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In the footsteps of Ivarr the Boneless

Home | Beginnings | Dublin to England | Conquest of Mercia
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The conquest of Mercia: AD 867-870

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ivarr's 'great heathen army' moved south from York in 868 and set up its winter quarters in Mercia, at Nottingham. The Vikings' arrival there marked the first recorded threat to the heartlands of Mercia.

Nottingham's primary attraction to the Danes was its defensive position. Occupying high ground above the Trent at the lowest point at which it could be easily forded, it commanded two of the major routes between Mercia and Northumbria.

Cunning fox
King Burgred of Mercia sent for help from King Ethelred of Wessex and his brother and heir Alfred. The combined armies of Mercia and Wessex assembled before the Danish position. Ivarr realised that he was outnumbered and could not hope to win a battle. He relied instead on guile to secure a peace – the Treaty of Nottingham – to extricate the Danes from their position.

Henry of Huntingdon, writing almost 250 years later, described Ivarr's response:

Ingwar [Ivarr] then, seeing that the whole force of England was there gathered, and that his host was the weaker, and was there shut in, betook himself to smooth words – cunning fox that he was – and won peace and troth from the English. Then he went back to York, and abode there one year with all cruelty.

Under the cover of this peace, Ivarr recrossed Mercia with his army and his brother Ubbe Ragnarrson, and, in 870, conquered the kingdom of East Anglia at the Battle of Haegelisdun (probably Hellesden, in Bradfield St Clare, Suffolk).

The execution of Edmund
Ivarr is also credited with the brutal execution of King Edmund in the small village of Hoxne, which later English sources equate with the martyrdom of St Sebastian.

In his life of St Edmund, the 10th-century French monk Abbo of Fleury wrote:

Hingwar [Ivarr] then arrogantly commanded his troops that they should, all of them, take the king alone, who had despised his command, and instantly bind him.

When Hingwar came, Edmund the king stood within his hall, mindful of the Saviour, and threw away his weapons, desiring to imitate the example of Christ ... Then those wicked men bound Edmund and shamefully insulted him and beat him with clubs, and afterwards they led the faithful king to an earth-fast tree and tied him to it with hard bonds, and afterwards scourged him a long while with whips, and among the blows he was always calling with true faith on Jesus Christ.

Then the heathen were madly angry because of his faith, because he called upon Christ to help him. They shot at him with javelins as if for their amusement, until he was all beset with their shots, as with a porcupine's bristles, even as Sebastian was. When Hingwar, the wicked seaman, saw that the noble king would not deny Christ, but with steadfast faith ever called upon Him, he commanded men to behead him, and the heathen did so. For while he was yet calling upon Christ, the heathen drew away the saint to slay him, and struck off his head with a single blow, and his soul departed joyfully to Christ.

With that 'single blow' – Edmund's brother Edwold having fled to Cerne Abbas in Dorset and become a hermit – the East Anglian royal dynasty disappeared for ever.

From king to saint
One of the best-known stories of this region tells how the Danes left Edmund's corpse unburied and his head thrown away into deep brambles. After a search by local people, the body was found, but not the head. They then heard the howling of a wolf (probably Edmund's own hunting-dog or wolfhound) and, following the sound, came to the place where the head lay.

The corpse and head were placed in a hastily built hut-like chapel and, it is said, miracles immediately began – a light was seen over the chapel, and the blind and the sick were healed. Edmund's head became joined to his body, with only a red scar marking the place of the previous cut.

Locals came as pilgrims to venerate Edmund's relics, which did not decay and rot. The murdered king was revered as a martyr and his cult quickly spread. Thirty years after his death, his body was interred in Bedericsworth, the central town of Suffolk, which soon became known as St Edmund's Town, or Bury St Edmunds. An abbey was founded in 1020, and the relics were moved to a shrine there in 1198. (At the beginning of the 13th century, these were stolen by French knights and taken to Toulouse.)

Edmund became the patron saint of all East Anglia. His symbol of three crowns – representing his kingship, his martyrdom and his virginity – can still be seen on many emblems, crests and flags all over East Anglia.

The Vikings in Wessex
Meanwhile, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Vikings ...

... overcame all the land. They destroyed all the churches they came to; the same time they came to Medhamsted [Peterborough], they burned and broke, killed the abbot and monks, and all they found there.

Ivarr then returned to York, probably leaving the Viking army under the joint control of his brothers Halfdan and Ubbe.

They proceeded to attack Wessex. Following the Thames to Reading, they made the town their headquarters after a fight. Because the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written in Wessex, we know what happened there in some detail. For instance, the chronicler specifies the Viking leaders – a collection of warlords, some of whom called themselves kings, others who did not have the support or the ambition to be more than jarls (earls).

Ethelred died, and Alfred (later to known as 'the Great') continued his campaign. There were at least nine engagements that the chronicler considered worthy of the name 'battle', plus many lesser forays mounted by the Wessex forces to harass or repulse the attacking Danes. By the end of 870, the Vikings, having lost one king and nine jarls, were willing to make peace.

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Find out more

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Part 2: AD 750-919
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Anglo/part2.html
The original text, which covers the period of the Viking invasions of East Anglia and Mercia.

The Passion of St Edmund, King and Martyr
www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/aelfric/edmund.html
This life of the saint by Abbo of Fleury was translated from the Latin by Ælfric (fl. 990-1020), an Anglo-Saxon monk and a prolific writer of religious literature.

The Abbey of St Edmund
www.bbc.co.uk/history/3d/abbey.shtml
A virtual tour of the 11th-century abbey, on the BBC History website. You need a VRML plug-in to view the tour.

The Abbey Church of St Edmund, Bury St Edmunds
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/buryabbey.html
Fascinating, lengthy and idiosyncratic article on the abbey – complete with photographs – by a highly competent enthusiast.

The Anglo-Saxons, edited by James Campbell, Patrick Wormald and Eric John (Penguin, 1991) £16.99
In this introductory political history of Anglo-Saxon England, the nature of power and kingship, the role of wealth, rewards, conquest and blood-feud in the perennial struggle for power, the structure of society, the development of Christianity and the relations between Church and secular authority are discussed at length, while particular topics are explored in 19 'picture essays'.

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