Ealhferth (died 877) was Bishop of Winchester from 867 to 877, succeeding Swithun and preceding Tunbeorht.
Biography[]
Ealhferth was born into a poor but devout family of Christian settlers in the northern wilds. Devoted to his mother, he followed her everywhere. She, in turn, would hold him close and whisper wondrous stories of God's everlasting love and kindness. This made her murder at the hands of the pagan Norse raiders all the more difficult for Ealhferth to bear. From that day, "the Seax" was at war with God. But only with the Order of the Ancients did he find sweet revenge. He posed as God's mouthpiece in Winchester, controlling lords and peasants from the pulpit.
Ealhferth was named Bishop of Winchester in 867 and served as the head of the Order in the city, with Reeve Selwyn "the Gallows" and Hilda the Quill as his chief lieutenants. In 876, King Alfred the Great caught wind of a plot to assassinate him, so - posing as the "Poor Fellow-Soldier of Christ" who had fed information on the Order's activities to the Viking warrior Eivor Wolf-Kissed - he summoned Eivor to Winchester to eradicate the Order there. Eivor arrived in 877, by which time Ealhferth was believed dead. Few other than his sister Harriet knew the truth: that Ealhferth had murdered an innocent man, burned off his face, and swaddled the body in cloth so that it would be unrecognizable. Ealhferth instead dressed in a banneret's armor and disguised himself as a guard at Alfred's court, and he planned to make a surprise appearance at the Witan Hall as if to return from the dead, after which his sister anticipated that a bewildered Alfred would cede the crown to him out of piety; Ealhferth privately had no qualms about assassinating his king.
Death[]
Ealhferth's body
After Eivor assassinated "the Gallows" and "the Quill", he attended Ealhferth's "funeral" at St. Peter's Church, where he found out from Harriet that her brother lived and intended to seize the crown before the Witenagemot. Eivor infiltrated the Witan Hall through its roof, watching as Ealhferth emerged from behind Alfred's throne and attempted to assassinate the king. Alfred and his reeve Goodwin drew their swords, and they found themselves betrayed by the other guards as well. However, Eivor then jumped down and helped them to kill all of the assassins, before cutting down Ealhferth. In his last words, he insulted "Alfred's God", saying that he was weak, and that his followers enslaves themselves from their first breath to their death rattle.