The Oxfordshire Rebellion was an Anglo-Saxon peasant uprising which occurred in Oxfordshire, Mercia in 874 AD amid the Viking invasions of England. An alliance of minor Mercian thegns led by Geadric rose in rebellion against the regent of Oxfordshire, Lady Eadwyn, due to her close ties and expected oath to Mercia's historic rival, Wessex, and the rebels were supported by the Norse settlers of Ravensthorpe, led by Jarl Sigurd Styrbjornson and his right-hand man Eivor. The rebellion succeeded after the rebels assaulted and captured Eadwyn's main stronghold of Cyne Belle Castle, and, while King Alfred the Great of Wessex arrived with a large army to crush the Danes, Alfred agreed to withdraw and let Oxfordshire manage its own affairs in exchange for a hostage exchange with the Danes and an agreement from the Danes to set the River Great Ouse as the border between Wessex and the Danelaw.
Background[]
In 874 AD, King Burghred of Mercia was deposed by the Norse "Great Heathen Army" after it sacked his capital of Tamworth, and the Danes appointed the rebellious thegn Ceolwulf as their puppet ruler in eastern Mercia. However, the Danes and Ceolwulf anticipated that eastern Mercia would continue to resist the Danes, and the Mercian lands beyond the reach of the Great Heathen Army continued to fight against the pagan invaders and their native Christian allies. In Oxfordshire, where the Mercian ealdorman had been killed in a raid by Jarl Guthrum's Danish Vikings, his widow Lady Eadwyn took up the flagging Mercian cause and forged an alliance with King Alfred the Great of Wessex with the goal of driving the Danes out of southern England. The decision to effectively solicit Alfred's overlordship was highly divisive in Mercia, a kingdom which had long been rivals with Wessex. In Buckingham, a conspiracy of thegns led by Geadric emerged, and the Danish jarl of Ravensthorpe (in Northamptonshire), Sigurd Styrbjornson, promised to install Geadric as Ealdorman of Oxfordshire in exchange for an oath of allegiance to the Raven Clan. Geadric agreed, and Sigurd and his Hidden Ones ally Basim ibn Ishaq set out to help build the rebel cause.
Rebellion[]
Eadwyn holding Geadric captive in Buckingham
However, Eadwyn had spies across the shire, and she dispatched a sizable force to occupy Buckingham and arrest the rebel leaders. They found a letter from Thegn Brant to Geadric assuring him the allegiance of himself, Thegn Holt, Thegn Sherwin, and even Thegn Octe, and the Mercian soldiers arrested the other seditious thegns and held them at the Leah Villa garrison. Sigurd's adoptive brother Eivor arrived in Buckingham on his longship and rendezvoused with his brother and Hidden Ones ally, and, together, they went on to clear the town of Eadwyn's soldiers and rescue Geadric from the longhouse following a brief confrontation with Eadwyn, who left her men to fight her battle for her. Geadric then convinced the Danes to rescue his other thegns from Leah Villa, and Eivor was able to do so without the loss of a single thegn, ensuring that all of their levies would join Geadric's army.
The standoff at Evinghou Tower
Geadric then cleared Buckingham of Eadwyn's garrison and replaced it with his own men; meanwhile, Eadwyn retreated to her stronghold at Cyne Belle Castle. Geadric tasked Eivor with weakening Eadwyn's hold on Oxfordshire by destroying her supply carts across the shire, chipping away at her standard bearers, and helping his fyrd fight back against Eadwyn's men. Eivor did so with the help of the heretic Fulke, whom he had rescued from St. Albans at his brother's behest. Eivor, Sigurd, Basim, and Fulke got into a fight with Eadwyn's personal detail at the Evinghou Tower in the Chiltern Hills after Eivor rejected Sigurd's promise to betray Geadric in exchange for Eadwyn handing over the fabled "Saga Stone"; the four of them killed around fifteen of Eadwyn's men as Eadwyn escaped. Meanwhile, Geadric assembled his army at the Derelict Shrine of Camulus outside of the fortress, and, after Eivor and Fulke ambushed, burned, and annihilated one of Eadwyn's supply columns at Eatun Barn, they joined forces with Geadric at his camp. There, Geadric informed Eivor that it would be foolish to assault the castle due to its many booby traps, so Eivor went ahead of the army to sabotage its springalds and oil cauldrons.
Alfred's army at Cyne Belle Castle
The next day, the rebels assaulted the Cyne Belle Castle, taking it with the help of Eivor, who helped to lower the drawbridge, raise the portcullis, and best Eadwyn in a duel before taking her prisoner. Eadwyn agreed to renounce her ties to Alfred in exchange for entering into Geadric's care, allowing for her to continue on as a noblewoman, albeit no longer as a threat to Danish rule. Shortly after, King Alfred arrived wth his army, and Geadric decided that his exhausted men stood no chance of escape. However, Sigurd held a parley with King Alfred in the King's tent outside the walls, and they agreed to a peace treaty: the Danes would withdraw north of the River Great Ouse, Alfred would let the Danes administer Mercia, and the West Saxons and Danes would exchange hostages to ensure a lasting peace. Ultimately, Sigurd was chosen as the hostage by King Alfred after Fulke revealed herself as his agent and informed him that Sigurd was the son of a king with pretensions of being a living god, and Sigurd agreed to the deal, allowing for Geadric to become ealdorman.