Olaf Guthfirthson, Viking King of York, invades the English Midlands ad943

The area over which the campaign of 943 was fought. The eastern Midlands were at this date a border land between the Viking Kingdom of York to the north and the English Kingdom of Wessex to the south. The old Roman roads of Watling Street and Fosse Way dominated the movements of armies as they provided easy going for the marching men and their supply animals.

In the spring of 943 Olaf marched out of York. His route is not entirely certain, but he seems to have left his own kingdom near Rotherham and gone south to Nottingham and Derby, then on to Leicester. All three places welcomed him, or at least did not oppose him, the Viking lords presumably liking what they saw. At Leicester Olaf picked up the Fosse Way and marched southwest to join Watling Street, along which he then marched to reach Northampton, the southernmost of the old Viking towns of Mercia.

At Northampton Olaf got a rebuff. The town gates were slammed shut in his face and none of the local Viking lords came to join him. After camping outside Northampton for a short while, Olaf turned back up Watling Street. The fortified burh of Tamworth had long been resented by the Viking lords of eastern Mercia as an English intrusion into their lands. Olaf moved against it, presumably believing this would bolster his support. He had another reason to attack the town. It had been here that Sihtric One Eye had married Edith, thus paving the way for Athelstan to take over the Kingdom of York.

Arriving at Tamworth, Olaf launched an immediate assault. The burh was overrun with great slaughter. The place was looted thoroughly and systematically by Olaf and his men. It was then put to the torch, with the church where Sihtric and Edith had married no doubt joining the general conflagration.

Olaf then marched up the Fosse Way to Leicester. There he met Archbishop Wulfstan who had travelled down from York in the wake of the army. Almost certainly also in Leicester was a man named Orm, whose rank is given as “comes”. This Orm is an enigmatic character, but clearly an important one. The title of Comes was one that originated in the late Roman Empire and which then meant the head of a government department. By the early 10th century its meaning had changed to mean a personal attendant to a ruler, usually one who had a specific task to perform or group of men to oversee.

Orm is credited in a later chronicle by Roger of Wendover as being the man who was chiefly responsible for Olaf’s success in gaining such swift possession of Derby, Leicester, Nottingham and Stamford. It must be presumed that he was an official in the service of King Edmund who switched sides and was thus able to clear the path for Olaf in Danish Mercia.