The Battle of Chippenham was a major battle fought between the Norse "Great Heathen Army" (augmented by Anglo-Saxon allies) and the army of King Alfred the Great of Wessex at Chippenham, Wiltshire on 6 January 878 AD amid Guthrum Jarl's invasion of Wessex. The battle was a costly Danish victory; while the Danes succeeded in defeating Alfred's army - commanded by his reeve Goodwin - they lost several of their commanders in the process and were unable to capture or kill Alfred, who went on to rally the rest of England's Christian Saxon lords from Athelney and ultimately inflict a crushing defeat on the Danes at the Battle of Edington that summer.
Background[]
In late 877, the Danish warlord Guthrum assembled a large army and invaded Wessex, the last independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom, hoping to claim King Alfred the Great's crown for himself. Meanwhile, Ubbe Ragnarrsson attacked Wessex from the west by sea, invading Somerset. This two-pronged invasion was soon joined by the Jarl of Ravensthorpe, Eivor Wolf-Kissed, who called in all of his allies for a final showdown with Alfred to pacify England and make it safe for Norse settlement and the free practice of paganism. Eivor had his allies assemble on the River Thames; the London reeves Stowe and Erke Bodilsson, the East Anglian nobleman Broder, the Jorvik dignitaries (and husband and wife) Hjorr Halfsson and Ljufvina Bjarmarsdottir, the Ealdorman of Lincolnshire Hunwald (accompanied by Ealdorman Birstan of Essex's illegitimate son Eluric), Ealdorman Geadric of Oxfordshire, Bishop Deorlaf of Hereford, Ealdorman Tewdwr of Gloucestershire, and Jarl Vili Hemmingsson of Hellirborg joined forces and waited for Eivor's orders. Eivor's Danish allies sought to crush the last bastion of Christianity in England and create a united Danelaw in England, while Eivor's Saxon allies stood by him for varying reasons - Geadric was a loyal Mercian who despised Wessex, Reeve Stowe and Bishop Deorlaf reluctantly showed up to honor their oaths to Eivor (which meant killing their fellow Saxons), Ealdorman Hunwald showed up because of Eivor's assistance in installing him as ealdorman in the first place, and Tewdwr took up arms because he sought to fight against the Christian zealotry he had once believed in.
Guthrum and his army occupied the major port city of Wareham and proceeded to engage in peace talks with King Alfred in Wareham's church, where he initially agreed to withdraw in exchange for a hefty ransom payment of danegeld; Alfred told Guthrum that his army would have one day to leave Wareham, and that he would be awaiting news of his departure at Chippenham. However, upon hearing the news of Ubbe's defeat and death near Uffington at the Battle of Cynwit, Guthrum, Eivor, and Soma resolved to betray Alfred and finish off Wessex. They burned Wareham down before moving to a forward camp in Wistman's Wood, and, after Guthrum and Eivor busted several of Guthrum's captive warriors out of the Hamtun Blockade (Southampton) outpost, the Danes moved to a forward camp near Chippenham. Eivor then sent word to his allies to move from the Thames to Chippenham, where they assembled their large and diverse army.
Eivor giving his speech before the battle
There, Guthrum, Eivor, and Soma planned to surprise the Saxons during their holiday festivities, as the Feast of the Epiphany would take place the day after they had arrived. Many of the Danes' Saxon allies were reluctant to kill their fellow Saxons on a Christian holiday, with Bishop Deorlaf telling Eivor that, while he intended to fulfill his oath to Eivor, his participation in the final assault at Chippenham would be the last time he would be bound to fight alongside Eivor. The Danish commanders decided that Hunwald and Eluric would scout to the west, Guthrum would capture the nobles who had come to attend the feast at Chippenham's great hall (while Deorlaf and Tewdwr would try to convince the nobles to accept Guthrum as the new King of Wessex), Broder, Erke, and Stowe would capture the town's garrison, and Eivor, Soma, and Ljufvina would search out Alfred, whom Eivor intended to slay himself.
Battle[]
Chippenham burning during the battle
The Danes proceeded to assault Chippenham on the night of the festival, moving through the cropfields before closing in for combat with the unaware Saxons. The Danes set fire to the town's buildings, and Eivor rushed into the great hall, where he was dismayed to find only Reeve Goodwin, who informed him that Alfred had noticed the fires at Wareham and had gone on to assemble a new army of those who sought for England to remain a Christian country. Eivor failed to convince Goodwin to give up Alfred's whereabouts, and, when he suggested that Goodwin would be more cooperative as a prisoner, Goodwin slit his own throat rather than betray Alfred. Eivor then left the hall and found that Alfred's men were overrunning his allies. Soma was run through twice and killed during the fighting in the burning streets, and Hunwald was also wounded during the fighting, dying in Eivor and Eluric's arms after they took him to a hut to die in peace. Eivor also helped Guthrum capture the West Saxon thegns at the great hall, and he joined Broder in capturing the garrison. With Chippenham now lost, the West Saxon soldiers began to withdraw, and the Danes finished off the last stragglers in the town.
Aftermath[]
The funerals at Chippenham
After the Saxons were gone, the smoke cleared, and the sun rose, the Danes counted their losses, which proved to be dreadfully high: they had lost Soma, Hunwald, and Hjorr, along with several of their best warriors. Soma, Hunwald, and Hjorr were later cremated side-by-side in a somber funeral ceremony held on a hill overlooking Chippenham. Guthrum initially believed that his victory over Alfred meant that he would soon become King of Wessex, and Eivor's allies assured him that his dream of pacifying England had come true. Alfred went into hiding at the small village of Athelney in the marshes of Somerset, where he posed little threat to the Danes in the short-term. However, any Danish victory celebrations were short-lived, as, within a few months, Alfred's new army would gather at Egbert's Stone, crush Guthrum's Danish army at the Battle of Edington, recover the whole of Wessex and half of Mercia as part of the peace treaty signed between the two kings, convert Guthrum to Christianity, and confine the Danelaw to the eastern half of the Midlands and Northern England.