Stained glass window at Gloucester Cathedral depicting St Cuthbert Weglinde via Wikimedia Commons Bear in mind that the visitation would have seemed believable to many given that St Cuthbert had been disinterred from his grave at Lindisfarne and He had been a bishop at Lindisfarne and the support of such a holy and much loved saint would have encouraged many Saxons to follow Alfred.
St Cuthbert was an important and much revered saint. One important aspect of the battle is that Alfred claimed to have had a visitation from St Cuthbert who urged him to avenge the Christian church. Also, the Saxons may have felt they had nothing to lose – after all, they were fighting not just for themselves and their families, but for their freedom, their religion and for their whole way of life. Thus his reappearance at such a critical time must have been seen as some sort of ‘resurrection’ in itself, something which would have helped to stir many loyal Saxons into action even though, after over 80 years of raids and war, many people would probably have craved peace above all else. It would have helped that the battle was fought at Easter as this would have done much to rouse the deeply religious Saxons given that Alfred, having gone into hiding, was believed by many to have been slain or to have fled abroad. My novel, Blood & Destiny, offers one possible explanation of how he achieved this but it remains a mystery. To my mind, the greatest mystery of all is how Alfred, having been virtually annihilated in the surprise attack on his Vill at Christmas, managed to raise anything resembling an army so quickly. Remember, history is written by the victor not by the vanquished and there are few unbiased contemporary accounts. So I feel that the suggestion that the Saxons fought uphill was just a way of emphasising what a great victory they achieved and what a great leader they’d found in Alfred. It is also suggested that the Vikings outnumbered the Saxons by as much as two or three to one, though any numbers cited in battles at this time must be regarded as conjecture – more likely the men on each side could be counted in their hundreds rather than thousands. When he did become aware of Alfred’s army he would have had little option but to march out to meet it, no doubt confident of victory. Remember that Guthrum was ensconced in Chippenham (probably in Alfred’s own Vill) and would not have expected Alfred to have had the ability to raise anything like an army after such a devastating defeat only a few months earlier. I think this could well include an element of propaganda as, in my view, Alfred is likely to have arrived at Edington first and, as an experienced military commander, would surely have positioned himself on the high ground and thus held the advantage of the field. Yet he managed to rally his people and, according to reports, when they became aware that he was advancing towards them, the Vikings, still led by Guthrum, took up a position on the ridge at Edington thereby forcing the Saxons to charge uphill. Memorial to the Battle of Ethandune erected in 2000įollowing the humiliating defeat at his Vill in Chippenham, Alfred was determined to win back his kingdom – a seemingly impossible task.
We’re not even sure exactly where it took place – some say it was in Somerset but more likely it was close to a place called Edington near Chippenham and is therefore sometimes called ‘The Battle of Edington.’ My own interpretation of events is as follows, though I confess there is an element of speculation in some aspects of this as the facts are scarce. Whilst the facts I’ve cited are not all universally accepted, they are gleaned from the research I undertook for my books in The Shadow of the Raven SeriesĪs I mentioned in an earlier blog in this series, The Battle of Ethandune in 878 was probably one of the most important ever fought on English soil because if King Alfred had not triumphed there, virtually the whole of England would have been under Viking rule.
#ALFRED VIKINGS SERIES#
In this series I hope to provide an overview of events to explain what happened and why. In 793, a surprise attack on an otherwise peaceful monastery at Lindisfarne marked the beginning of one of the most turbulent periods in English history.
0 kommentar(er)
