Shortly after taking the throne, Alfred went to battle with the foreign invaders. Alfred’s brother, Alfred’s father Aethelwulf was betrothed to. Alfred first met the churchman, Asser of Wales, who would later write ‘The Life of Alfred’. He had not married and had no children so his brother Aethelred became King of Wessex. Alfred’s wife Ealhswith gave birth to a son, Aethelweard. Alfred built two new fortresses by the river Lea which meant that the Viking force further up the river were unable to get their boats out to sea. When this brother in turn died shortly thereafter, the next youngest, Æthelred became king. Though the Vikings in East Anglia would from time to time break their oath and raid nearby communities in Wessex, it appears that this was done without the permission of Guthrum, who seems to have been at least mostly loyal to his oath until his death in about 890. So, in 876, when Guthrum launched a fresh assault on the country, he attacked by land and sea simultaneously. In January 878, a band of men made their way through the Wessex countryside. A map of the route taken by the Viking Great Heathen Army which arrived in England from Denmark, Norway, and southern Sweden in 865. Guthrum, who had been baptised Aethelstan, moved his people to Mercia where they settled. By the time they arrived Burgred, King of Mercia had paid the Vikings off because the Mercians had to get the year’s harvest in to feed people during winter. A band of Vikings arrived and attacked Rochester in Kent. During his reign, Alfred was a tireless advocate of expanding education in his kingdom, sometimes irritating the Church with his demands that education be conducted in the national language rather than Latin. By all accounts, Alfred would from time to time rebel against this diet, eat meat and ale – then suffer crushing abdominal pain for days. Guthrum agreed but did not keep the deal. His most recent book, the third part of his Northumbrian Thrones trilogy, Oswiu: King of Kings, is available now. Guthrum agreed but did not keep the deal. Bishop Asser wrote the ‘Life of King Alfred’. Alfred’s father Æthelwulf in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England. Available: https://www.totallytimelines.com/alfred-the-great-849-899/ Last Accessed September 26th, 2020. She asked him to watch some cakes for her but he was so taken up with his thoughts about how to defeat the Vikings that the cakes were burnt. In the heaving, hacking scrum of the shieldwall, one of the Viking earls fell and, for the first time, the invaders broke and fled. Quay House, The Ambury, Messengers also delivered a call for men to muster at Egbert’s stone on 4th May 878. The Vikings gave up their raids on Wessex and Mercia and returned to East Anglia and Northumbria. He was sickly, afflicted with a gastrointestinal disorder that forced him to limit his diet to milk, water, vegetables, and porridge. Early in 878, he struck. The Great Army lost Bagsecg, five earls and many men, but the West Saxon losses were significant as well. Alfred, the fifth of five brothers, was now king at the age of 21. Through this land and sea assault, Guthrum was sending a message to the magnates of Wessex: your king cannot protect you.