Historical Note
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are our best source for the events of the period during which the Angles and Saxons dominated Britain, but there is no single chronicle. It seems probable that Alfred himself encouraged the creation of the original text, which offered a year by year summary of events beginning with Christ’s birth, and that first manuscript was copied and distributed to monasteries who, in turn, kept updating their copies so that no two versions are alike. The entries can be maddeningly obscure and are not always reliable. Thus, for the year AD 793, the Chronicles record fiery dragons in the skies above Northumbria. In 902, the Chronicles record a battle at ‘the Holme’, a place that has never been identified though we know it was somewhere in East Anglia. A Danish army led by King Eohric and by the claimant to the throne of Wessex, ?thelwold, invaded Mercia, crossed the Thames at Cracgelad (Cricklade), harried Wessex and then retreated. King Edward followed them into East Anglia and took his revenge by ravaging Eohric’s land. Then comes the Chronicles’ tantalising account of the battle: ‘When he (Edward) meant to leave there, he had it announced to the army that they would all leave together. The Kentish stayed on there against his command and seven messages he had sent to them. The force came upon them there, and they fought.’ The entry then gives a list of the most notable casualties, among them ?thelwold, King Eohric, Ealdorman Sigelf, his son Sigebriht, and Beortsig. ‘On either hand,’ the Chronicles tell us, ‘much slaughter was made, and of the Danes there were more killed, though they had the battlefield.’ That suggests the Danes won the battle, but in winning, lost most of their leaders. (I am using a translation of the Chronicles by Anne Savage, published by Heinemann, London, 1983.)
What is most tantalising in that brief account is the puzzling refusal of the Kentish forces to withdraw, and my solution, that Ealdorman Sigelf was trying to betray the West Saxon army, is pure invention. We neither know where the battle was fought, nor what really happened there, only that there was a battle and that ?thelwold, Edward’s rival for the throne of Wessex, was killed. The Chronicles tell us about ?thelwold’s rebellion in a long entry for the year 900 (though Alfred’s death was in 899). ‘Alfred, son of ?thelwulf, passed away, six nights before All Saints Day. He was king over all the English, except for that part which was under Danish rule; and he held that kingdom for one and a half years less than thirty. Then his son Edward received the kingdom. ?thelwold, his father’s brother’s son, took over the manors at Wimbourne and at Christchurch, without the leave of the king and his counsellors. Then the king rode with the army until he camped at Badbury Rings near Wimbourne, and ?thelwold occupied the manor with those men who were loyal to him, and had barricaded all the gates against them; he said that he would stay there, alive or dead. Then he stole away under the cover of night, and sought the force in Northumbria. The king commanded them to ride after, but he could not be overtaken. They captured the woman he had seized without the king’s leave and against the bishop’s command, because she was hallowed as a nun.’ But we are not told who the woman was, or why ?thelwold kidnapped her, or what became of her. Again my solution, that it was ?thelwold’s cousin, ?thelflaed, is pure invention.
The Chronicles give us the bare bones of history, but without much detail or even explanations for what happened. Another mystery is the fate of the woman Edward might, or might not, have married; Ecgwynn. We know she gave him two children and that one of them, ?thelstan, would become immensely important to the creation of England, yet she vanishes from the record entirely and is replaced by Ealdorman ?thelhelm’s daughter, ?lfl?d. A much later account suggests that Edward and Ecgwynn’s marriage was not considered valid, yet in truth we know very little of that tale, only that the motherless ?thelstan will, in time, become the first king of all England.
The Chronicles note that Alfred was ‘king over all the English’, but then adds the cautious and crucial caveat, ‘except for that part which was under Danish rule’. In truth most of what would become England was under Danish rule; all of Northumbria, all East Anglia, and the northernmost counties of Mercia. Alfred undoubtedly wanted to be king of all the English, and by the time of his death he was by far the most notable and powerful leader among the Saxons, but his dream of uniting all the lands where English was spoken had not been realised, yet he was fortunate in having a son, a daughter and a grandchild who were as committed to that dream as he was himself, and in time they would make it happen. That story is the story behind these tales of Uhtred; the story of England’s creation. It has always puzzled me that we English are so incurious about our nation’s genesis. In school it sometimes seems as if Britain’s history begins in AD 1066, and all that went before is irrelevant, but the story of how England came to exist is a massive, exciting and noble tale.
The father of England is Alfred. He might not have lived to see the land of the Angelcynn united, but he made that unification possible by preserving both the Saxon culture and the English language. He made Wessex into a stronghold that withstood assault after assault from the Danes, and which was strong enough, after his death, to spread northwards until the Danish overlords were overcome and assimilated. There was an Uhtred involved in those years, and he is my direct ancestor, but the tales I tell of him are pure invention. The family held Bebbanburg (now Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland) from the earliest years of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain almost until the Norman Conquest. When the rest of the north fell to Danish rule, Bebbanburg held out, an enclave of Angelcynn among the Vikings. Almost certainly that survival was due as much to collaboration with the Danes as to the immense natural strength of the family’s fortress. I separated the Uhtred of this tale from Bebbanburg so he can be closer to the events that will create England, events that begin in the Saxon south and slowly move to the Angle north. I wanted him close to Alfred, a man he dislikes almost as much as he admires.
Alfred is, of course, the only British monarch to be called ‘the Great’. There is no Nobel-like committee to award that honorific, which seems to spring out of history by consent of the historians, yet few people would argue with Alfred’s right to the title. He was, by any measure, a most intelligent man, and he was also a good man. Uhtred might be inimical to a Christian society ruled by law, but the alternative was Danish rule and continuing chaos. Alfred imposed law, education and religion on his people, and he also protected them from fearsome enemies. He made a viable state, no small achievement. Justin Pollard, in his wonderful biography
He was buried in Winchester’s Old Minster, but the body was later moved to the New Minster, where the tomb was sheathed in lead. William the Conqueror, wanting to dissuade his new English subjects from venerating their past, had the lead-encased coffin moved to Hyde Abbey just outside Winchester. That abbey, like all the other religious houses, was dissolved under Henry VIII, and became a private home and, later, a prison. In the late eighteenth century Alfred’s tomb was discovered by the prisoners, who stripped it of lead and then threw away the bones. Justin Pollard surmises that the remains of the greatest Anglo-Saxon king are probably still in Winchester, scattered in the topsoil somewhere between a car park and a row of Victorian houses. His emerald-studded crown fared no better. It survived until the seventeenth century, when, so it is said, the wretched Puritans who ruled England after the Civil War prised out the stones and melted down the gold.
Winchester is still Alfred’s town. Many of the property lines in the old city’s heart are those laid out by his surveyors. The bones of many of his family lie in stone boxes in the cathedral that replaced his minster, and his statue stands in the town centre, burly and warlike, though in truth he was sick all his life, and his first love was not martial glory, but religion, learning and the law. He was indeed Alfred the Great, but in this tale of England’s making his dream has not yet come true, so Uhtred must fight again.
Harper Collins
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