As expected, Guthrum moved men into Chisbury, Wallingford, and Oxford, so along with his contingent in Bath he effectively controlled the northern half of Wiltshire and the western half of Berkshire. From there, he could raid Somerset, southern Wiltshire, northern Hampshire, once reaching all the way to Winchester, eastern Berkshire, and as far as Farnham in Surrey. While his ships continued to raid the coast, he expected Wessex to fall apart. All he did was make people mad.

His raiding parties were continually ambushed and came straggling back with nothing or did not come back at all. By April, it became hard to find men willing to go out from the protection of the towns. Guthrum’s men were frustrated, and not the least with Guthrum himself. The man did not seem to care what his army did. He locked himself away for days at a time and took his books with him because, unlike most of his army, he could read, being of the kingly line and having been educated in the court of the Danish king. He did not even seem surprised when he heard about the disaster in Devon and the death of Ubba. He simply returned to his room, slammed the door, and did not eat any supper.

When Guthrum first arrived in East Anglia with the Great Summer Army, late in the year of 871, he set himself to find out all he could about the people he faced, the Angles and Saxons as well as the Celtic people on the land. He read about the victories and defeats, especially the Danish failures in Northumbria and Wessex, and he gathered and talked to men who had been there. He knew Wessex would be hard to take and hold. He understood it took time to gather the army of Wessex and planned to move straight to the shore, at the root of the country where he could be supplied from the sea. He would work his way inland from there.

At the same time, and maybe it was inevitable, he wanted to understand who these people were. To that end, he got and read what sections of the Bible he could find. He spent days and weeks talking with the priests in East Anglia to get a firm Idea of what this faith was all about. He was a confirmed son of Thor, but this Christ began to eat at him.

When he argued with Halfdan Ragnarson and Halfdan took half of the army north to Northumbria, Guthrum warned him not to interfere with the work of the bishop in York and above all, leave Lindisfarne alone, not that he expected the man to listen. To be fair, Guthrum was not sure why he said that.

Guthrum burned his way to Wareham and got settled in the fortress there before Alfred could arrive with his army. Guthrum had taken hostages all across Wessex, but Alfred’s people had captured some of Guthrum’s men including a couple of ship’s captains from failed raids along the coast. It seemed reasonable to sit down and talk, at least about the exchange of hostages.

Guthrum learned that Alfred was building ships. They were presently in the east around Southampton, Portchester, and the Isle of Wight. Guthrum also noticed that unlike Athelred, Alfred was willing to listen to the men who knew about such things. The siege was well laid. Guthrum had no chance of breaking out of Wareham, much less raiding up into Hampshire or Wiltshire. And if the English were building ships, he knew his time in Wareham would be limited.

Alfred drew up a treaty to exchange hostages and where the Danes promised to leave Wessex, and Guthrum signed it. Guthrum talked to his English hostages, one of whom was a deacon that kept talking to him about the way of Christ, the importance of keeping one’s word and how it was the way of the strong to defend the weak and protect the innocents. It is fair to say Guthrum lashed out in anger when he killed the hostages and ran away to Exeter. For the first time, he fully understood what he did was wrong and worthy of hellfire.

Guthrum stayed in Exeter because of his indecision. Alfred followed and again laid siege to the town to force out the Danes, but Guthrum waited. He had relief ships on the way, a whole fleet of a hundred ships, and all the fighting men to go with them. When Alfred’s pitiful few ships arrived and blocked the Exe River, Guthrum scoffed. But when he learned that a storm in the Channel wrecked his relief fleet and scattered them all along the north coast of Francia, he yelled at his men and threw a chair across the room, breaking the chair.

“They could at least have had the decency to wreck on the shore of Wessex.

Once again Guthrum felt he had no choice but to sit down with Alfred and hammer out a peace treaty. This time, Alfred did not let him leave by sea. He forced Guthrum to march his men up the road nearly a hundred miles to Bath. There, the road would follow the border of Wiltshire and the Mercian client kingdom of Hwicce. Guthrum would be welcomed at any time to cross back into Mercia and leave Wessex alone.

Guthrum settled in Hwicce, including placing a contingent in Pucklechurch that could move on Bath when the time was right. Unfortunately for Guthrum, Hwicce was the most thoroughly Christian nation on the whole island with the believers making up almost one hundred percent of the population. For nearly a year, he could not go anywhere or talk to anyone without the word of God in Christ impacting his ears. He tried to focus on his mission, the conquest of Wessex, but he found it hard.

When Alfred came to Chippenham where he could keep his eye on the Danes in Hwicce, Guthrum thought of it as a gift. Turning the ealdorman of Wiltshire, Wulfhere, was not a hard thing. Dealing with Alfred’s spies took more finesse but it did not take long. He wanted to move on Chippenham over Christmas, but something told him to leave the Christian celebration alone. He broke another chair but waited.

When he finally moved on Chippenham, he was amazed Alfred escaped his hands. He quickly had men in Braydon and Malmesbury on the north end of the Avon River. His men met little resistance in Bath on the other end of the river. He decided for all his planning, Alfred must have been warned and escaped the city, but he had nowhere to go. He would soon be caught.

Guthrum sat in his room and stewed. He actually prayed but it took a long time for him to realize that was what he was doing. The Ubba disaster honestly did not surprise him. The lack of success of his raiding parties out of Wallingford, Chisbury, and Bath also did not surprise him. He figured out almost as fast as Alfred that they would have to meet on the battlefield and settle things once and for all. He fully expected that either he or Alfred would be killed, and that would end it.