In our previous video we covered king Alfred’s surprise victory over the
Vikings at Edington in 878. This victory both ensured the survival of his kingdom
and allowed the West Saxons the breathing room needed to prepare for the
inevitable next invasion. Though Guthrum retired to East Anglia after the
battle, Wessex still faced potential attack from elsewhere. Just as Guthrum
had successfully carved himself out a kingdom well over a decade after the
initial arrival of the Great Heathen Army, another could just as easily come
and do the same.
Alfred spent the 880s converting the various market towns of his kingdom
into ‘burhs’ which would act as fortified safe-havens and meeting points for local militias.
Alfred also forged a lasting alliance with the portion of Mercia still under
Anglo-Saxon control, now under the rule of a warlord of unknown origins named
Æthelred, after the death of King Ceolwulf in around 879. The alliance was
sealed by the marriage of Alfred’s eldest daughter Æthelflæd to Æthelred
in the early 880s, who began to rule as a vassal of Wessex.
Alfred also achieved a similar arrangement with the southern Welsh
kingdoms during this time, whose rulers were hemmed in by the expansionist sons
of Rhodri the Great in Gwynedd and Powys. The most powerful of these
northern Welsh kings, Anarawd ap Rhodri may have allied himself with the Vikings
of York against Wessex before eventually accepting West Saxon vassalage,
thus securing Alfred’s western border.
Ultimately Guthrum kept the peace with Wessex until his death in 890.
However, just 2 years later the burh system would face its first real test
when two massive fleets of raiders comprising of over 300 longboats under a
sea-king named Hastein arrived on the Kentish shore.
Yet times had changed over the last decade, and Wessex held out. By 896
Hastein’s men either left Britain entirely or dispersed into East Anglia.
The burh system had worked. Upon his death in 899 Alfred left his kingdom to
his eldest son and heir Edward. The succession was not smooth, as Alfred’s
nephew Æthelwold also made his claim. He fled north to
the Northumbrian Danelaw, where he was enthusiastically accepted
by the local rulers, who were apparently happy to finally conquer the last
Anglo-Saxon kingdom once and for all. Æthelwold gathered an army in
Northumbria, and by 901 or 902 sailed south to Essex. He gained a valuable ally
in the Viking king of East Anglia Eohric. Together they conducted a raid deep into Mercia.
By December 902 Edward had also raised an army, likely comprised of West
Saxons, Mercians and Kentishmen, and his forces finally succeeded in catching
Æthelwold in a vicious battle in the marshy lowlands near the River Holme.
By day’s end it was the Danes who emerged victorious, yet they paid a heavy toll
for their victory: East Anglian king Eohric and Æthelwold were both killed.
With Æthelwold out of the way Edward could now finally focus on consolidating
his rule at home. In the western portion of Mercia meanwhile Æthelred and Æthelflæd
had been busy too, following the example set by Alfred in fortifying the
frontier with the Danelaw by building burhs wherever they could.
As part of Ethelred’s marriage arrangement with Æthelflæd, Alfred had given the
Mercians control of the city of London, a hefty source of income. Together
the two rulers oversaw a revival of Mercian power in a reduced area, and
Æthelflæd in particularly became extremely popular amongst her adopted
people. Yet soon enough the Mercians would be forced to go on the defensive once again.
Just as Edward had been fighting his cousin in 902, a mass exodus of Vikings
from Ireland had led to the settlement of a large group of exiles in the lands
just to the north of the Mercian held town of Chester, an old Roman fortress.
The Mercians may have hoped that these Irish Vikings to act as a buffer against
the ever-present threat of the Danelaw. But by 907 these Vikings had aligned
themselves with the Danelaw to besiege Chester.
When the Mercian army went north to deal with this new threat, it was Æthelflæd
leading them, as Æthelred was incapacitated due to illness.
What happened next is unclear, but the Mercians defeated the Vikings at Chester, and
now Æthelflæd, Æthelred who was firmly in control. The Mercians were going on the offensive.
At that time Edward’s son Æthelstan was being fostered by his aunt Æthelflæd in
Mercia. In 909 he led a raid deep into Viking territory to retrieve the relics
of the famed Northumbrian king Oswald. His army also took the opportunity to
pillage the lands of Lindsey for five weeks before the Vikings in York could react.
We are going to talk about Æthelstan him in much more detail in the next episode.
In 910, the Northumbrians retaliated, launching a massive raid deep
into Mercia. They ravaged the countryside and loaded up on plunder before
beginning the journey back north. It was then, at a place named Tettenhall , that a
combined West Saxon-Mercian army caught the Vikings by surprise. In the ensuing
bloodbath the entire leadership of the Viking force was killed, crippling York for years to come.
Tettenhall was a turning point in many ways. It was around
this time that Æthelred finally passed away, and quite astonishingly, despite
being a woman in a militaristic male-dominated society, Æthelflæd was
chosen as his successor, ruling under the title ‘Lady of the Mercians’. However, soon
she was also forced to relinquish control of London to Wessex. Æthelflæd would
continue to rule, though as she had no male heir, it was the beginning of the
end for independent Mercia. For the next eight years she tirelessly dedicated her
time to building burhs not only along the frontier with the Five Boroughs to
the east, but also against the Welsh kingdoms to the west. A state of
perpetual warfare existed with the Five Boroughs of Eastern Mercia during this time,
with occasional raids recorded from the towns of Leicester and Bedford into
Western Mercia. Edward meanwhile was finally ready to
go on the offensive against the Vikings on his own borders. Between 911
and 913 he moved his forces by land and by sea into Essex, fortifying
the town of Maldon and attempting to bring the area under full West Saxon control. For the
first time since the coming of the Northmen, Wessex was gaining new lands
and Maldon would become a base from which he could attack East Anglia.
Yet in 914, any potential attacks Æthelflæd or Edward might have wanted to make
suddenly came crashing to a standstill. Across the channel in Brittany a massive
Viking fleet had just conquered the entire region, extinguishing its ruling
family, and now, under the leadership of two warlords named Rold and Otir
was coming to Britain. Sailing up through the Bristol Channel they headed into the
River Severn in an attempt to take the Mercians by surprise. Yet once again,
Æthelflæd was ready for them, pushing them out of Mercia and into Wales,
and killing Rold in the process. Edward pursued Otir and his remaining vessels all
the way to the island of Flatholme near Cardiff
where he blockaded him for weeks. Finally, Otir gave up on England and went across the sea to Ireland.
The stage was now set for the final confrontation of the war. By 914 Edward too was making
inroads into the Five Boroughs, forcing the submission of some of the Vikings of Bedford and Northampton.
By 917, both Edward and Æthelflæd were ready for
their final assaults upon the Vikings. A large force of Danes from the southern
portion of the Five Boroughs allied themselves with the East Anglians, who finally
decided to make a move. They attempted to mirror the success of the Saxons by
building their own burh at Tempsford in Bedfordshire. Within weeks however
Edward’s forces stormed the burh, killed the East Anglian king, and swept onwards
to take the whole of East Anglia and South-eastern Mercia.
Æthelflæd was also on the move. In mid-917 she marched her now elite army
across the border and directly towards the borough of Derby where they laid
siege to the town. After a fierce battle, the town fell, and with it, large swathes
of eastern Mercia. By 918, Leicester was the next to submit, followed by the other
three boroughs of Stamford, Nottingham and Lincoln. Under Æthelflæd, Mercia had
finally completed its reconquest and now found itself with nearly the same borders
as it had prior to the coming of the Vikings, yet she didn’t stop there.
By the Summer of 918, the Vikings of York agreed to submit to Æthelflæd.
Ultimately, the deal never materialised, as Æthelflæd passed away that same year.
She was succeeded by her only child, a daughter named Ælfwynn.
By 918 all of England south of the Humber was under the Anglo-Saxon control. Edward marched
north to Tamworth to seize Ælfwynn. She was placed in a monastery for life, and
Mercia was finally incorporate into Edward’s growing kingdom.
Then, like Alfred before him, Edward achieved the fealty of the five Welsh Kingdoms, thus
uniting most of the lands south of the Humber for the first time in history.
All that remained in England under the Viking control was the kingdom of Northumbria,
and it would have become the next target of Edward. Though just as Edward was
annexing Mercia into his ever-growing Anglo-Saxon realm, the Dublin Norse,
members of the soon to be feared Uí Ímair dynasty of Ireland, annexed York in
a lightning attack. This created a new threat to the bourgeoning united England.
Thank you for watching the third video in our series on the Viking invasions of Britain.
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