The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

by Benjamin R. Merkle

  First, the pagan chieftain sent a message to the bishop of the city, explaining that the Vikings had seen much hardship and were weary, hungry, and tired. They desired only rest, not plunder. In fact, the messenger explained, the commander of the Viking force had been wounded terribly in their last engagement, such that it was unclear whether he would survive longer than a few more days. And on his deathbed, their chief now hoped that he might receive Christian baptism to ensure the salvation of his soul before giving up the ghost.

  The bishop of the great city, having mercy on the pagan raiders who seemed to have come on hard times, granted them the opportunity to buy provisions for their ships within the city walls and welcomed Hastein to the baptismal font, where the bishop stood as the chieftain’s sponsor and received him as godson. Later that evening, after the Vikings had returned to their ships, a message was sent to the bishop announcing that the bishop’s new godson had died of his wounds and that the Viking warriors, in accordance with their chieftain’s dying wish, were bringing the man’s body back to be buried in the city. Having received the sad news, the bishop organized a procession of clergymen, noblemen, choristers, and children carrying candles to meet the grieving Vikings at the city gate and then to lead the men who carried the dead chieftain on a bier through the city streets to the church where he had only just received baptism. Once the mournful procession had filled the church, the doors were shut, and the bishop recited the mass. Then the command was given to bring forward the body for burial.

  The burial was interrupted when the supposedly dead Viking chieftain leaped up from the bier, snatching up the sword that had been laid beside him, and swiftly cut down the astonished bishop. At this, the rest of the Vikings gave up a blood curdling shout, drew their weapons, and proceeded to slaughter all the Christian members of the burial procession, now frozen in their bewilderment. Then, spilling out of the church and into the streets of the silently sleeping city, the Danes began a gruesome rampage of slaughter and rapine, plundering their way back out of the city and eventually returning to their longboats heavily laden with the spoils of their raid.

  The Vikings, who took great pride in their ability to beguile the naïve Christians with their cunning deceptions, had much to congratulate themselves with for this ingenious ruse. At some point during their return journey, however, the Danes discovered a bit of information that dampened their enthusiasm for retelling this tale. As the result of some rather significant navigational errors, it appeared that the Vikings had been slightly mistaken about the identity of the city they had sacked. Instead of plundering the great and holy city of Rome, the pagans had raided the much smaller and fairly insignificant city of Luna, some two hundred miles north of Rome. Needless to say, when this story was retold to later generations, the beguiling cunning of the Viking plunderers was no longer the centerpiece of the narrative.

  Even with the story of the comically blundered raid on Rome, Hastein enjoyed the reputation of a ruthless savage, bloodthirsty and plunder-hungry and possessed with a cruel greed for the relatively unprotected wealth of the Christian church’s monastic institutions. But Hastein had tired of plundering the continent and led his own fleet of eighty longboats across the channel to England. Entering the Thames estuary with his smaller fleet, he turned up the Swale, landed, and ordered that his men begin constructing an earthwork fortification near the river mouth. By striking Kent on the northern side, Hastein had carefully positioned his troops near the Danelaw border, giving him the ability to quickly summon help from the Danish settlers in Northumbria and East Anglia who were likely to cooperate with the Viking raid.

  Soon word reached Alfred of the Danes’ latest invasion. After hearing the news, the king took some time to consider the nature of the danger, the possible pitfalls that lay before them, and the wisest solutions to this national emergency. It had been reported that these two armies did not consist solely of Danish warriors but that the two fleets of ships had been loaded down with entire Viking families, along with horses. This could have been good news because the three hundred thirty boats were not entirely filled with warriors; their numbers were diluted by the accompanying women and children.

  But the presence of entire Viking families also signified that this army was not merely looking for quick plunder. These were Danes intent on seizing and settling the Kent countryside. And even after taking into account the fact that the number of fighting men was less than the number of boats might have first suggested, this was still a much larger force than the army that had conquered Northumbria. Clearly, Alfred must not allow these armies any significant foothold on the British soil.

  Thinking that these two powers would be more easily defeated if kept separate from each other, Alfred gathered the might of his mobile army and led his troops to camp directly between the two hostile armies, keeping both of these invading forces well within reach of his own army. However, even worse than making contact with each other, Alfred feared that the freshly arrived Vikings might begin communicating with the Danish settlers in the nearby Danelaw. Since his godson Æthelstan (the converted Guthrum) had died in 890, Alfred had been losing confidence that the Danes living beyond his northern borders would continue to respect the terms of peace between Alfred and Æthelstan. With the presence of such an enormous Viking force lodged deep within the Anglo-Saxon territory, it was likely that many of the settlers of the Danelaw might feel emboldened and return to their previous habits of raiding and plundering.

  In an attempt to prevent this possibility, Alfred sent messengers to the Danish rulers of Northumbria and East Anglia and demanded that they swear oaths promising to maintain peace between the Danelaw and Wessex and to resist the temptation to join the new Viking army in raiding the Saxons. The Northumbrians and the East Anglians complied with the king’s demands, giving their oaths and, in the case of the East Anglians, six hostages to vouchsafe their sincerity.

  However, the oaths of the Danes remained consistently untrustworthy. Time after time, Alfred’s army would move to repulse some new foray from one of the Vikings’ fortified encampments, only to discover that the Danes’ numbers had swelled as a result of the continual flood of eager recruits pouring from the Danelaw to the camps of these Viking pirates. At other times, Alfred’s army encountered bands of plundering Danes manned entirely by warriors from the Danelaw, as new raiding armies began to form independently of the mob led by Hastein.

  Nevertheless, because of the powerful mounted force deployed directly between the two armies by the king, and the shorter sorties made by the few fortified burhs that stood watch over the lands of Kent, the Viking forces found themselves constantly harassed on every side and unable to carve out a firm footing for themselves in the area. Alfred’s ability to keep his army in the field all year round and his well-established network of supplies and reinforcements enabled the king to pursue these invaders with unrelenting ferocity. So far, the king’s defensive innovations seemed to be standing up to the test.

  Hoping to achieve a swift and bloodless end to the conflict, Alfred sought an opportunity to meet with the Viking chieftain Hastein, who commanded the northern Danish troop. The king was wondering if it might be possible that the same peaceful relationship he had established with his one-time enemy Guthrum could also be established with the notorious brigand Hastein. Eventually, Hastein accepted Alfred’s invitations and presented himself before the king to hear the terms of peace that would be offered him. It was a strange meeting, and for the cynical Hastein, a comic display of the pious naïvety of the Christian king.

  Once more Alfred offered his enemy the chance of converting from enemy to friend by receiving the Christian faith and becoming the king’s spiritual kin. He welcomed his Viking guest to feast with him, inviting the Dane’s wife and children to join them at the table. Throughout the feasting, the king of Wessex played his part as the generous ring-giver, showering his wealth and munificence on Hastein and his family. But constantly the king turned the conversation from earthly w
ealth to the spiritual wealth of the king’s faith, explaining to the Viking chieftain that these earthly treasures were but a dim picture of the treasure to come for those who had taken Jesus Christ as their Lord. If Hastein were to convert to the Christian faith, he would receive not only Alfred’s benevolent friendship in this life, but more importantly, the eternal friendship of the healing Savior Jesus Christ in the world to come.

  Hastein surprised Alfred with his answer. The Viking explained that, actually, he was already a baptized Christian. (One wonders how many times the man had been baptized in various encounters with Christian rulers who were attempting to reform the plundering pagan.) However, the Danish chieftain was willing to relent and withdraw his troops from their fortified position. As a demonstration of his good intentions, Hastein consented to having his two sons baptized and welcomed into the Christian religion. Alfred, in return, continued to shower his guests with wealth and arranged for the baptismal ceremony to be held directly. At this ceremony, Alfred and his son-in-law, Ealdorman Æthelred, stood as sponsors for the two Viking boys. In doing so, Alfred bound himself and his son-in-law to the family of Hastein as the two Saxon rulers became the godfathers of the Viking warrior’s sons. Alfred hoped that this spiritual kinship would somehow restrain the Viking’s lust for Saxon silver and gold.

  At the end of the feasting, Hastein left Alfred with his promise to withdraw his troops, along with a number of hostages to help make his vow sure. Sadly, though not surprisingly, these promises meant no more to Hastein than his legendary baptismal vow to the bishop of Luna.

  Although the northern Viking army immediately broke camp and marched north, they stopped short of entirely quitting the Anglo-Saxon territories and made another camp at Benfleet, a village on the north shore of the Thames estuary. From this new location, Hastein launched a fresh series of plundering raids on the surrounding Saxon farms, churches, and villages.

  The southern Viking force that had encamped at Appledore, tired of making no progress in their conquest and wearied by Alfred’s constant attacks, had decided to move on by Easter. Still wanting to turn a profit on their venture, however, the Viking band chose a bold move. Sending their massive fleet of two hundred fifty ships to sail north to an arranged meeting point within the Danelaw, the Viking warriors set out across land on a ravenous binge of pillage, plunder, and rapine.

  Eluding Alfred’s army by cloaking their movements in the enormous forest known as the Andred, the Danes drove directly west, straight toward Wessex. Matching their lust for spoils with a frightening speed, the Viking army traveled swiftly from Kent to Sussex and on into Wessex, leaving Alfred and his army far behind and still wondering what had become of the Viking raiders. By the time the Danes reached the borders of Wessex, however, the raiding army had begun to lose speed because of the mountains of Saxon booty they now carried.

  By the time the Vikings reached the town of Farnham, just inside the borders of Wessex, the local burhs had mobilized a small force to confront the rampaging Danes. There was little hope that this insignificant fyrd could completely overcome the Danish troops or force any sort of surrender, but there was a good chance that the Saxon band could make enough of a nuisance of themselves to make the hurried Vikings think twice about pausing to plunder the farms and churches of the region.

  As the small troop of Saxons was about to charge into the Danish lines, they were startled to discover another, much larger army coming to their aid and joining in the attack. Prince Edward, the elder son of King Alfred, having heard of the Viking army that had escaped his father’s grasp, had raised a troop of Wessex soldiers and marched out to check the rapacious Danes. Just as his father had first tasted combat when he, as a young prince, rushed the Saxon troops onto the battlefield to compensate for the tardiness of the king and his army, now Prince Edward, fighting like a wild boar, followed in his father’s footsteps and led the charge into the Danish lines, possessed by the same grim resolve that drove his father.

  The sudden appearance of the prince lifted the spirits of the Saxons, who fought with an unrelenting ferocity. When the din of the clash finally died down, it became apparent that the place of slaughter had been held by the men of Wessex. The Viking warriors, beaten and bloodied, had fled. The Danish army, with their chief severely wounded in the fray, their provisions exhausted, and their plunder abandoned, had grown wildly desperate and sped for the border of the Danelaw. Nevertheless, it soon became obvious that escape was not possible. Exhausted and beaten, the Danes could not outrun Edward and his pursuing troops, and the condition of their wounded chieftain was worsening: he could no longer endure the traveling.

  Seeing the hopelessness of their flight and the impossibility of an easy escape, the Vikings seized the island of Thorney on the river Colne, a short distance west of London, and prepared to hold their ground against the pursuing Saxons. It was a desperate move for such a beleaguered band, lacking the provisions to endure a lengthy siege and too wounded to withstand another all-out battle. Nevertheless, they were about to experience a merciful change in their fortunes. The army commanded by Edward was filled by men who had already served the entirety of their term of service and were now demanding that they be released to return to their homes. Given that the nation was filled with roving bands of Viking marauders, their insistence that they be allowed to return home to protect their families and properties was entirely reasonable.

  Additionally, Edward’s force, like the Danes now cowering on Thorney Island, had exhausted their store of provisions. Seeing the legitimacy of his men’s demand, Edward relented and dismissed the fyrd, allowing them to return to their homes. The prince, however, stayed on with the few men he was able to retain, attempting to keep up a semblance of a siege until the arrival of his father, who was marching west with his army to relieve Edward.

  Even with the diminished strength of the besieging Saxon fyrd, the Danes were incapable of making an escape because of the severity of the wounds they had incurred at the Farnham battle. Soon Æthelred, the ealdorman of Mercia and the prince’s brother-in-law, arrived with fresh troops from nearby London to replenish Edward’s forces. It had become apparent, however, that Alfred, along with the army the king had been leading to relieve Edward and his troops, had been diverted by yet another Viking threat, leaving Edward and Æthelred to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the besieged Danes as best they could.

  The Vikings, already deprived of all their spoils and wealth, were eager to purchase a bloodless exit from Wessex by whatever means possible and readily accepted the prince’s terms. Edward took hostages from the Danes and received vows from them promising to return immediately to the Danelaw. Though the prince knew even in his youth that these vows meant little to the Viking raiders, he guessed rightly that this band of marauders, though untrustworthy in all things, would be held to their vows by their own weakened condition and eagerness to be free of the pursuing Saxon forces. After leaving Thorney Island, the Danes made straight for the Danelaw, returning to their longboats that stood waiting for them at Mersea island on the coast of East Anglia.

  Edward soon learned the cause for his father’s failure to relieve him in the siege at Thorney Island. Another Viking army, a host manned entirely by Danes from Northumbria and East Anglia, men who were breaking their oaths to the king, had sailed south, along the eastern coast, with a fleet of one hundred longboats, eager to take advantage of the pandemonium caused throughout Wessex by the Viking raids already under way. This new navy had sailed from East Anglia, down all the way around Kent, past Sussex, and to the far western end of Wessex. Here the fleet split into two fleets, as one section turned up the river Exe and laid siege to the city of Exeter, and the other section sailed around Cornwall, to land on the northern coast of Devon and begin raiding.

  Alfred’s kingdom was now truly being struck from all sides at once. With these two fresh raiding armies biting into the westernmost reaches of Wessex, another Viking force raiding the northeastern borders from their forti
fied position at Benfleet, and one more fleet of Viking longboats harbored at Mersea Island just within the Danelaw, where they sat licking their wounds and plotting another attack—truly Alfred’s defensive innovations were being put to the test. Had Wessex tried to fend off such an attack twenty years earlier, the Saxon nation would have doubtlessly toppled in an instant, but the kingdom Alfred was building was more than prepared to fend off this seemingly relentless assault.

  The raiding army laying siege to Exeter soon discovered, unfortunately for them, that they had chosen one of Alfred’s fortified burhs, a city well prepared to resist the Viking attackers. The walls of Exeter, once a Roman fortification, had been thoroughly built up and well garrisoned with troops. The city was well provisioned and more than ready to hold out against the Viking attackers.

  Upon hearing the news of the assault on Exeter, Alfred, who had been heading to relieve Edward’s troops at Thorney Island, turned his army to rush to the rescue of the besieged city. Unfortunately, the king had nearly two hundred miles to cover before coming to Exeter’s defense, leaving the Vikings plenty of time to try to conquer the city, plunder its wealth, and move on to their next victim. Nevertheless, by the time Alfred reached Exeter, the Danes had still not penetrated the city’s daunting defenses. When the Vikings, already frustrated in their lack of progress against the walls of Exeter, saw the approaching king, they gave up hope entirely, hastily returning to their ships and fleeing.

  As Alfred dealt with the attack on Exeter, Prince Edward and Ealdorman Æthelred heard news of Hastein’s treacherous betrayal as the Viking chieftain began to launch plundering raids from his new fortress at Benfleet. Seeing that the threat at Thorney Island had been dealt with, the two Saxon warriors set out to repay the Viking for his infidelity. First, they stopped in London, where the ealdorman was able to muster a significant army of fresh soldiers from the city. Then, this newly formed fyrd marched on the Benfleet fortress.