In 891 the Northmen were heavily defeated by Arnulf, King of the East Franks, at Louvain. Thereupon they resolved to turn upon England. They gathered from all quarters to Boulogne, and there remained for several months collecting and building ships. They now, on their short voyages, carried their horses with them, and had done so in the raid of 885. In all they mustered 250 ships, and, perhaps, 10,000 men. A second fleet of eighty ships under Hæsten, the most famous of the Scandinavian sea-kings, assembled farther south. The connection between the two hordes is not clear. Professor Oman suggests that while their action may have been concerted, it is possible that the leaders of the larger force held aloof from Hæsten owing to his selfishness and greed. The evidence of the campaign that followed gives the impression that the two forces acted in concert.
Alfred had also to fear that the settlers of the Danelaw would join the invaders against him. Guthrum of East Anglia had died in 890, and the friendly chief of Deira was associated with a certain Siegfred who was hostile to Alfred. For the present the settlers gave hostages to Alfred as a pledge that they would keep the peace, but they broke it without scruple when occasion offered.
The ‘Great Army’ landed at Lympne, in Kent, late in the autumn of 892. It was a bad base of operations, for it was practically shut off from the inland by the Andredsweald; but the ports were now so well defended that a landing-place was difficult to find. The Danes easily captured an old earthwork at Appledore which the local peasantry tried to defend, and, towing their ships up the harbour, entrenched themselves. ‘Soon after,’ says the Chronicle, ‘came Hæsten with eighty ships into the mouth of the Thames, and wrought him there a work at Middeltun.’
Serious fighting did not begin until the spring of 893. Alfred entrenched himself midway between the two Viking armies, and soon reduced Hæsten to straits, perhaps by the aid of a fleet from London. Hæsten offered to depart and, as a proof of sincerity, handed over his two sons to be baptized. But with the usual Viking treachery, he merely transferred himself to Bemfleet, in Essex. The East Anglian Danes received him with open arms, and a great plan of operations was framed. While Hæsten ‘contained’ the English on the Thames, the ‘Great Army’ was to penetrate across the Weald into Wessex, sending a detachment with the fleet to Hæsten. Meanwhile forty Northumbrian Danish ships were to enter the Bristol Channel, and 100 more, partly Northumbrian, partly East Anglian, would sail down the east coast and attack Wessex from the south.
The ‘Great Army’ passed safely through the Weald, and began to waste eastern Wessex. Alfred himself seems to have been in the west; but the English army, under his son Eadward, abandoned its central position in Kent, and, hurrying through Surrey, overtook the Vikings at Farnham, and defeated them with great loss. Their chief ‘king’ was wounded, and they fled in disorder across the Thames into Herts, where they took refuge on Thorney Isle, in the Colne. Eadward followed and blockaded them; but then, hearing that his father was coming with fresh forces, allowed his half-starved county levies to return home. Alfred was near at hand when he heard that the Anglo-Danish fleets were attacking Exeter and northern Devon. Thereupon he turned back, sending only a detachment to Eadward. With these troops the prince resumed the blockade, and was soon joined by Ealdorman Aethelred and the Mercians. The Vikings then promised to depart, and gave hostages; but they only dispersed into the Danelaw, and were soon in arms again.
Hæsten at Bemfleet had been joined by the main Viking fleet, and was wasting Mercia with part of his force, the rest being left to guard the camp. Aethelred and Eadward did not waste time in pursuing him; but turned back to London, gathered up its burh-ware, and marched against Bemfleet. ‘Then came the King’s men and defeated the enemy, broke down the work, took all that was therein—money, women, and children—and brought all to London.’ Hundreds of ships must have been taken, and among the prisoners were Hæsten’s wife and his two sons. Hæsten, returning from his raid, found only ruins at Bemfleet.
He must be credited at least with admirable pertinacity and courage. He established himself at Shoebury, and rallied there the broken sections of the Viking host. Reinforced by East Anglians, he again made a dash westward, hurrying along the Thames Valley to the Lower Severn, and then turning northward. At Buttington, on the Severn, he was overtaken by the Mercians under Aethelred, supported by reinforcements brought up from Wessex by Ealdormen Aethelhelm, and Aethelnoth, and other troops from Wales. He was defeated and blockaded in his camp, only escaping to Shoebury after heavy loss. His hope appears to have been to join the Northumbrian fleet, but Alfred had relieved Exeter, and the discomfited squadrons had gone.
However, Shoebury had become the rendezvous of adventurers from all quarters, and Hæsten, late in the year, broke out once more. Marching night and day, he suddenly appeared in the desolate ruins of Deva, the ‘Chester’ where once Legio Valeria Victrix had made its home, and entrenched himself behind its ramparts. The Mercians were too late to overtake him, and could only waste the neighbourhood so as to straiten him for food.
The events of the next year, 894, are rather obscure. Hæsten, forced to evacuate Chester, wasted North Wales, and finally retreated to Northumbria, and so back to East Anglia. Evidently hoping to be safer so, the Danes established a new camp on Mersey Island, on the Essex coast. Meanwhile the Northumbrian fleet was at last coming to Hæsten’s aid. On its way from the west it attacked Chichester, but was handsomely repulsed, with the loss of several ships. The main force, however, reached Mersey safely, and late in the year the whole host proceeded up the Thames and entrenched itself twenty miles up the Lea. One hears nothing of Alfred or the main English army all the year. It is possible that the King was trying to coerce the Northumbrians, and there is a terribly confused and probably misdated entry in Aethelweard’s Chronicle which seems to point to something of the kind.
The winter of 894-895 passed away with the Danes and the Londoners watching each other on the Lea. So confident were the latter, that early in 895 they, with ‘other folk,’ marched to attack the camp. They were repulsed with loss, including that of four royal thegns. Still, however, the Danes dared not advance on London, and the English were able to cultivate the fields as usual. In the summer Alfred himself with the main English army encamped close to the city, and under his protection the harvest was safely gathered in. Forts were constructed some distance below the Danish camp and the Lea blocked with stockades. The enemy thereupon broke away northward, pursued by the English mounted troops, while the Londoners, for the second time, triumphantly towed a captured fleet into the Pool.