Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and Æthelwulf's first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfred was young. Three of Alfred's brothers, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred, reigned in turn before him. Under Alfred's rule, considerable administrative and military reforms were introduced, prompting lasting change in England.
After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with the Vikings, dividing England between Anglo-Saxon territory and the Viking-ruled Danelaw, which consisted of Scandinavian York, the north-east Midlands, and East Anglia. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of the Viking leader Guthrum to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England. In 886 Alfred began styling himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons" after reoccupying London from the Vikings. Details of his life are described in a work by the 9th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser.
Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, establishing a court school for both nobles and commoners to be educated in both English and Latin, and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" from as early as the 13th century, though it was only popularised from the 16th century. Alfred is the only native-born English monarch to be labelled as such.
Background
Alfred's grandfather Ecgberht became King of Wessex in 802, and in the view of the historian Richard Abels, it must have seemed very unlikely to contemporaries that he would establish a lasting dynasty. For 200 years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdic, the founder of the West Saxon dynasty. This made Ecgberht an ætheling – a prince eligible for the throne. But after Ecgberht's reign, descent from Cerdic was no longer sufficient to make a man an ætheling. When Ecgberht died in 839, he was succeeded by his son Æthelwulf; all subsequent West Saxon kings were descendants of Ecgberht and Æthelwulf, and were also sons of kings.
At the beginning of the ninth century, England was almost wholly under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. Mercia dominated southern England, but its supremacy came to an end in 825 when it was decisively defeated by Ecgberht at the Battle of Ellendun. Mercia and Wessex became allies, which was important in the resistance to Viking attacks. In 853, King Burgred of Mercia requested West Saxon help to suppress a Welsh rebellion, and Æthelwulf led a West Saxon contingent in a successful joint campaign. The same year, Burgred married Æthelwulf's daughter, Æthelswith.
In 825, Ecgberht sent Æthelwulf to invade the Mercian sub-kingdom of Kent, and its sub-king, Baldred, was driven out shortly afterwards. By 830, Essex, Surrey and Sussex had submitted to Ecgberht, and he had appointed Æthelwulf to rule the south-eastern territories as king of Kent. The Vikings ravaged the Isle of Sheppey in 835, and the following year they defeated Ecgberht at Carhampton in Somerset, but in 838 he was victorious over an alliance of Cornishmen and Vikings at the Battle of Hingston Down, reducing Cornwall to the status of a client kingdom. When Æthelwulf succeeded to the throne, he appointed his eldest son Æthelstan as sub-king of Kent. Ecgberht and Æthelwulf may not have intended a permanent union between Wessex and Kent because they both appointed sons as sub-kings, and charters in Wessex were attested (witnessed) by West Saxon magnates, while Kentish charters were witnessed by the Kentish elite; both kings kept overall control, and the sub-kings were not allowed to issue their own coinage.
Viking raids increased in the early 840s on both sides of the English Channel, and in 843 Æthelwulf was defeated at Carhampton. In 850, Æthelstan defeated a Danish fleet off Sandwich in the first recorded naval battle in English history. In 851, Æthelwulf and his second son, Æthelbald, defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea and, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "there made the greatest slaughter of a heathen raiding-army that we have heard tell of up to this present day, and there took the victory". Æthelwulf died in 858 and was succeeded by his oldest surviving son, Æthelbald, as king of Wessex and by his next oldest son, Æthelberht, as king of Kent. Æthelbald only survived his father by two years, and Æthelberht then for the first time united Wessex and Kent into a single kingdom.
Childhood
Alfred was the youngest son of Æthelwulf, king of Wessex, and his wife Osburh. 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 ("which is so called from Berroc Wood, where the box tree grows very abundantly"). This date has been accepted by the editors of Asser's biography, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, and by other historians such as David Dumville, Justin Pollard and Richard Huscroft. West Saxon genealogical lists state that Alfred was 23 when he became king in April 871, implying that he was born between April 847 and April 848. This dating is adopted in the biography of Alfred by Alfred Smyth, who regards Asser's biography as fraudulent, an allegation which is rejected by other historians. Richard Abels in his biography discusses both sources but does not decide between them and dates Alfred's birth as 847–49, while Patrick Wormald in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article dates it 848–49. Berkshire had been historically disputed between Wessex and the midland kingdom of Mercia, and as late as 844, a charter showed that it was part of Mercia, but Alfred's birth in the county is evidence that, by the late 840s, control had passed to Wessex.
He was the youngest of six children. His eldest brother, Æthelstan, was old enough to be appointed sub-king of Kent in 839, almost 10 years before Alfred was born. He died in the early 850s. Alfred's next three brothers were successively kings of Wessex. Æthelbald (858–860) and Æthelberht (860–865) were also much older than Alfred, but Æthelred (865–871) was only a year or two older. Alfred's only known sister, Æthelswith, married Burgred, King of Mercia in 853. Most historians think that Osburh was the mother of all Æthelwulf's children, but some suggest that the older ones were born to an unrecorded first wife. Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight. She was described by Asser as "a most religious woman, noble in character and noble by birth". She had died by 856 when Æthelwulf married Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, King of West Francia.
According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as a prize by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. He must have had it read to him because his mother died when he was about six and he did not learn to read until he was 12. In 853 Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have been sent to Rome, where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who "anointed him as king". Victorian writers later interpreted this as an anticipatory coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a "consul" and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. It may be based upon the fact that Alfred later accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald around 854–55. On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald. With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to form a compromise. Æthelbald retained the western shires (i.e. historical Wessex), and Æthelwulf ruled in the east, possibly as King of Kent. After Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession: Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred.
The reigns of Alfred's brothers
Alfred is not mentioned during the short reigns of his older brothers Æthelbald and Æthelberht. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the Great Heathen Army of Danes landing in East Anglia with the intent of conquering the four kingdoms which constituted Anglo-Saxon England in 865. Alfred's public life began in 865 at age 16 with the accession of his third brother, 18-year-old Æthelred. During this period, Bishop Asser gave Alfred the unique title of secundarius, which may indicate a position similar to the Celtic tanist, a recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfred's father or by the Witan to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle. It was a well known tradition among other Germanic peoples – such as the Swedes and Franks to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related – to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander.
Viking invasion In 868 Alfred was recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in a failed attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army led by Ivar the Boneless out of the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia. The Danes arrived in his homeland at the end of 870, and nine engagements were fought in the following year, with mixed results; the places and dates of two of these battles have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December 870 was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January 871. Four days later, the Anglo-Saxons won a victory at the Battle of Ashdown on the Berkshire Downs, possibly near Compton or Aldworth. The Saxons were defeated at the Battle of Basing on 22 January. They were defeated again on 22 March at the Battle of Merton (perhaps Marden in Wiltshire or Martin in Dorset). Æthelred died shortly afterwards in April 871.
King at war Early struggles In April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred acceded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, even though Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold. This was in accordance with the agreement that Æthelred and Alfred had made earlier that year in an assembly at an unidentified place called Swinbeorg. The brothers had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other would inherit the personal property that King Æthelwulf had left jointly to his sons in his will. The deceased's sons would receive only whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional lands their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested.
While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at an unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. The defeat at Wilton smashed any remaining hope that Alfred could drive the invaders from his kingdom. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them. Although the terms of the peace are not recorded, Bishop Asser wrote that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise.