Page 33 - BBC History - September 2017

Æthelwold
King Alfred’s biographer, Bishop Asser A legendary Viking
of Sherborne, explained how the West warrior depicted in
Saxons, having retreated within the earthen the carved portal of
ramparts of the fortress, found themselves the late 12th-century
Hylestad stave
trapped inside by the Viking army without church, Norway
food or water. But, as Asser tells it, rather
than allow themselves to become enfeebled
by a siege, the West Saxons chose to
seek victory or a glorious death. At dawn,
they hurled themselves down the slopes
towards their erstwhile besiegers,
overwhelming them with their ferocity and
driving the survivors to their ships. Perhaps
1,200 Viking warriors, including Ubbe,
were slain. A medieval depiction
Defeat for the Vikings was made worse of King Alfred, who led
for them by the capture of their raven guerrilla raids against
banner – a magical talisman (said to have the Viking invaders
been woven by Ubbe’s three sisters, the
daughters of the semi-legendary Ragnar
‘Hairy-pants’) that was believed to foretell
AKG IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES/BRIDGEMAN victory over the Viking forces of Guthrum
victory if the raven’s wings caught the wind
before battle. Its loss was a bad omen for
the Vikings in Wessex.
Alfred would go on to win a famous
at Edington in Wiltshire, setting the West
Saxon royal house on a path that would
lead to the throne of a united kingdom of
England. Had it not been for the victory at
Cynwit, Alfred – caught between Ubbe
and Guthrum – might have met a very
different fate indeed.
BBC History Magazine
perishes
in the fens
The battle of the Holme AD 902
COMBATANTS: King Edward against his rebel
cousin and the Vikings
OUTCOME: (Sort of) Viking victory
Violence between Anglo-Saxons and Vikings didn’t end
with Alfred’s death in AD 899. In fact, no sooner had
Alfred’s son, Edward, taken his seat on the throne than he
was facing a military crisis. Alfred’s nephew, Æthelwold –
feeling that he had been unfairly passed over – rebelled
against his cousin Edward before fleeing to the parts of
England under Viking control (swathes of the north and east
of the country sometimes referred to as ‘the Danelaw’).
There he was apparently welcomed with open arms and
acclaimed as “king of the pagans; king of the Danes”.
Æthelwold began his campaign in the summer of
AD 902, bringing an army out of Viking East Anglia and
harrying throughout southern England as far as Cricklade
and Braydon in Wessex. This was a provocation, and
Edward (known later as ‘the Elder’) wasted little time in
assembling an army to pursue his cousin back into the
bleak and unforgiving fens of East Anglia.
The battle that followed was fought in a place known
as the Holme (‘island’) and was a catastrophe for almost
everyone concerned. Edward, perhaps realising the
difficulties of the terrain, ordered a retreat, but the Kentish
contingent refused the summons. In mounting panic,
Edward dispatched rider after rider (seven in total) to order
his men to fall back. For reasons we will never know, they
failed to withdraw.
The only description we have of the fighting proclaims
grandly that the belligerents “clashed shields, wielded
swords, and shook greatly the spear in either hand”. But to
fight in the sucking peat marshes of the fens would have
been to live through a waking nightmare. When the men of
Kent broke and ran, throwing aside shields and weapons in
their desperation, they would have slipped and fallen,
trampled in the clawing fens, drowning in mud and
brackish bog-water, floundering through the reed-beds
into disaster. And, for the men of Kent, disaster it assuredly
was: the Kentish ealdorman Sigewulf, and his kinsman
Sigehelm, and almost all of the Kentish lords were slain.
For King Edward, however, there was a silver lining:
Æthelwold, the pretender, was dead.
Who can say what the future might have held in store for
Æthelwold had he emerged from Holme victorious. Instead,
a serious challenge to Edward’s authority and legitimacy
had been removed, and it would be he – Edward – who in
They would have fallen,
the subsequent decades would go on the offensive,
conquering all of Viking-held England south of the Humber.
trampled in the clawing
fens, drowning in mud
33
and brackish bog-water 33