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One morning in Berkshire...

The urgent hoofbeats broke the mid-morning quiet of the little village. As they poked their heads out into the frosty air, housewives and shopkeepers saw the backs of three great war-horses. Riding in the middle had to be the prince-- brother of their king, who had ridden into town just after dawn. The prince rode with a desperate speed as the warriors on his left and right struggled to keep up.

The prince reared to a halt in front of the little church. Without waiting for his companions, he jumped to the ground, his steps muffled in the snow, his mail and his spurs jingling as he lightly ran to the door and, letting out a shout, threw it open.

"Ethelred!"

The priest, interrupted in mid-incantation, stood at the front, his face a mixture of confusion and surprise. But the kneeling figure at the clergyman's feet looked over his shoulder and gave his brother a look of pure irritation.

"Alfred! What are you doing here? How dare you disturb us during the Sacrament?"

"Ethelred-- brother-- my lord..." though beside himself with impatience, Alfred needed a moment to catch his breath. "The Danes have been moving into position all morning. While we stood watching, they have seized the high downs. We cannot let them also seize the initiative. If we wait any longer we will have to withdraw. We'll lose the whole shire."

"Alfred, why in God's name do you think I am here? Do you really expect to hold the field without God's blessing? Get back to the men and keep them in order until I arrive."

Alfred strode across the nave, his youth and adrenaline causing him not to notice his own impertinence. "But they also see that the battle must soon be joined. And they need their king to lead them."

Ethelred now stood, his own impatience rising to the level of his brother's. "God comes first," he declared. "When I meet the heathens in combat, I shall face them with a clean conscience. Now you are disrupting us in this sacred place. Either get yourself to the men, or else join me in confession. I daresay you could stand to be shriven as well as I, Alfred."

* * *

"At last Alfred, seeing the heathen had come quickly on to the field and were ready for battle... could bear the attacks of the enemy no longer, and he had to choose between withdrawing altogether or beginning battle wihtout waiting for his brother." -- Hodgkin, quoted in Churchill, 105

The Battle of Ashdown

In real life, Alfred made the fateful decision to lead the troops of Wessex into battle himself, even though he was only 21 and untested in war, and his brother the king remained at his devotions. His bold action halted the Viking advance and gave Wessex time to regroup. Alfred spent his life fighting the Danes and is remembered as a hero of the English people. And Ashdown in 871 was where his extraordinary career began.

But what if Alfred had listened to timid common sense and not tried to lead an army without its king, having never fought a battle in his life? In Churchill's words, "If the West Saxons had been beaten all England would have sunk into heathen anarchy. Since they were victorious the hope still burned for a civilized Christian existence in this Island... Alfred had made the Saxons feel confidence in themselves again. They could hold their pwn in open fight. The story of this conflict at Ashdown was for generations a treasured memory of the Saxon writers."

While Alfred waited for his pious elder brother, the Danes moved the entirety of their army to a more advantagious position. When Ethelred arrived to take command of his men, the attack was already underway. The Saxons were routed, and the main body of the fyrd scattered. It did not take long for the Danelagen to drive Ethelred's forces out of Wessex entirely. Ethelred the Pious-- remembered as the last Saxon king of England-- scored some surprising victories over the next few months and years, but could not stop the inevitable Danish advance. He died valiantly in 873 at the Battle of Headcorn in Kent, regarded as the last stand of the Saxon kingdoms.

Alfred went underground, leading small bands of insurrectionists for a number of years, until he too was captured and executed by Britain's new Viking rulers in 881.

Ripple effect

Englebrog

The Englebrog is the flag of England today.

In this timeline, which is very much a work in progress, England will become and remain a part of the emerging Danish kingdom. It will develop as a part of the Nordic orbit, a Scandinavian country cultivated in the Anglo-Saxon soil. I am going to have to do a lot more research, particularly on Scandinavian history. I'll gladly take any recommendations.

Major effects (currently, this is just a brainstorm):

  • Alfred never reigned, so his administrative reforms never took effect, and he never lived to create England's first navy.
  • Jórvík, not London, became the center of power in England.
  • All England soon filled up with Scandinavians, bringing their pagan religion, their independent peasantry, and their North Germanic languages.
  • William the Conqueror probably still existed. However, since the House of Wessex vanished with Alfred-- or at least ceased to be a political force-- he may have had no feudal claim to England. He might not have invaded at all.
  • The conquered Anglo-Saxon clergy converted many of their new neighbors and rulers, but like the Saxon conquest, the Viking conquest set Christianity back many years.
  • It is very likely that England was a part of the Kalmar Union of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that it in the main accepted the teachings of Martin Luther. However, it's important to remember that England wasn't just a clone of the other Scandinavian countries, but a blend of the Scandinavian and the Anglo-Saxon. I'll probably have to work out the dynastic history in more detail before I can definitively make a ruling on the Kalmar Union.
  • On the other hand, the impact of a Nordicized England on the rest of Scandinavia must not be underestimated. Saxon England had the germs of the shire system and common law-- could these ideas have been exported to Denmark, for example?
  • Colonies: We have lots of possibilities here! It may well be that the advendurous Danes and Norse of Britain eventually looked beyond their conquest and headed west to add to the growing Norse settlement at Vinland: wouldn't that be fun? On the other hand, England may have followed a course closer to *here* and begun its Western adventures in the seventeenth century. Either way, the New World must look a lot more Scandinavian today. I sure hope Lena brings her lutefisk to the potluck again, doncha know.
  • Industrialization: Who's to say? Might EtP England have lacked that spark that ignited the Industrial Revolution in the early eighteenth century? Perhaps, perhaps not. It was certainly a wool exporter, and one does want a way to spin wool efficiently... then again, perhaps a nation of sturdy Nordic peasants would not take to factory work so readily...
Ben
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