard to penetrate and get into. And there he hides. And this is the year 878, so this is 13 years after the arrival of the Great Evening Armour. That's good maths, I would have taken long to work that out. And the leader of this attack at Chippin'em is our old friend who mentioned in Episode 1, Guthrum. He is now the central figure from the Viking perspective of this story against Alfred, isn't he? Exactly. And again, we don't know that much about his history or, you know, these figures sort of have a tendency to crop up a little bit and then historians then have their tendency to try and sort of trace them and try and work out where they go. And is that the same person that we see under this slightly different name over, say, an island, for example, or whatever. But Guthrum, at this point we know, becomes absolutely crucial to what happens, to how this plays out and how this plays out not just immediately in terms of the battles that are going to happen, but in the long term history and legacy of what the Great Evening Army means to Anglo-Saxon England. Thank you for listening to the second episode of our four-part series on Alfred vs the Vikings. In the next episode, we'll follow Alfred's flight into the marshes and the last stand of Anglo-Saxon resistance at the Battle of Eddington. If you enjoyed this episode and want to go beyond the podcast, you can visit the History Extra app where I've curated a list of wider content that explores the intersection of the Viking Age with the world of the Anglo-Saxons, including more from Dr. Alan Mabarakliffe. You can find a link to that in the episode description. Hello, my fellow nature lovers. I'm Katrina Ridley. And I'm Amy Chapman and we're so excited to be hosting Connect to Nature. Now, in this podcast, we'll be meeting some amazing people, truly redefining what it means to get close to nature from rewilding responsibly and challenging fast fashion to embracing technology, battling eco-anxiety and discussing what makes us feel alive outdoors. Join us on Connect to Nature and be sure to follow wherever you get your podcasts.