The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

by Benjamin R. Merkle

  The Saxon sailors, led by Alfred, still fighting like a wild boar, overtook four Danish boats. They boarded the Viking vessels and set to work with axe and sword, hewing and slashing their way through the Danish fleet. The crews of the first two Viking ships were entirely slaughtered within minutes. Then, as the bloodied but still battle-hungry Saxons spilled into the hull of the next ship, cutting their way on board, the Vikings quickly lost their stomach for the fight. They surrendered and begged for mercy from Alfred, as the historian records, “on bended knee.”

  It is interesting that several years after wresting his great victory from Guthrum and establishing peace throughout Wessex, Alfred could still be found personally commanding these smaller combat missions. Though the king was not present for each and every military engagement fought by the Wessex troops, Alfred, until his death, regularly took his sword, shield, and spear into battle, standing shoulder to shoulder in the shieldwall with his countrymen. In the Anglo-Saxon world, combat was the duty of the ruling class; and the king, his thegns, the noblemen, and other rulers of the English people always filled the ranks of the Wessex shieldwall.

  Thus, it was the landed class, not the peasants or slaves, who responded to the summons of the fyrd and were expected to die on the battlefield. Though this system may have had its faults, when compared to modern societies where liberty has made great advances against this class system, there remains something about the Anglo-Saxon mentality that was nobler than the governing practices of modern nations. In Alfred’s day, no man could order another into combat to face a gory death in battle if he wasn’t prepared to stand next to him in that same perilous fight. The image of a king ordering his troops to battle while he sat luxuriously pavilioned far from the place of slaughter was the innovation of a much later age and inconceivable to the Anglo-Saxon mind.

  In the year 885, Alfred’s many innovations for the defenses of his territories were put to the test. The Danish army, who had earlier camped at Fullham near London and had tested the sincerity of Æthelstan’s baptismal vows, suddenly returned to Wessex hoping to find that several years of peace from Viking raids would have caused the Anglo-Saxons to grow complacent, lax , and vulnerable. This particular raiding army had spent the intervening seven years between their departure from England and their sudden return pillaging the abbeys, priories, and monasteries of northern Europe.

  Alfred had actually carefully followed their gruesome career throughout the Franks’ river systems and knew full well of their bloody attack on the ancient monastery of Saint Bertin in West Francia; their progress into Flanders where they forced the people of Ghent to shelter them through the winter; their seizing of horses for their entire force, making their raiding army a mounted troop; their ravaging up the river Oise to Rheims; their attack on the convent of Condé, where the nuns were forced at sword point to provide for their Viking guests for an entire year; their slaughter up and down the rivers Lys, Scheldt, Meuse, Rhine, Moselle, and finally the Somme. And Alfred heard how this particular force had been rewarded for their theft and murder with repeated payments of the danegeld by the Christian rulers in Europe, men like Charles the Fat and Carloman. Then, in the early winter months of 885, Alfred received the ominous message that this army had divided its forces into two, one half choosing to push deeper into East Francia, while the other half returned to England expecting to be rewarded with a tremendous harvest of plunder in those fields that had been left fallow for so long.

  By the time the Britain-bound portion of the Viking fleet landed on the shores of Kent, the English winter was well under way. For the last several years, the Danish policy had been to choose a strategic wintering point, a well-provisioned and poorly defended site, which could be overthrown quickly, held throughout the winter, drained of its wealth and stores, and then abandoned in spring as the river waters surged and other potential victims beckoned.

  Their arrival on the shores of England late into the season put the Danes significantly behind schedule, so they wasted little time in selecting their target and striking swiftly. The Viking army chose the city of Rochester, a former Roman settlement sitting on the banks of the river Medway a short distance from the river mouth, where the waters mingle with the Thames in the Thames estuary before flowing into the North Sea.

  At the beginning of the seventh century, Rochester had been converted to the Christian faith by the missionary Justus, who had been sent to the city by the newly arrived Augustine of Canterbury. As a result of Justus’s efforts, England’s second oldest cathedral was soon built in Rochester, bringing to the ancient city, over the following centuries, all the wealth such an eminent cathedral might attract. This meant that the city of Rochester was blessed with two of the Vikings’ favorite features—a navigable river and a wealthy church.

  Although the city of Rochester sat in Kent and was therefore not included in Alfred’s plans for the reconstruction of the defenses of Wessex, the subkingdoms Alfred ruled—Kent, Essex, and Sussex— had all undergone similar programs of reform. Thus the city walls of Rochester had been quite recently refortified to ensure they were constructed to provide the same sort of protection offered in any of the burhs of Wessex. Additionally, the nobles and landowners had organized a garrisoned fighting force equivalent to the stipulations of the Burghal Hideage, a force sufficient to ensure that the newly constructed walls were well defended. For the Vikings, the strength of Rochester would prove to be astonishing.

  It would seem that the time elapsed from the moment the dreaded Viking longboats came into view, their dragon-carved prows slicing through the foamy waters of the Thames estuary and then turning to sail up the mouth of the Medway, until the pillaging Danes spilled out of their ships to charge the city would have left little time for a warning to have traveled through enough of the surrounding region to gather any sort of significant fighting force within the city walls.

  And so when the Viking horde charged the gates of Rochester splitting the air with their gore-hungry screams, they fully expected to spend little more than a moment hewing through the city’s defenses, leaving the rest of their afternoon free for despoiling the city and the surrounding countryside. That the gates had been bolted against them was not a great surprise to the attacking Danes. But when they drew near the walls to begin smashing down the massive city doors, they were astonished to discover that the many fighting platforms situated along the towering city walls were manned by a substantial contingent of battle-ready Kentish men who eagerly greeted the startled Vikings with a shower of arrows, spears, and rocks.

  The initial chaos of the desperate flight from the walls of Rochester, accompanied by the terrifying chorus of shrieks and howls of those who had fallen in the artillery-inflicted carnage, suggested for a brief moment that the Viking force would fall into a total and easily conquered pandemonium. But the disciplined and battle-savvy Danes quickly regained their composure and regrouped just beyond the range of the Kentish archery.

  The Viking chieftains were resilient and able to reassess a situation and quickly change their tactics to suit the ever-shifting challenges they faced on the battlefield. Seeing that a direct assault on the walls of Rochester was likely to cost the lives of a great number of Vikings, the Danes resigned themselves to a prolonged siege. Confident in their ability to outlast whatever provisions the men of Kent had hoarded within the city walls, the Danes settled in to wait until the hunger pains of Rochester drove the men to accept the terms of the Northmen—to pay the danegeld.

  Having been startled once by the Saxon’s strength, however, the Northmen decided to ensure that their siege was conducted from the safety of a properly fortified position. Soon the Danes began digging a circle of ditch and dike earthwork defenses, constructing a carefully barricaded camp just beyond the gates of Rochester. As the excavation began, another contingent of the Vikings searched out the nearest pastures to find forage for the multitude of horses the Viking troops had brought with them from Normandy in the hopes of using their mounts to
wander far and wide from the Kentish river systems. During the following days, the Danes mounted a series of attacks against the defenses of Rochester in the hopes of finding some weakness in the Kentish fortress, some chink in the Saxon armor. But they found none and were driven back from Rochester’s walls on every occasion. Still it seemed that it would only be a matter of time before the besieged city’s determination flagged and the danegeld would ultimately be surrendered.

  Although the Viking commanders expected that a shire fyrd would eventually be mustered to contend with them, it was assumed that the gathering of the fyrd would take some time and that by the time the Saxon army arrived, the earthwork fortress would provide more than enough protection to the Danish army. Whatever help Rochester might receive, the Vikings were confident that the siege of the city would continue regardless.

  To the stupefying horror of the Vikings, however, only a few days after the raiding army beached its longboats on the banks of the Medway, they received word that an enormous throng of Saxon soldiers was swiftly approaching on horseback. Hardly had the message been brought to the ears of the Viking commanders than the approaching army crested the horizon, innumerable and riding hard, rushing to relieve the besieged city. Not only was this army much larger than expected (being the newly formed standing army of Wessex, rather than the traditional ad hoc shire fyrd), but the ranks of this new force were filled with Saxon men who had spent months training and preparing specifically for a battle such as this. Resolute and battle-hungry, the Wessex forces galloped, with the king of Wessex himself, King Alfred, riding in the vanguard.

  The Northmen were thunderstruck. Their typical cool-headed composure evaporated, and they were overwhelmed by a desperate terror and a desire to be as far away from the Anglo-Saxon army as possible. The idea of forming a shieldwall to face Alfred was unthinkable. But the chance of successfully defending the only partially constructed earthwork fortification was equally hopeless. The only attractive option to any of the Viking minds was a dash for safety. The fortress was abandoned. The horses brought across the sea from Europe were left behind. The many Flemish, Frankish, and Anglo-Saxon captives, whom the Vikings had been collecting with the plans of placing them on the lucrative slave market, were all abandoned. In an instant, everything was left behind in one desperate sprint to the Viking longboats.

  In the bedlam of the hasty retreat, the Danish army was divided in half. One half managed to reach the beached ships ahead of the advancing Saxons and was able to sail safely down the Medway into the Thames estuary; and without even looking back, they crossed the channel and returned to Europe. The remaining troop of Vikings, overtaken by the cavalry of Wessex, threw themselves on Alfred’s mercy, hoping the king would be willing to offer them some terms of peace.

  Fortunately for this band of stranded Danes, the king was prepared to be compassionate and allowed them to leave in peace, having taken a selection of Viking hostages and received their vows never again to plunder within Alfred’s borders. Perhaps it was a disappointment for the Wessex army to have trained intensely for years and ridden hard for several days only to have the Danes flee the moment the Wessex army approached. But clearly there was good reason to consider the episode a victory for the Anglo-Saxons. Rochester was liberated. The slaves and horses held by the Danes had been abandoned to the Saxons. The Vikings had fled without receiving one piece of danegeld.

  There was also good reason to be unsatisfied with the outcome of this encounter. Predictably, the terms of peace the Vikings had used to purchase their freedom were quickly broken as the army again plundered south of the Thames, within Alfred’s land. Even more disconcerting, this raiding band seemed to be working in conjunction with another Danish force based in East Anglia. Though King Æthelstan had proved faithful to his vows and never again raided in Wessex, not all of the noblemen under the converted Viking were as prepared to honor the terms of Æthelstan’s peace with Alfred. Wanting to send a picture of the power of Wessex to the East Anglian kingdom, Alfred ordered the English navy, loaded with the fighting men of Kent, to move north up the coastline of Kent seeking out opportunities to challenge the Viking fleets.

  Upon reaching the mouth of the river Stour, the Wessex fleet immediately encountered a line of sixteen Danish longboats, fully rigged for battle. Immediately the Vikings advanced to meet the Saxons, and a vicious sea battle commenced. Assuming the Viking vessels were manned by an average of thirty men per ship, the Danish force likely had nearly five hundred men in the engagement. It is not known exactly how many fighting men the Wessex navy brought, but it is likely that the English force significantly outnumbered the Danes. Hours of fierce ship-to-ship combat followed, punctuated by occasional intense chases as one ship broke free of the flotilla and rowed madly for safety only to be overtaken, boarded, and forced back into the fight; finally the slaughter ended with every single Viking boat captured, her crews dispatched, and her plunder seized.

  Exulting in the triumph and heavy-laden with their pillaged winnings, the Wessex navy finally regrouped and turned to move back down the Stour, anxious to return home and begin the celebrations. However, from the moment the naval combat had begun, word of the arrival of the Wessex fleet and her bold attack on the Danes had been passed to every Viking crew in the vicinity. By the time the Anglo-Saxons had hoisted their sails to begin a leisurely journey home, an enormous Danish fleet had gathered to meet the Saxon navy at the mouth of the Stour and exact their revenge. This time it was the Saxons who were outnumbered as the swelling tidal waters of the Stour teemed with Viking longboats, swarming the battle-weary Saxon fleet. The battle ended poorly for the Saxons that day as all was lost to the victorious Viking navy.

  This series of engagements provided Alfred with several important lessons. First, the theory behind his massive reorganization of the Wessex defenses was perfectly sound. A network of well-fortified burhs, combined with a swiftly moving standing army had the potential to completely immunize Wessex from the tactics of the Danish raiding armies that had so plagued the Anglo-Saxons. But the second lesson proved more discouraging. The Danes still ruled the sea. Until Wessex could rob the Vikings of this strength, until Alfred could successfully defend his own shorelines, England would never truly be free from the plague of the Northmen.

  The thought that the Danes still dominated the coasts of Britain weighed heavily on Alfred’s mind, and he often turned his mind to the problem of his navy, wondering how the Saxons could possibly find an advantage over the navies of the Danes. Alfred, however, was not interested in finding the solution to this problem purely out of a concern for the coasts of Britain. In truth, the king had always been transfixed by the sea and eagerly sought opportunities to sail. Had the obligations of the crown not demanded that he devote his life to the land of Wessex, Alfred would very likely have earned a reputation as an explorer on the sea, the “path of the daring.” Alfred’s writings regularly employed nautical images and metaphors that hint at the spell the sea had cast on Alfred’s mind. Thus, thinking through his navy was in many ways an entertaining hobby more than a kingly duty.

  It would not be until many years later that Alfred would finally have the opportunity to act upon some of the innovations he had concocted in his daydreams about the Saxon ships. Toward the end of his reign in the year 896, Alfred finally had the opportunity to give his full attention to the Wessex navy and ordered the construction of a fleet of Saxon ships according to a new set of specifications. With an eye toward combating the deadly longboats, having felt the power of these lethal ships skillfully constructed of ash wood, Alfred insisted that the new Saxon boats be almost doubled in size, with sixty oars per ship.

  This new design placed more men at the oar, with the hopes of increasing speed in close chases, but more important it ensured that the English boats would arrive for combat with twice the number of soldiers ready for battle. Boarding one of Alfred’s longboats would be a much more formidable task. Contemporary accounts of Alfred’s new vessels state that t
he new ships sailed faster, handled better, and rode higher in the water than any other naval design (a tremendous advantage in ship-to-ship fighting). To train his new navy, Alfred recruited a number of experienced Frisian sailors from the continent, men well reputed for their seamanship.

  Alfred’s foray into shipbuilding and his organization of a standing naval force won for him the title “the Father of England’s navy.” Predictably, this designation is hotly contested by military historians since it is impossible to trace an unbroken line of descent from Alfred’s organization of the Wessex naval forces all the way down to the United Kingdom’s present Royal Navy. That position is more likely held by Henry VIII. Thus, the concern to “demythologize” Alfred the Great compels some to object to this title being given to the king of Wessex. But it seems that King Alfred played enough of a prominent role in the origins of the English naval forces that he could reasonably claim some portion of this honorary title.

  Alfred’s shipbuilding innovations have been the focus of a great deal of scholarly scorn because of a skirmish between Saxon and Danish forces that was fought shortly after the new fleet was constructed. In the year 896, Danish longboats struck again all along the southern coast of Wessex, plundering and pillaging the Saxon shore. In response to this threat, Alfred commanded his new ships to patrol the coastal waters, looking for an opportunity to punish the Viking pirates. Finally, word came to him that six Danish longboats were looting the coastal villages of the Isle of Wight and the shores of Devon. Alfred sent nine of the newly constructed Saxon ships, manned with mixed crews of Frisian and Wessex sailors, to engage the Northmen. The Wessex fleet, after much searching, overtook the Danish longboats as they rested at the mouth of one of the many rivers that emptied into the channel.