Edington (Ethandun), May 878

The battle, stage by stage

1. Twelfth Night, early January 878

   The surprise of Chippenham

   In 877 the Danish army left Exeter for Mercia; the chronicler Æthelweard says it camped at Gloucester. Soon after Twelfth Night 878 it 'stole away' to Chippenham, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, in midwinter, a season when armies did not usually march. Asser calls Chippenham a royal estate in the north of Wiltshire. It is often assumed that Alfred was keeping Christmas there; the sources do not say so. The attack caught the West Saxons unprepared. Where the royal hall stood is not known. It is drawn here around the old town in the loop of the Avon. The Danish line of march is unknown and drawn schematically.

2. January to Easter 878

   Athelney

   The Danes made Chippenham their base, 'rode over' the land of the West Saxons and settled there, says the Chronicle. They drove many people overseas and forced most of the rest to submit, 'except King Alfred'. With a small band he went 'with difficulty through the woods and into inaccessible places in the marshes' and, at Easter, built a fortress on the Isle of Athelney in the Somerset Levels. From there he raided the Danes. The western summit of Athelney Hill is the traditional site of the fort; a 1993 geophysical survey found ditches there, and field-walking found iron slag thought to be Saxon (Historic England 1019099); the fort itself remains unconfirmed. The famous story of the burned cakes first appears more than a century later. In the same winter a Danish force under a brother of Ivar and Halfdan was defeated in Devon, and its raven banner was taken.

3. Seventh week after Easter (early May 878)

   Egbert's Stone

   In the seventh week after Easter, Alfred rode to 'Egbert's Stone, east of Selwood' (Ecgbryhtesstan). There, the Chronicle says, all the men of Somerset, Wiltshire and the part of Hampshire 'on this side of the sea' came to meet him 'and were glad of him'. Nobody knows where the stone stood. Candidates include the Kingston Deverill area, where sarsen 'Egbert's stones' reportedly brought from Court Hill lie behind the church; Kingsettle Hill, where Henry Hoare built King Alfred's Tower in 1772; Brixton Deverill; Whitesheet Castle; and Shaftesbury (Dorset HER). The muster is drawn near Court Hill only as a working position, and the approach of each shire's men is schematic. No source gives a figure for Alfred's army. Modern writers suggest a few thousand on each side.

4. The night before the battle

   Iley Oak

   After one night, Alfred moved on to Iglea (Asser's Aecglea) and camped there for a night. Iglea is usually identified with Iley Oak, a great tree where the courts of Warminster and Heytesbury hundreds met from 1439 to 1652. According to the Victoria County History, it stood 'probably in Southleigh or Eastleigh Woods between Sutton Veny and Longbridge Deverill', a few miles south of Warminster. It is plotted approximately. The sources do not say where the Danes spent the night or how they knew Alfred was coming. They are drawn on the downs near Edington, Wiltshire, where the battle is usually placed, and their approach from Chippenham is schematic.

5. Next day, May 878 (probably 6–12 May)

   Ethandun

   At dawn Alfred marched to Ethandun and 'fought against the whole army'. Asser says he fought 'with a compact shield-wall' (Keynes and Lapidge's rendering of the Latin densa testudine) for a long time. Ethandun is generally identified with Edington, Wiltshire, below the scarp of Salisbury Plain. The exact field is unknown, and these positions are a reconstruction. One widely repeated view (John Peddie, 1999, as summarized by Wiltshire Council) has Guthrum by the Iron Age hillfort of Bratton Camp, with Alfred coming from the south-west across the Plain rather than up the steep northern scarp. Edington on the Polden Hills in Somerset, near Athelney, was argued as the site by Bishop Clifford in 1875 and others, but most historians reject it. Wiltshire Council also lists Eddington (Berkshire) and Minchinhampton (Gloucestershire) among the claimed sites, while noting that most experts accept Edington, Wiltshire. A memorial stone was set beside Bratton Camp in 2000. The White Horse below the camp was probably first cut in the late 17th century, perhaps in the belief that the battle was fought here.

6. May 878: the following fourteen days

   Pursuit and siege

   Alfred 'overthrew the pagans with great slaughter', says Asser, and pursued the survivors 'as far as the fortress', cutting down the fugitives, killing the men he found outside it and seizing their horses and cattle (Asser ch. 56). The fortress is not named, but it is generally taken to be Chippenham, about 13 miles (21 km) north, where the army went on to winter. Some local tradition puts the siege at Bratton Camp itself, but the army's later departure from Chippenham (ASC 879) makes Chippenham the usual identification. Alfred camped before the gates. The Chronicle says he 'sat there fourteen nights'. Asser says that 'hunger, cold and fear' drove the Danes to ask for peace on unprecedented terms: Alfred would take hostages as he chose and give none in return. They also promised that their king would accept baptism and that they would leave Wessex. The siege lines are conjectural, and the routes of the flight and pursuit are not recorded.

7. June 878

   Aller and Wedmore

   Three weeks later, Asser says, Guthrum came to Alfred 'with thirty of the most honourable men in his army' at Aller, near Athelney. Alfred stood sponsor at his baptism and gave him the baptismal name Æthelstan. The chrism-loosing, the removal of the baptismal head-cloth eight days later, took place at the royal estate of Wedmore, where Guthrum stayed twelve nights and was given rich gifts. The settlement made here is often called the 'Treaty of Wedmore'. No text of it survives, and the written treaty of Alfred and Guthrum, which sets a boundary, is usually dated between 880 and 890, often to 886. The Danish army moved to Cirencester in 879 and settled in East Anglia in 880. Wessex survived.