On 22 March 871, West Saxon forces met the incoming Viking invasion, and a brutal battle befell. A lot of this battle is misplaced to historical past, together with the placement of the battle, as experiences fluctuate in spelling, together with ‘Marton’, ‘Meretun’ and ‘Marden’, so it’s laborious to guess precisely the place this befell. It’s assumed to be in Dorset, Hampshire, or Wiltshire.
Main the West Saxon forces was King Æthelred, and his youthful brother, the longer term Alfred the Nice. That yr, the Danes and Saxons fought 9 occasions, together with at Marton the place Æthelred’s forces clashed violently with Danes led by Halfdan Ragnarsson. The Vikings had the victory.
© Alamy Inventory PhotographWarrior-bishop Heahmund was killed, and by Easter that yr younger King Æthelred had additionally died. Due to the quick time between the battle and his premature demise, it’s speculated that Æthelred died of his wounds.
A lot is thought in regards to the defeated Alfred, whose imaginative and prescient impressed the formation of England. Much less is thought in regards to the warrior bishop Heahmund, although he was in fact memorably portrayed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers within the epic TV collection, Vikings.
© MGM/Kobal/ShutterstockTo fashionable sensibilities, the idea of a combating man of the fabric is moderately anachronistic (most village vicars battle to wield a bible not to mention a sword), however again then combating clerics had been par for the course.
The actual Heahmund lived within the ninth century in Wessex, and was first ordained Bishop of Salisbury earlier than turning into the Bishop of Sherbourne. Studies place him not solely as a powerful warrior but in addition as a sharp-minded strategist who assisted the kings of Wessex that he swore to serve.
Following his loss of life at Meretun, Heahmund was buried at Keynsham and made a saint honored each by the Catholic and Orthodox church.
