At his lowest point, King Alfred of Wessex was hiding in a peasant's hut, disguised as a common man, so hungry he was grateful for whatever scraps came his way. A farmer's wife scolded him for letting her cakes burn and threw him out. He was also the only English king standing between the Danes and the complete conquest of England. He survived the humiliation, built an army from nothing, disguised himself as a wandering minstrel to spy on the Danish camp, won the decisive battle, and then spent the next twenty years rebuilding a country. The English call him The Great for good reason.
The woman whose house Alfred was hiding in did not know she had a king in her kitchen. She knew she had a large, quiet man in ragged clothes sitting by the fire who was supposed to be watching her cakes. When she came back in from the field to find them burned and ruined, she scolded him with the directness of someone who has no patience for useless people eating her food. You lazy, good-for-nothing man, she said. I warrant you can eat cakes fast enough but you are too lazy to help me bake them. She drove him out. Alfrid received this without argument and left. In his ragged state he certainly looked like a poor beggar, which is what she assumed he was. He was the king of the West Saxons, the only English monarch who had not been killed or driven off by the Danish army that controlled most of England. He had been hiding in forests and over hills for months, eating what he could find, grateful when a farmer's wife would give him a meal in exchange for work.
Alfred's most audacious move during his war with the Danes was disguising himself as a wandering minstrel and walking into the enemy camp to gather intelligence. The Danish commander Guthrum had no idea the musician he was entertaining was the king he was trying to destroy.
The Danes Take England
Alfred became king of Wessex in 871 when he was twenty-two years old and his brother Ethelred was killed fighting the Danes. The Danes had already taken the northern and eastern portions of England and were pushing south. The wars that followed were brutal and went badly for the English. Alfred fought. He lost. He fought again. The Danes took more territory. In 878, a massive Danish force swept into Wessex. Alfred had to flee. For months he lived as a fugitive. He moved from place to place through forests and marshes, sometimes staying with shepherds and cowherds, sometimes living in caves, tending cattle in exchange for food. He was a king without a kingdom, without an army, without anything except the will to keep trying. He also built an interesting first — in 875, before his worst reverses, he had begun constructing ships and won the first English naval victory ever recorded. The Danes came by sea. Fighting them by sea made sense. Nobody had tried it before.