History of Reading, Berkshire earlier folk, or tribal, name. Anglo-Saxon names ending in "-ingas" originally referred not to a place but to a people, in this case specifically the descendants or followers of a man named "Reada", literally "The Red One." In late 870 an army of Danes invaded the then kingdom of Wessex and set up camp at Reading. On 4 January 871, the first Battle of Reading took place, when an army led by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred the Great attempted unsuccessfully to breach the Danes' defences. The battle is described in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and this account provides the
Battle of the Standard ambitions which defeat at the Standard thwarted, therefore, the battle had no long-term significance. Battle of the Standard The Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire. English forces under William of Aumale repelled a Scottish army led by King David I of Scotland. King Stephen of England, fighting rebel barons in the south, had sent a small force (largely mercenaries), but the English army was mainly local militia and baronial retinues from Yorkshire and the north Midlands. Archbishop Thurstan of York had exerted himself