Famous for successfully defending his kingdom against Viking invaders, King Alfred the Great ruled Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred was ruler of the West Saxons and the first regent to declare himself to be king of the Anglo-Saxons. Most of the information we have on Alfred is gleaned from the writings of Asser, a 10th century scholar and bishop from Wales.
1. He probably didn’t burn any cakes
The story of Alfred burning the cakes of a woman whose house he was sheltering in from the Vikings is a famous historical legend. Unaware of who he was, she was said to have roundly scolded her king for his inattentiveness.
The story originates from at least a century after Alfred’s rule, suggesting there is no historical veracity in it.
A 19th century engraving of Alfred burning the cakes.
2. Alfred was a promiscuous youth
He was known to chase many women in is younger years, from household servants to ladies of standing. Alfred admits this freely in his own works and Asser, his biographer, reiterates it in his biography of Alfred. They point to these ‘sins’ as something that the religious king had to overcome to become a worthy man and ruler in God’s eyes.
3. He was often sick
Alfred had intense stomach complaints. Sometimes it was so severe that it made him unable to leave his room for days or weeks at a time. He reportedly had painful cramps and often diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal symptoms. Some historians have pointed to what we now know to be Crohn’s disease as the cause of his poor health.
4. Alfred was extremely religious
At the age of four he visited the pope in Rome and, he claims, was blessed with the right to rule. Alfred founded monasteries and convinced foreign monks to his new monasteries. Whilst he did not enact any major reforms to religious practice, Alfred did strive to appoint learned and pious bishops and abbots.
One of the terms of surrender for the Viking Guthrum was that he must be baptised a Christian before leaving Wessex. Guthrum took the name Æthelstan and went on to rule East Anglia until his death.
5. He was never meant to be king
Alfred had 3 older brothers, all of whom reached adulthood and reigned before him. When Æthelred, the third brother, died in 871, he had two young sons.
However, based on a previous agreement between Æthelred and Alfred, Alfred inherited the throne. Faced with Viking invasions, it’s unlikely that this was opposed. Minorities were notoriously periods of weak kingship and factional infighting: the last thing the Anglo-Saxons needed.
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6. He lived in a swamp
In the year 878, the Vikings launched a surprise attack on Wessex, claiming the majority of it as their own. Alfred some of his household and a some of his warriors managed to escape and took refuge at Athelney, at that time an island in the marshes of Somerset. It was a highly defensible position, almost impenetrable to the Vikings.
7. He was a master of disguise
Before the battle of Edington in 878 AD, there is a story that tells of how Alfred, disguised as a simple musician, slipped into the occupied city of Chippenham to gather information about the Viking forces. He was successful and fled back to the forces of Wessex before the end of the night, leaving Guthrum and his men none the wiser.
A 20th century depiction of Alfred at the Battle of Ashdown.
8. He brought England back from the brink
The little island of Athelney and the wetlands that surrounded it was the full extent of Alfred’s Kingdom for four months in 878 AD. From there he and his surviving warriors turned ‘Viking’ and began to harass the invaders as they had once done to them.
Word of his survival spread and the armies of those lands still loyal to him gathered in Somerset. Once a large enough force had gathered, Alfred struck out and successfully won back his kingdom in the Battle of Edington against the Viking Guthrum, who had arrived as part of the so-called Great Summer Army and conquered much of Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria in conjunction with the Great Heathen Army.
9. He began the unification of England
Alfred’s success at fighting Viking invasions and the creation of the Danelaw helped establish him as the dominant ruler in England.
Ten years before the end of his death, Alfred’s charters and coinage named him as ‘King of the English’, a new and ambitious idea that his dynasty carried forward to the ultimate realisation of a united England.
10. He was the only English king to be called ‘Great’
He saved English society after being almost destroyed, ruled with a just and honest determination, conceived and implemented the idea of a single united Angle-Land, constructed a new salient code of law and established the first English navy: a man worthy of the epithet ‘the Great’.
