Battle of Reading

The Battle of Reading was a victory for a Danish Viking army over a West Saxon force on about 4 January 871 at Reading in Berkshire. The Vikings were led by Bagsecg and Halfdan Ragnarsson and the West Saxons by King Æthelred and his brother, the future King Alfred the Great. It was the second of a series of battles that took place following an invasion of Wessex by the Danish army in December 870.
By 870, the Vikings had conquered two of the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Northumbria and East Anglia. At the end of 870 they launched an attempt to conquer Wessex and marched from East Anglia to Reading, arriving on about 28 December. The town was between the Thames and Kennet rivers and they set about building a ditch and rampart on the southern side between the two rivers. Three days after their arrival they sent out a large foraging party, which was defeated by an army of local levies under the command of Æthelwulf, Ealdorman of Berkshire, at the Battle of Englefield.

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