Autumn 865 · Northumbria and East Anglia, England Theater
Autumn 865
In autumn 865, a force unlike anything previously seen in England landed in East Anglia — not the hit-and-run raiding parties of the previous decades but a large, organized army apparently intended to conquer and settle rather than plunder and withdraw. The Norse sagas call it the 'Great Heathen Army.' It spent the winter in East Anglia before marching north in 866 to take York (Jorvik), the capital of Northumbria, exploiting a civil war between rival Northumbrian kings. When those kings attempted to retake York the following spring, their combined force was shattered. Northumbria became a Viking kingdom. The army then turned south toward East Anglia, where King Edmund refused to share his kingdom and was captured, tied to a post, shot with arrows until he was 'bristling like a hedgehog,' and beheaded. He was later canonized as a martyr.
Commanders