Alfred The Great: A National Hero

 Asser’s life of King Alfred was a biography of Alfred The Great written by a Welsh monk who knew the king personally. It’s a wonderful insight into one of history’s most important rulers and a key source for his reign. Another famous source for the events of Alfred’s reign is the Anglo Saxon Chronicles which was compiled on his orders and continued centuries after Alfred’s death in 899. There are other later sources as well. As you look through all these materials, one thing will jump out at you after a while. That is the impression of what a great man and king Alfred truly must have been. That may sound like a fairly obvious statement to make considering he is known to history as “Alfred The Great” but what has to be established is why was he so great? There are several reasons for Alfred’s “greatness” and those will become, hopefully, more apparent as we journey through Alfred’s approximately 50 year long life.

Born in Wantage, Berkshire in 849. His father was king Aethelwulf of Wessex. Aethelwulf surrounded himself with men who had good judgement and some courage and it was a good job he did too. His reign coincided with an increase in severity and frequency of Viking raids. During Alfred’s childhood, his father sent him on two occasions to Rome to visit the pope, once accompanied by a retinue of Anglo Saxon nobles and, on the second occasion, by Aethelwulf himself. Obviously, such trips would leave a lasting impression on Alfred and his piety.

Alfred’s mother was Osburh. Osburh took a keen interest in her children’s learning. Asser tells how, one day, Osburh told her children that whichever of them could memorise a book of poetry then that child could keep. Although still unable to read, young Alfred eagerly took the book from his mother’s hand and took it to his tutor who he asked to read the poems out loud to him whilst Alfred listened intently and focused with all his might to remember the words and, apparently, he was successful. Alfred was described as being “extraordinarily beloved by both his mother and his father” and it must have been a very sad blow for the young boy when both of them died before he had even turned 10. Nonetheless, both Aethelwulf and Osburh had reared a very intelligent son who would love learning for the rest of his life and, as king, Alfred would bemoan the lack of good tutors across Wessex. Alfred would do his best to remedy that and he tried to ensure that children, from all classes, had access to a good education, believing that an educated society could only be beneficial to his kingdom.

It was whilst returning from the second trip to Rome that Alfred got a new stepmother. Aethelwulf and his company stopped off at the court of Charles The Bald where the king of Wessex met Charles’ daughter, Judith.With Osburh dead, Aethelwulf took Judith back to Wessex to be his new queen. After Aethelwulf’s death in 858, Judith was scandalously married to Aethelbald, Alfred’s brother, who had rebelled against his father whilst Aethelwulf had been away on the continent. Aethelbald’s marriage to Judith and reign as sole ruler of Wessex, having forced his father to divide the kingdom, was short lived and was, according to Asser, two and a half years of “lawlessness”.

Another two of Alfred’s brothers succeeded as kings of Wessex following Aethelbald’s death. First was Aethelbert who the Anglo Saxon chronicles says ruled Wessex “in good concord” and who Asser says “ruled his kingdom in peace, love and honour”. Quite how true those statements are that Aethelbert ruled in peace and tranquility is up for debate. Both Asser and the ASC describes how the Vikings raided and sacked Winchester before an army of men from Berkshire hunted the raiders down and defeated them in battle which is an indication that the Viking threat was never too far away. However, it may be that a period of relative calm followed the sack of Winchester and Aethelbert was indeed allowed to rule in a climate of reasonable quiet.

After Aethelbert’s death in 865, Aethelred I came to the throne of Wessex. He was Alfred’s last surviving brother of whom he had 4, although a sister, Aethelswith, lived and had married King Burgred of Mercia. Aethelred tried to resist the Vikings as determinedly as he could, suffering both setbacks and some successes during his reign. Alfred, now becoming a young man, joined his brother on his campaigns and began to learn the arts of war and kingship in the 9th century. When Aethelred died in 871, Alfred was ready to become a king. Aethelred had two young sons who, in a later era, may well have succeeded their father as king. But, given they were little more than infants at the time of their father’s death, there was no question of having a child ruler in the age of the Viking wars. It was entirely impractical, especially when Alfred was now a full grown man and experienced in battle.

In the months leading up to Alfred becoming king, the men of Wessex suffered harrowing defeats at Reading, Basing and Meretun albeit with a success at the Battle of Ashdown thrown in. Alfred had been present at all these battles at which he would have learned some very harsh lessons indeed. Almost disregarding previous setbacks and afflicted by depleted numbers caused by several battles fought in a short space of time, the new king continued to carry the fight to the Vikings. At the battle of Wilton, still in 871, Alfred and his small number of men fought courageously against the invaders but were eventually overwhelmed.

A few years before becoming king, in 868, Alfred married a woman named Ealhswith, who was the daughter of a Mercian nobleman. Alfred would be married to Ealhswith for over 30 years, until his death in 899, and, when he became king in 871, Ealhswith had already given him a daughter, named Aethelflaed, who would lead quite an extraordinary life. More children would follow in the years to come, including Alfred’s successor, Edward The Elder. In 874, the Vikings drove out king Burgred of Mercia, husband of Alfred’s sister Aethelswith, who both fled to Rome. This must have enraged Alfred and also created a heightened sense of fear that his own kingdom was becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Still, he was not to be cowed. In 875, Alfred fought fire with fire. The Vikings were, of course, highly experienced seafarers but Alfred defeated them at their own game as the Anglo Saxon chronicles describes; “And that summer (of 875) king Alfred went out to sea with a raiding ship army and fought against 7 ship loads and captured one of them and put the others to flight.” Whilst this particular incident may not look overly important; after all most of the Viking ships escaped relatively unscathed. Alfred had, nonetheless, fired a shot across the bows and sent a clear message to the raiders that he was not afraid to attack them, even at sea where they would have felt themselves to have held supremacy over the Anglo Saxons. Whilst on the surface, it looks like a fairly minor incident, for the Vikings it would have been a bit of a jolt.

Over the next couple of years, Alfred forced treaties out of the raiders and took hostages but, predictably, the Vikings soon broke the promises they had made and Alfred was left to pursue them. But, by 878, Alfred was facing real difficulties as the raiders breached his kingdom and forced even the king himself to flee into the marshes and woodland of Somerset. It was during these dark days that the most famous incident of Alfred’s reign allegedly occurred. Seeking shelter from his enemies, Alfred was taken in by the wife of a Swineherd. The peasant woman asked Alfred to watch the cakes she was baking whilst she was preoccupied with other tasks. Obviously with a lot on his mind, the distracted Alfred let the cakes burn and had to face the wrath of an angry peasant.

Perhaps such an experience inspired Alfred to greater heights. He renewed his efforts against the Vikings with Asser saying “after Easter, King Alfred, with a few men, made a stronghold in a place called Athelney and from thence sallied with his vassals of Somerset to make frequent and unwearied assaults upon the heathen”. And, at the Battle of Edington, during that same year of 878, he won a famous victory over Guthrum, Danish king of East Anglia. 3 weeks after the battle, Guthrum and 30 of his most prominent men came to Alfred and were baptised. Not long after, Guthrum’s forces retreated to Cirencester and eventually back to East Anglia. Alfred and Wessex had been extremely hard pressed by the Vikings and were perhaps teetering on the brink of a disastrous defeat. But the courage and martial brilliance of Alfred and his men had prevailed at Edington and had driven the invaders back. The victory at Edington preserved the kingdom of Wessex for Alfred and his successors to build upon. It is surely one of the most important battles in all English history.

That is not to say, there was suddenly universal peace for Alfred and his subjects. In 882, Alfred again took to sea, capturing four Viking ships as well as killing a number of the ships’ occupants. The following year, Alfred received a piece of the “true cross” from Pope Marinus I in what was recognition for Alfred’s tireless efforts against the Vikings, a heathen army that were plaguing not only the Anglo Saxon kingdoms but other Christian parts of Europe too. I have made this point elsewhere that it’s not an exaggeration to say that Alfred The Great can be regarded as a Crusader king. Traditionally, the Crusading era is dated from the onset of the First Crusade in the 1090s but the nature of Alfred’s Viking Wars, his conversion of Guthrum, being rewarded with a piece of the “true cross” etc shows the distinctly Christian nature of Alfred’s struggles.

In 884, Alfred relieved a siege of Rochester in Kent before his men enjoyed both success and defeat in East Anglia. Such was the fortunes of war. In 886, Alfred made another valuable gain, taking London which he granted back to his son in law, Aethelred of Mercia, husband of Aethelflaed. By now, Alfred was in his late 30s. His adult life had been preoccupied with worries about the Vikings and protecting his lands and people. However, he also had another very different type of concern of a medical nature. According to Asser, Alfred, after extensive celebrations of his marriage in 868, began to suffer from pains that were, in Asser’s words, “instant and overwhelming and unknown to any physician.” The pain was excruciating for Alfred and he turned to prayer, hoping desperately that he would experience some relief. But, even during times when the pain was not as bad, Alfred could never fully relax for fear it would come back and afflict him worse than ever. Whilst people then speculated on what ailment was so troubling the king, it is generally agreed now that Alfred suffered from Chrohn’s disease.

Alfred’s spirit, however, was never broken by his troubles as Asser describes; (He continued) to carry on the government, and to practise hunting in all its branches; to teach his goldsmiths and all his artificers, his falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers; (He continued) to build houses, majestic and rich beyond all custom of his predecessors, after his own new designs; to recite the Saxon books, and especially to learn by heart Saxon poems and to make others learn them.”

In 893, assisted by his maturing son Edward, Alfred defeated the Vikings at Farnham and recaptured treasures that had been stolen by the invaders. Alfred had split his army into two and entrusted one half to the leadership of Edward. Whilst Edward showed his youth during a slightly reckless charge in pursuit of the fleeing Danes whilst separated from his father’s forces, it was clear that Alfred’s heir had learned much under his father’s tutelage which would stand him in good stead for his own magnificent reign.

Despite all of Alfred’s brilliance, there were still disasters he could not prevent. In the late 890s, the Anglo Saxons were afflicted with regular pestilence, leading to widespread death among livestock and humans alike, including some of the king’s key supporters. In 896, mimicking the Viking example, Alfred ordered longships to be built which he put to good use and inflicted further significant damage on the enemy. Alfred The Great died in 899, a warrior king to the end. But it wasn’t just his exploits in war that Alfred was renowned for. In the words of Asser; “Alfred showed himself a minute investigator of the truth in all his judgments, and this especially for the sake of the poor, to whose interest, day and night, among other duties of this life, he was ever wonderfully attentive.” Alfred encouraged schooling for all classes and ordered translations of books so they could be read by a wider audience. And, of course, the ASC remains one of the most valuable sources for not only Alfred’s time but for the centuries both immediately before and after his reign.

But one cannot escape what Alfred’s reign was dominated by. The Viking wars and Alfred, in the grips of a brutal, decades long illness, relentlessly defied the odds and, as so frequently stated in the ASC, put the raiders to flight. Not too long ago, a piece was written claiming Alfred The Great was “not all that great”. This is utter nonsense. If anything, “great” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface when it comes to Alfred’s brilliance. He was a king like no other in English history and, in the decades to come, his son, daughter and grandson would make full use of Alfred’s hard work.