Anglo Saxons at War 800-1066 by Paul Hill

Author:Paul Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844685431
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2012-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Campaigns, Battles and Sieges

Campaigns

871: Wessex Takes on the Great Heathen Army–a War of Attrition?

The nature of the campaigning against the Great Heathen Army and its detachments prior to the watershed Battle of Edington in 878 was characterised by closely fought battles which brought Alfred the Great’s Wessex almost to its knees. Here, we shall look at the campaigns of 871 which represented the most desperate fighting seen in England since the fall of Roman Britain many centuries before.

The Danish army ‘of hateful memory’ was led by Halfdan, son of Ragnar Lothbrok, and at least one other Danish leader for whom we have a name, Bagsecg. We cannot be sure how big it was, perhaps only 1,000 men or maybe more, but its activities had already devastated those ancient kingdoms it had passed through. In the autumn of 870 it decided to leave its East Anglian base and headed to Reading, a royal estate in Berkshire. At the confluence of the rivers Kennet and Thames, the Danes set themselves inside a remarkably well-defended fortification, which comprised one long ditch cut from one river to another, probably moated and palisaded with gates at intervals. The route the Danish army took to Reading is not known. It is likely Halfdan began his journey from Thetford in East Anglia on the Icknield Way. If he had chosen to avoid London, where there may well have been another Danish attachment, then he will have followed this ancient roadway to Royston, Wilbury Camp, Offley, around Dunstable, finally crossing the Thames at Goring. Whichever way he got there, Halfdan arrived at Reading and began his fortification unmolested while he waited for a naval contingent to join him.

Reading was a wise choice for Halfdan. Like any royal estate, it had resources at hand. Such places were the centres for the food rents and dues owed to the Crown. In the winter the estate will have been well stocked for the oncoming months. Nearby, there was the abbey at Abingdon, itself a huge repository of food, wine and portable wealth. And so Halfdan sat there, hovering menacingly above Wessex, preparing to do to Æthelred I’s kingdom exactly what his Danes had done to East Anglia.

It was now deep into winter. It was Christmas time, and the Danes were quickly set in their camp with Halfdan presumably predicting a lack of activity against him from the West Saxon brothers over this period. But if this was true, one man had been keeping a close eye on the invaders and he would soon spring into action. Halfdan and Bagsecg had only three days to think about their strategy before having to reassess the situation. Nobody knows quite why Jarl Sidroc sallied out of the gates at the Reading camp on New Year’s Eve, but it reports like a foraging or scouting party, perhaps even a reconnaissance-in-force to examine the local route ways and options for his master. Around the north of the Great Windsor Forest he travelled, clinging to the

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