Battle of Edington At the Battle of Edington an army of the Anglo - Saxon kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May AD 878 . The primary sources locate the battle at " Ethandun " or " Ethandune " , and until a scholarly consensus identified its location with the present - day Edington in Wiltshire it was known as the Battle of Ethandun , a name which continues to be used . The battle soon resulted in the Treaty of Wedmore later the same year . Events before the battle . The first Viking raid on Anglo - Saxon England is thought to have been between AD 786 and 802 at Portland in the Kingdom of Wessex , when three Norse ships arrived and killed King Beorhtric ' s reeve . At the other end of the country , in the Kingdom of Northumbria , during AD 793 the Holy Island of Lindisfarne was raided . After the sacking of Lindisfarne the raids around the coasts were somewhat sporadic till the 830s , when the attacks became more sustained . In 835 , " heathen men " ravaged Sheppey . In 836 , Ecgberht of Wessex met in battle a force of thirty - five ships at Carhampton , and in 838 he faced a combined force of Vikings and Cornishmen at Hingston Down in Cornwall . The raiding continued and with each year became more and more intense . In 865 / 866 it escalated further on the arrival of what the Saxons called the Great Heathen Army , the size of which has been estimated at between five hundred and a thousand men which was under the leadership of the brothers Ivar the Boneless , Ubbe and Halfdan Ragnarsson . What made this army different from those before it was its intent . Its arrival began " a new stage , that of conquest and residence " . By 870 , the northmen had conquered the kingdoms of Deira and East Anglia , and in 871 they attacked Wessex . Of the nine battles mentioned by the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " during that year , only one was a West Saxon victory ; but in this year Alfred succeeded his brother Ethelred , who died after the Battle of Merton . Mercia had collapsed by 874 , and the Army ' s cohesion went with it . Halfdan went back to Deira and fought the Picts and the Strathclyde Welsh to secure his northern kingdom . His army settled there and he is not mentioned after 876 , when " [ the Danes ] were engaged in ploughing and making a living for themselves . Guthrum , with two other unnamed kings , " departed for Cambridge in East Anglia " . He made several attacks on Wessex , starting in 875 , and in the last nearly captured Alfred in his winter fortress at Chippenham . By 878 , the Danes held the east and north east of England , and their defeat at the Battle of Ashdown had paused but not halted their advance . Alfred the Great had spent the winter preceding the Battle of Edington in the Somerset marsh of Athelney , the nature of the country giving him some protection . In the Spring of 878 , he summoned his West Saxon forces and marched to Edington , where he met the Danes , led by Guthrum , in battle . Alfred ' s position before the battle . Guthrum and his men had applied the usual Danish strategy of occupying a fortified town and waiting for a peace “ treaty , ” involving money in return for a promise to leave the kingdom immediately ; Alfred shadowed the army , trying to prevent more damage than had already occurred . This started in 875 when Guthrum ' s army “ eluded the West Saxon levies and got into Wareham ” . They then gave hostages and oaths to leave the country to Alfred , who paid them off . The Danes promptly slipped off to Exeter , even deeper into Alfred ' s kingdom , where they concluded in the autumn of 877 a " firm peace " with Alfred , under terms that entailed their leaving his kingdom and not returning . This they did , spending the rest of 877 ( by the Gregorian calendar ) in Gloucester . Alfred spent Christmas at Chippenham , thirty miles from Gloucester . The Danes attacked Chippenham " in midwinter after Twelfth Night " , probably during the night of January 6 – 7 , 878 . They captured Chippenham ( barely missing Alfred ) and forced Alfred to retreat " with a small force " into the wilderness . It is to this period that the story of King Alfred burning the cakes belongs . Alfred seems at this time to have chased ineffectually around Wessex , while the Danes were in a position to do as they pleased . The " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " attempts to convey the impression that Alfred held the initiative ; it is " a bland chronicle which laconically charts the movements of the Danish victors while at the same time disingenuously striving to convey the impression that Alfred was in control " , although it fails . Even if Alfred had caught up with the Danish force , it is unlikely that he could have accomplished anything . The fact that his army could not defend the fortified Chippenham , even in " an age . . . as yet untrained in siege warfare " casts great doubt on its ability to defeat the Danes in an open field , unaided by fortifications . There was little , beyond repeatedly paying the invaders off , that Alfred could do about the Danish menace between 875 and the end of 877 . Battle . This was even more true after the Twelfth Night attack . With his small warband , a fraction of his army at Chippenham , Alfred could not hope to retake the town from the Danes , who had in previous wars ( for example at Reading in 871 ) proved themselves adept at defending fortified positions . So he retreated to the south , preparing himself and his forces for another battle , and then defeated Guthrum and his host . The first we read of Alfred after the disaster at Chippenham is around Easter , when he built a fortress at Athelney . In the seventh week after Easter , or between 4 and 7 May , Alfred called a levy at Ecgbryhtesstan ( Egbert ' s Stone ) . Many of the men in the counties around ( Somerset , Wiltshire , and Hampshire ) who had not already fled rallied to him there . The next day , Alfred ' s host moved to Iley Oak , and then the day after that to Edington . There , on an unknown date between 6 and 12 May , they fought the Danes . According to the " Life " , After the victory , when the Danes had taken refuge in Chippenham , the West Saxons removed from the area around all food that the Danes might be able to capture in a sortie , and waited . After two weeks , the hungry Danes sued for peace , giving Alfred " preliminary hostages and solemn oaths that they would leave his kingdom immediately " , just as usual , but in addition promising that Guthrum would be baptized . The primary difference between this agreement and the treaties at Wareham and Exeter was that Alfred had decisively defeated the Danes at Edington , rather than just stopping them , and therefore it seemed more likely that they would keep to the terms of the treaty . The primary reason for Alfred ' s victory was probably the relative size of the two armies . The men of even one shire could be a formidable fighting force , as those of Devon proved in the same year , defeating an army under Ubbe Ragnarsson at the Battle of Cynwit . In addition , in 875 Guthrum had lost the support of other Danish lords , including Ivar and Ubbe . Further Danish forces had settled on the land before Guthrum attacked Wessex : in East Anglia , and in Mercia between the treaty at Exeter and the attack on Chippenham ; many others were lost in a storm off Swanage in 876 - 7 , with 120 ships wrecked Internal disunity was threatening to tear the Danes apart , and they needed time to reorganize . Fortunately for Wessex they did not use the time available effectively . Location of the battle . The primary sources for the location of the battle are Asser ' s " Life of King Alfred " , which names the place as " Ethandun " and the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " , which has " Eðandune " . The chronicle was compiled during the reign of Alfred the Great and is thus a contemporary record . It is believed that Asser ' s " Life " was originally written in 893 ; however , no contemporary manuscript survives . A version of the Life written in about 1000 AD , known as the " Cotton Otho A . xii " text , lasted till 1731 when it was destroyed in a fire . Before its destruction this version had been transcribed and annotated ; it is this transcription on which modern translations are based . Some scholars have suggested that Asser ' s life of King Alfred was a forgery . The location of the battle generally accepted by most present - day historians is at Edington , near Westbury in Wiltshire . However , the location has been much debated by antiquarians over the centuries . In 1904 William Henry Stevenson analysed possible sites and said " So far , there is nothing to prove the identity of this " Eðandune " [ as named in the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle ] with Edington " but then goes on to say that " there can be little reason for questioning it " . The evidence to support the " Eðandune " of the Anglo - Saxon Chronicle and the " Ethandun " of Asser ' s " Life " , being Edington , Wiltshire , is derived from a trail of information from various ancient manuscripts . Edington , Wiltshire is known to have been part of Alfred ' s family estate . He left a manor called " Eðandune " to his wife , in his Will . A charter records a meeting of the king ' s council at " Eðandun " , although a later scribe has annotated the same document with " Eðandune " . In 968 , another charter reported that King Edgar had granted land at " Edyndon " to Romsey Abbey . The Domesday book has an entry for Romsey Abbey holding land at " Edendone " ( Wilt ' schire ) at the time of Edward the Confessor and also in 1086 , and this is known to be at Edington , Wiltshire . Alternatives to Edington , Wiltshire , have been suggested since early times . The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil appears to have misread the ancient texts for the battle site as he places it at " Abyndoniam " ( Abingdon ) instead of Edington . In the 19th century there was a resurgence in interest of medieval history and King Alfred was seen as a major hero . Although most early historians had sited the battle as in the Edington , Wiltshire area , the significant interest in the subject encouraged many antiquarians to dig up Alfredian sites and also to propose alternatives for the location of the battle . The alternative sites were generally name based , although with the large interest in everything Alfredian in the 19th century , any site that had an Alfred connection could be guaranteed large amounts of tourists , so this was also a driving force to find a link . Consequences . Three weeks after the battle , Guthrum was baptized at Aller with Alfred as sponsor . It is possible that the enforced conversion was an attempt by Alfred to lock Guthrum into a Christian code of ethics and would ensure the Danes compliance with any treaties agreed to . The converted Guthrum took the baptismal name of Athelstan . Under the terms of the Treaty of Wedmore the converted Guthrum was required to leave Wessex and return to East Anglia . Consequently , in 879 , the Viking army left Chippenham and made their way to Cirencester and remained there for a year . The following year they went to East Anglia where they settled . Also in 879 , according to Asser , another Viking army sailed up the River Thames and wintered at Fulham . Over the next few years this particular Danish faction had several encounters with Alfred ' s forces . However Alfred managed to contain this threat by reforming his military and setting up a system of fortified cities , known as " burghs " or burh s . In 885 Asser reports that the Viking army that had settled in East Anglia had broken " in a most insolent manner " the peace they had established with Alfred , although Guthrum is not mentioned . Guthrum reigned as king , in East Anglia , until his death in 890 and although this period was not always peaceful he was not considered a threat . In 886 , the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum defined the boundaries of their kingdoms , with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings . The Danes were contained within what became known as the Danelaw ; Wessex , the last free Anglo - Saxon kingdom , was to remain free of Danish control . If Alfred had lost at Edington , it seems likely that Guthrum would have swept through the rest of Wessex , bringing it under his rule . The spiritual parenthood established by Alfred over Guthrum at Aller must inevitably have implied some level of cultural and political superiority , and Guthrum , as the spiritual son of Alfred , was in turn supposed by the Saxons to have acknowledged the future ongoing superiority of the king whose religion he had been forced to adopt . However , the Danes disputed this . The defeat of Guthrum after the battle of Edington , and after many other failed attempts to take the country , was immensely demoralizing to the Danes , and Wessex was made safe from them for some years . The battle in fiction . The battle features in several historical novels and dramas :