902. Æthelwold, with the East Anglians, harries Mercia and into Wessex
December 13, 902. Battle of the Holme: Edward defeats Æthelwold

In the fall of 902 Æthelwold induced the East Anglian Vikings to break the peace and they harried all over Mercia as far as Cricklade in Wiltshire. When Æthelwold and his forces crossed the Thames into Wessex and raided Braydon (also in Wiltshire), King Edward pursued them with his army, and harried Essex and East Anglia (or as the Chronicle puts it, "all their lands between the Dykes and the Ouse, as far north as the fens"). Then Edward tried to stage an orderly withdrawal, but the men of Kent lingered behind against his command. The Chronicle notes that Edward had sent seven messengers to them, which implies that, like Nelson much later, they were turning a blind eye... The Danish army overtook the men of Kent at the Holme (unidentified) and fought them there, and very many people were killed on both sides, including Æthelwold. (The Chronicle names the most important of the dead as the ealdormen Sigewulf and Sigehelm, the thegn Eadwold, abbot Cenwulf, Sigeberht Sigewulf's son, Eadwold Acca's son, and on the Danish side king Eohric, ætheling Æthelwold, Brihtsige son of the ætheling Beornoth, Ysopa and Oscetel.) Æthelweard in his Chronicle dates the battle to December 13. The Chronicle admits that the Danes won the victory, though more of them than of the English were killed, but the death of the rebel Æthelwold will have been the most important result of the battle as far as Edward was concerned.

It would be interesting to know more about Brihtsige son of the ætheling Beornoth: the name (alliterating on B- like the names of the 9th-century Mercian kings, Beornwulf and Beorhtwulf and Burgred) suggests that he might have been the son of a prince of the Mercians. It is possible that in the uncertainty of the disputed succession after Alfred the Mercians attempted to claim independence from Edward and his kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons: a Mercian charter of 901 (S 221) issued by Æthelred and Æthelflæd has somewhat grander titles than usual and makes no mention of Edward's overall authority. However, there is no clearer evidence of Mercian independence at this point (no coins have survivied in the names of Æthelred or Æthelflæd, for example), and by 903 they were appearing in charters very much as the subordinates of Edward (S 367).