In Search of Alfred the Great by Tucker Edoardo Albert & Katie

Author:Tucker, Edoardo Albert & Katie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2014-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

8

Rebuilding

If Alfred ever entertained the thought that, with the defeat of Guthrum, he had overcome the Viking threat, he was disabused of that notion before the Great Army even left Chippenham. In 879, another Viking fleet, one that had been raising havoc in Francia before meeting defeat from the forces of Louis III and Carloman II on the Loire, sailed up the Thames and made fortified camp on the north shore of the river, at Fulham. They were on the Mercian side of the river, but nevertheless, Alfred certainly did not need another great army turning up on the borders of his realm. Fortunately for the king, it seems Guthrum was not too keen on more Vikings arriving either. Soon after the Fulham fleet arrived, the Great Army finally made good on its promise to leave Wessex and marched back east, heading for East Anglia, where, according to the Chronicle, the men of the army divided up the land among them. Æthelstan, née Guthrum, was king of East Anglia now and, as king, did not welcome an encampment of raiders anywhere near his borders. The Fulham Vikings, caught between Alfred to the west and Guthrum to the east, took the hint and re-embarked upon their ships, taking sail to Ghent.

The easy pickings that had fallen, almost without their asking, into Viking laps through the salad days of the mid-ninth century were getting harder to come by. In Francia, Charles the Bald had issued the Edict of Pistres in 864, creating a mobile cavalry, the genesis of centuries of French chivalry, and ordering the building or refurbishment of fortified bridges across the major rivers of his country. Although scholars are divided as to how many bridge forts were actually built, there did not need to be that many of them to gravely hamper the freedom of movement the Viking raiders had enjoyed previously.

Although we have little record of the dealings and communication between Alfred and the other Christian kings of Europe, this appears to be more a result of the vagaries of preservation rather than evidence that he was not in regular contact with kings such as Charles the Bald. The letters that have survived, including one to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, suggest a lively and far-ranging correspondence that stretched far beyond the narrow confines of Alfred’s kingdom and, given the king’s curiosity and the practical need to find ways to deal with the Vikings, it’s almost certain that he would have learned of Charles’s new strategy.

Although the Fulham Vikings left of their own accord, their arrival, and the near disaster he had suffered against Guthrum, demonstrated clearly to Alfred that he had much to do to secure his kingdom and his people. The months he had spent in relative isolation on and around Athelney had given him the chance to think deeply on his previous years as king, and to analyse his own failures then. Now that God had given him victory – and time – it was up to him to use it.

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