![]() ![]() During the battle, Guthrum charged the Anglo-Saxons' front line and shocked the army when he carved his way unharmed to reach the back lines from where Æthelred commanded the troops. Unbeknownst to the other commanders, Guthrum was wearing the Ring of Eden Hnituðr, which granted its bearer near-invincibility against weapons made with ferromagnetic metals like steel or iron. In late March 871, Alfred and Æthelred met a Viking force led by jarls Guthrum and Halfdan Ragnarsson at the Battle of Meretun. Although the subsequent Battle of Wilton was a loss, the magnitude of Alfred's successes in resisting the Vikings eclipsed the result such that it became a much-storied event to the public. Alfred quickly proved himself a capable commander on the battlefield, earning a victory at Reading despite heavy losses and again at Ashdown, where many Viking jarls and their warriors fell. In response, Alfred joined forces with the newly-crowned Æthelred, and together they endeavored to push the Norse back through military might. ![]() In the late 860s, Vikings from the Great Heathen Army stationed in northern England began subjecting Wessex to raids as part of their wider incursions into the country. This near-total elimination of the patrilineal line in short order soon put Æthelred on the throne and advanced Alfred's own status as an ætheling, a prince in position of immediate succession. He ruled only a few years before dying and passing the throne to Æthelberht, who in turn had an equally brief reign. However, his father died in 858, leaving Wessex to Alfred's older brother Æthelbald. As the youngest of three living sons, his eldest brother Æthelstan of Kent having died just before the trip to Rome, the odds of Alfred being crowned king were thought to be slim, so he devoted himself to learning and scholarly pursuits. The pope recounted to Alfred his victory against Saracen pirates at the battle of Ostia in 849, which made a lasting impression on the boy. In 853, he accompanied his father's pilgrimage to Rome, where he met and was blessed by Pope Leo IV. Over the following years, he focused his attention on building a new "universal order" to replace it, one that was more compatible with his religious principles and which would rapidly develop into the Templar Order.Ġ9 November 2020 Biography Early life Īlfred was born in 849 to King Æthelwulf of Wessex and Osburh. Seeing the role's required polytheistic worship of the Isu to be blasphemous and a defilement to his Christian beliefs, Alfred worked to eliminate the Order from within, though the Viking invasion of England delayed his plans.Īfter the Viking and Hidden Ones ally Eivor Varinsdottir eradicated the Order's prominent agents in England, surreptitiously aided by the Grand Maegester himself, Alfred abandoned the Order's remnants. Secretly, he was also the Grand Maegester of the Order of the Ancients in England, a position he inherited from his late elder brother Æthelred, who in turn had adopted it after the death of their father Æthelwulf. ![]() During his reign, he repelled the Vikings' invasions and laid the foundation for what became the Kingdom of England. Order of the Ancients (formerly, betrayed)Īlfred the Great ( Old English: Aelfrēd c.849 – 899), also known as Alfred of Wessex, and his pseudonym of A Poor-Fellow Soldier of Christ, was King of Wessex from 871 to 886 and later King of the Anglo-Saxons from c. ![]()
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