The Siege of Cambridge occurred in 873 AD when the Danish Viking army of Jarlskona Soma assaulted and recaptured the major city of Cambridge from an army of Anglo-Saxon rebels led by the former Mercian lord Ealdorman Wigmund. The Danes recaptured the city by storm, although much of the city was set on fire in the process.
Background[]
In the years following the Danish Great Heathen Army's conquest of eastern Mercia in 870 AD, Jarl Guthrum's wife, Jarlskona Soma, became the ruler of the major city of Cambridgeshire, Cambridge. She took credit for the city's development from what she called a "mud hut" into a thriving trading center and city, but the Anglo-Saxon peasants in the surrounding countryside opposed pagan rule and remained hostile towards the Danes. In 873 AD, Ealdorman Wigmund of Cambridge, the Mercian lord who had previously ruled over Cambridgeshire, rose his banner in rebellion, taking control of Cambridge in a surprise assault. He took advantage of a secret tunnel dug by Soma into the city's longhouse, having been aided by a traitor within Cambridge's walls. The Danish occupiers of the city were massacred and forced to flee in all directions, with Soma fleeing west into the fenlands of Norfolk and setting up a base of operations at Middleton. Meanwhile, her lieutenant Magni was forced to flee across the river to the Roman ruins of Duroliponte with his battered and sick warriors. There, he was joined by the Norwegian Viking Eivor, who inquired as to the state of his army. Magni told Eivor of the loss of Cambridge and the scattering of Soma's army, so Eivor went to find Soma. He located her at Middleton, and he volunteered to help her assemble her forces and rescue her lieutenants Birna, Galinn, and Lif. After doing so, the Danish forces rallied at the west gate of Cambridge, which they planned to breach by using a cart full of explosives. Meanwhile, Wigmund rallied his defenders against the inevitable Danish assault.
Siege[]
Soma walked up to the gates and called for the "honor thief" Wigmund to come out, and he cursed at her from the ramparts and refused to surrender the city. Meanwhile, Galinn stealthily pushed a cart full of explosive jars in front of the west gate, running away as Wigmund and his bodyguards were distracted by Soma's taunts. Eivor proceeded to shoot the jars with an arrow, blowing open the gate and allowing for the Vikings to pour into the city. The Vikings slaughtered the Mercian soldiers sent to hold them back, and they pushed into the city as fires were started in several buildings. However, when they surrounded the longhouse, Soma and Eivor found that Wigmund had already escaped, and his lieutenant Burchard Chaplin came out to fight them. Eivor slew Burchard, and the Vikings finished off the last Mercian defenders of Cambridge. Soma then gave Eivor the honor of performing the ceremonial blowing of the city's horn to announce the Danish recaptue of the city, symbolizing the breathing of new life into the city. Shortly after, Soma discovered that Wigmund had escaped through the city's tunnel, and she sent her lieutenants to stamp out Wigmund's loyalists across the rest of the shire while sending Eivor to search out the lieutenant who had betrayed the secret tunnel to Wigmund.
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