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Alfred was a 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. [25]
From his headquarters at Athelney, Alfred wages guerrilla warfare against the Vikings. May – Battle of Edington: Supported by all the levies of Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire, Alfred the Great decisively defeats the main body of Danish Vikings, led by King Guthrum, at modern-day Edington, Wiltshire (near Bratton Castle).
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 ...
A depiction of Alfred the Great. The Battle of Reading was a victory for a Danish Viking army over a West Saxon force on about 4 January 871 at Reading in Berkshire. The Vikings were led by Bagsecg and Halfdan Ragnarsson and the West Saxons by King Æthelred and his brother, the future King Alfred the Great. It was the second of a series of ...
Beginning in the year 886 [4] Alfred the Great reoccupied London from the Danish Vikings and after this event he declared himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, until his death in 899. During the course of the early tenth century, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were united by Alfred's descendants Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924) and Æthelstan ...
The house became dominant in southern England after the accession of King Ecgberht in 802. Alfred the Great saved England from Viking conquest in the late ninth century and his grandson Æthelstan became first king of England in 927. The disastrous reign of Æthelred the Unready ended in Danish conquest in 1014.
[1] [2] Throughout the 870s Odda's liege, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was engaged in constant war with the Vikings. They had begun their invasion of England in 865, and by Alfred's accession in 871 the Kingdom of Wessex was the only Anglo-Saxon realm opposing them. [3] By 878 the conflict was going poorly for Alfred.