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Alfred was the youngest son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh. [5] According to his biographer, Asser, writing in 893, "In the year of our Lord's Incarnation 849 Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons", was born at the royal estate called Wantage, in the district known as Berkshire [a] ("which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly").
A 1722 copy of part of Asser's Life of King Alfred. The primary sources for the location of the battle are Asser's Life of King Alfred, which names the place as "Ethandun" and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which has Eðandun. The chronicle was compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great and is thus a contemporary record. [24]
While Alfred's negotiations with Haestan were ongoing the Vikings out of Appledore in the spring of 893 began raiding across Wessex until they were intercepted by Edward, Alfred's son, and routed at the battle of Farnham. [8] [9] These Vikings then retreated to, and fortified Thorney Island, situated in the braided River Colne south of Iver. [9]
The Battle of Rochester [1] [2] was an armed conflict between the Anglo-Saxons, under the command of Alfred the Great, and the Norse Viking invaders. The Vikings entered at Medway and attacked Rochester, but were unable to seize the town due to strong resistance.
It was therefore an important victory for the West Saxons won by someone other than Alfred, who was then leading English resistance to the Viking invasions. [11] In addressing the year 878, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claimed that "all but Alfred the King" had been subdued by the Vikings' Great Heathen Army:
The king of Mercia requested help from the king of Wessex to help fight the Vikings. A combined army from Wessex and Mercia besieged the city of Nottingham with no clear result, so the Mercians settled on paying the Vikings off. The Vikings returned to Northumbria in autumn 868 and overwintered in York, staying there for most of 869.
The Treaty of Wedmore [a] is a 9th century agreement between King Alfred the Great of Wessex and the Viking king, Guthrum the Old.The only contemporary reference to the treaty is that of a Welsh monk, Asser, in his biography of Alfred, known as Vita Ælfredi regis Angul Saxonum, or "The Life of King Alfred", in which Asser describes how after Guthrum's defeat at the Battle of Edington ...
The Great Heathen Army of Vikings first arrived in 865 and within a decade they had conquered the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia and Northumberland. Shortly before Alfred the Great was named king in 871, the Vikings had also attacked Wessex where Alfred defeated them at the Battle of Ashdown. Despite this victory, Alfred was still ...