Battle of the Holme Battle of the Holme The Battle of the Holme took place in East Anglia on 13 December 902 between the Anglo-Saxon men of Kent and the East Anglian Danes. Its location is unknown but may have been Holme in Huntingdonshire (now part of Cambridgeshire). Following the death of Alfred the Great in 899, his son Edward the Elder became king, but his cousin Æthelwold, the son of Alfred's elder brother, King Æthelred, claimed the throne. His bid was unsuccessful, and he fled to the Northumbrian Danes, who, according to one version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", accepted him as king. In
Bagsecg Bagsecg Bagsecg (died 8 January 871), also known as Bacgsecg, was a ninth-century Viking, and one of the first to be recorded by the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle". Both he and Healfdene were the two commanding Viking kings of the Great Army that set up camp at Reading, and invaded the Kingdom of Wessex in the winter of 870/871. The Great Army is recorded to have combated the West Saxons in several engagements in 871. One of these was the Battle of Ashdown, in which Bagsecg and five Viking earls were slain against the forces Æthelred, King of Wessex. After Bagsecg's death,