The Siege of Tamworth occurred from 873 to 874 AD when the Viking "Great Heathen Army" - led by the brothers Ubbe Ragnarrsson and Ivar the Boneless - laid siege to the Mercian royal center and fortress of Tamworth, defended by King Burghred of Mercia and his war-thegn Leofrith. The city fell following an all-out assault by the Vikings, and Tamworth was then sacked and the King forced into hiding, to be captured and exiled by the Vikings not long after.
Background[]
The Great Heathen Army's advance into England was slowed following King Aethelred of Wessex's victory over the Vikings of the reinforcement "Summer Army" at the Battle of Ashdown in January 871 AD. The Vikings wintered in London from 871 to 872 AD before returning to Northumbria to suppress a rebellion against their puppet ruler, and they wintered at Torksey in Lincolnshire from 872 to 873, focusing on campaigning against the Mercians that same year. King Burgred of Mercia had survived the initial Norse invasion by granting concessions such as feeding and housing the Norse and supplying them with horses, but the Vikings continued to carry out incursions into his domain. The brothers Ubbe Ragnarrsson and Ivar the Boneless captured the major Mercian town of Repton, Derbyshire, where the Mercians had buried their late kings, demoralizing the Danes' Anglo-Saxon opponents. Burgred paid the Vikings a hefty sum in exchange for peace, and the Vikings went on to winter at Repton from 873 to 874. However, Burgred continued to refuse to submit to the Vikings and allow them to install the thegn Ceolwulf as their puppet King of Mercia, leading to the Vikings laying siege to his royal center at Tamworth fortress in Staffordshire. The Vikings established a forward camp outside of the fortress walls, but they refused to assault the city until the option of a peaceful settlement could be exhausted. Burgred was alerted the arrival of Norwegian reinforcements under Sigurd Styrbjornson by the disgruntled Norse mercenary Tonna, and he refused to surrender.
In the winter of early 874 AD, Ubbe, Ivar, Sigurd, Sigurd's adoptive brother Eivor, and Ceolwulf's son and heir Ceolbert rode from Repton to Tamworth to demand Burgred's submission. While Burgred's war-thegn Leofrith advised him to remain level-headed and consider making peace with the Danes, Burgred - speaking down from the ramparts - instead chose to insult the Danes, insist that Mercia would never be ruled by a Dane (or, when Eivor mentioned him, by Ceolwulf), and declare that the only way the Danes could take his crown was to take it from his dead body. Ubbe decided that the Vikings would take Tamworth that same night, and he and his cohort rode back to the siege camp to make preparations.
Siege[]
Burghred of Mercia and Leofrith in Tamworth
After their berserkers drank their elixirs, their warriors sharpened their swords, and their leaders finished meditating, the Danes began their assault. Eivor helped to man the battering ram as it repeatedly crashed against Tamworth's gates, and the Mercian archers on the walls shot arrows at the Norsemen below. Eventually, the first gate was breached, and the Norse poured into the city. Intense and bloody fighting ensued as the Norse buried their battle-axes into hordes of Mercian soldiers, and, after heavy fighting, the Norse proceeded on to the second gate, where their battering ram again came under heavy arrow fire. They ultimately succeeded in breaching the inner gates after a lengthy struggle, and Eivor rushed ahead of the other Norse troops to assassinate Burghred's three elite skirmishers protecting the keep. After the skirmishers were killed, the Danes stormed the deserted keep, finding that Burghred and Leofrith had escaped.
Aftermath[]
The Danes proceeded to sack Tamworth, destroying Mercia's power. Burghred went into hiding at the old crypt at Offchurch in Warwickshire, while he ordered that his wife Aethelswith be reinforced at Templeborough fort in Yorkshire and that Leofrith begin amassing supplies in the church and bathhouse of Leicester to prepare for a counterattack against the Danes. However, the mercenary Tonna betrayed Burghred's plans to Eivor and Sigurd in exchange for a small amount of coin, and the Vikings soon captured Burghred's two remaining strongholds, captured Burghred at Offchurch, and repelled Leofrith's attack on Repton, defeating Mercia. Burghred was forced to abdicate in Ceolwulf's favor, after which the obstinate king and his wife were permanently exiled to Rome.