Alfred 'The Great', King of Wessex and England (r 871-899)

b. 849; d. 899

Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex on the death of his brother Aethelred. The scourge of Danish invasions threatened his kingdom and the others of Anglo-Saxon England and by 878 much of it was under Danish control. On 6 January 878 Alfred's forces were defeated at Chippenham in a surprise attack by the Danes under Guthrum and Alfred was forced to take refuge in the Somerset marshlands. But by May, Alfred was back on the attack and he defeated Guthrum decisively at Edington, near modern-day Westbury in Wiltshire. Under the terms of the Peace of Wedmore that followed the battle, Guthrum converted to Christianity and withdrew his army to East Anglia, within the territory known as Danelaw, and a relatively peaceful period ensued.

Alfred used this period to strengthen his administration, the rule of law and the defenses of his kingdom. A series of fortifications or burhs was established; 33 are recorded in the Burghal Hidage, a document which dates from the reign of Edward, Alfred's son. They were placed so that no settlement throughout Wessex was more than twenty miles from a fort which would be repaired and, if required, garrisoned by men of the locality. Although they were not completed at the time of the next Danish invasion in 892, their presence probably did much to dissuade the Danes from encroaching too far into Wessex itself. The Danish army did not withdraw from England until 896, but Alfred's kingdom was rarely threatened as it had been in the 870s.

Alfred was not only the preeminent ruler of his time, being recognised as overlord of Mercia as well as King of Wessex, he was a man of considerable learning and scholarship. Between the years 892 and his death in 899, Alfred translated five Latin works into English, including Cura Pastoralis, by Pope Gregory the Great and Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Alfred's scholarship and the encouragement he gave to the use of Old English as a language of record also explain why he remained famous to succeeding generations of Englishmen: his contemporary biographer Asser recorded his life in glowing terms, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles which date from his reign are also keen to record his victories and virtues. But even allowing for a degree of propagandising, Alfred deserves his reputation as one of the key figures in the political and cultural development of the English nation.

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