Last Lord of the North
Well, my Expert Northumbrian VI campaign went down in flames. Some interesting things ended up happening, however, & I'd like to share the interesting career of one Lord Elfwald. First, a bit of background: like my previous Welsh campaign, I turtled, refusing to rush my neighbors. However, where the Vikings are concerned I have some extra house rules: 1) never ally with the Vikings; 2) if at war, never sue for peace. The Vikings are diplomatic pushovers in my experience, and it's more fun to have them running around rather than stagnating in Scandinavia refusing to break alliances.
So when the Vikings started attacking Mercia, I picked a fight and ended up grabbing Lindissi and East Engle for myself. For awhile war with the Vikings didn't mean much -- I was able to build up quite a bit and even get some trade going with the Picts. But eventually the Viking ships sunk my trade fleets, the money dried up, and Viking raids became more frequent. I was managing to hold my own and keep the Vikings from settling in my lands, but in the meantime Mercia was building up insanely and I felt stretched too thin. Finally, in the year 861 the inept (2-Influence) Northumbrian king Aethelred II ordered a desperate invasion of the Mercian lands which broke the alliance. And that is where Lord Elfwald enters the scene.
Elfwald came from the lesser nobility, one of the retainers of Royal Bodyguard cavalry that protected one of Aethelred's uncles. Noticing his prowess and popularity, the king married him to one of his cousins, Aethelswith, linking Elfwald's ties to the crown, and granted him lordship of Pec Saetan, which pushed his 2 Command stars up to 3. When the time came for the betrayal of Mercia, Elfwald was unsure, but had little choice -- he could not refuse the king who made him. Elfwald led his army of 800 Northumbrians south from Pec Saetan into the winter snows of Wrocen Saetan, to face off against 1500 Mercians.
Elfwald (known already as Utterly Fearless and a Natural Leader) chose his plan of attack carefully. He knew the Mercians outclassed his fyrd and Woodsmen, and needed to dislodge them from their gentle slope. If it came down to a simple clash of lines, the Northumbrians would be overwhelmed.
With that in mind, Elfwald marched his men through a tiny village and towards an unoccupied slope to his left, just out of bowshot from the Mercians. When the Mercians saw the Northumbrians maneuvering to their right, they wheeled their own army and moved off further. Elfwald made his dispositions on his *own* slope, and waited.
The Mercians took the bait! The enemy sent forward a unit of archers to disrupt the Northumbrian line, followed closely by a unit of fyrdmen. But, isolated from their own line, these units were overwhelmed by Elfwald's fast-moving Horsemen and mercenary Celts. Elfwald retreated and waited again. Slowly, the Mercian line moved itself toward Elfwald's position, enduring the arrows of the Northumbrians before charging to grips with the infantry. As the snows fell, the huscarles on both sides began to tire, and when the Mercian general (a former prince) threw himself into the fray, Elfwald charged in himself, killing the general and throwing the enemy army into a confused rout.
As a result of his personal bravery, Elfwald was known afterwards for his Killer Instinct and earned his 4th rank as general.
But Elfwald was born into a chaotic time. The betrayal of Mercia caused king Aethelred's Influence to plummet, both home and abroad, and Northumbria suffered the first of many civil wars, losing Lindissi and East Engle in the process. The next year, the Mercians counterattacked Elfwald's army in Wrocen Saetan, and seeing their overwhelming force Elfwald sensibly retreated back to Pec Saetan. The rest of the year he nervously watched the southern border, fuming against his king for risking the very kingdom of Northumbria. When the Mercians gathered their armies and marched north in the spring, Elfwald retreated again, abandoning his province. Though none of his men spoke of it, Elfwald's apparent eagerness to retreat from the enemy would wear at their confidence.
The kingdom of Northumbria was now confined to Lothene, Beornice, Dere, Elmete, and Cumbri. Viking ships prowled the waters of both coasts, eager to strike and pillage -- Cumbri and the formerly rich province of Dere had both been devastated repeatedly by small but well-equipped raiding parties. Fearing for his safety, Aethelred spent more frequent time in the hills of Elmete, where the Vikings could not suddenly strike. The only good news was that Northumbria's northern allies, the Scots and Picts, chose to break their allegiance to Mercia rather than to Northumbria. But that was of little consolation when another civil war broke out, led by Aethelred's own son.
Still Elfwald -- no longer Lord Elfwald, as his lands had been taken by Mercia -- supported his king, refusing to rebel against his wife's kinsman. While Aethelred wrung his hands in Elmete, Elfwald, as Aethelred's most loyal captain, was sent to stand and defend the capital of Beornice against raiders. If Beornice fell, Northumbria would lose the support of the stout Huscarles that were trained there.
Over the next several years Northumbria hung on, until the Mercians crossed the Humber and struck at Eoferwic itself. Aethelred, now half-mad with desperation, refused to aid the defense of Dere, and Elfwald saw that it would have been doomed anyway - the Mercians were supported by hordes of Huscarles and Armoured Spears. Dere fell, and a third civil war broke out.
In Beornice, where Elfwald defended the remnants of a once-proud kingdom, loyalties were divided. A troop of huscarles broke away from Aethelred, their leader begging Elfwald to join them. The king was useless, he said, and too young -- his rule would last too long. If Elfwald would only lead, the people would follow. Again Elfwald refused. Without Aethelred's permission, Elfwald instead sent a bishop to sue for peace with the Mercians. If peace could be had, perhaps Northumbria's ravaged coasts could be rebuilt.
But Elfwald's hopes were dashed in the spring, when a small Mercian army invaded Beornice, seizing upon the chaos of the civil war. Elfwald's army faced off against two enemies at once.
Though he again faced a numerically superior and experienced army, Elfwald was able to wait on a hill while the rebels and Mercians squabbled. Thanks to his disciplined fyrd and loyal huscarles, Elfwald held off the Mercian attack and was able to destroy the huscarl general, holding Beornice for Northumbria.
But Aethelred's hold on the kingdom was broken. The constant uprisings could not be kept down, and finally Elfwald saw what must be done. If there was to be any hope of Northumbrian survival, the corrupt dynasty of Aethelred and his ancestors must come to an end. When the men of the hills approached him and offered their allegiance yet again, Elfwald seized the moment. In Lothene, Elfwald unfurled his banner and declared himself the new King in the North, with his son Eadulf as heir. His marriage to Aethelswith, Aethelred's kinswoman, legitimized Elfwald's right to rule. But before he could settle on his throne, the new king needed to prove his strength. That spring, King Elfwald I met Aethelred's forces in the hills of Lothene.
The forces were evenly matched -- Aethelred's lord of Lothene, Warden of the North, and his huscarles and fyrd charged up the slope to quickly come to grips with Elfwald's men. But Elfwald's own fyrd was solid on their hill, and his own hearth-troops were able to charge down into the enemy's flanks
...allowing Elfwald himself to gather his bodyguard and charge the enemy's rear.
With the loss of Lothene, Aethelred's support fell away for good. At the age of 36, Elfwald found himself on an uneasy throne, commanding only the provinces of Lothene and Cumbri -- and Cumbri was to fall later in the year to Mercia.
Despite his attempts at diplomacy, Elfwald was unable to secure peace with the Mercians. Nevertheless, he went about the task of ruling with renewed vigor, building Lothene into a new center of strength. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Mercians moved to destroy his fledgling dynasty, and could only hope that the raids of his allies the Scots into Mercia would delay the process. But in 871, four years after seizing power, Elfwald found himself facing another Mercian army in Lothene.
This invasion force consisted almost entirely of Mercian huscarles. Elfwald himself commanded two units of huscarles, a few under-strength units of fyrdmen, and some remnants of archers and woodsmen. But the Mercians lacked missiles and cavalry -- and Elfwald commanded his own fearsome (10-valor) Royal Bodyguards, as well as the bodyguard of his son Eadulf. Elfwald made his dispositions on a long hill; he commanded his son to conceal himself well off to the left among the trees. If the Mercians hacked their way through the Northumbrian shield-wall, Eadulf's surprise charge might be enough to turn the tide.
Elfwald grimly watched the enemy huscarles march up the slope, pause to unsling their fearsome axes, and advance at a trot, heedless of the weak arrows being fired at them. The crash of the lines was like the fall of some great tree -- wooden shields splintering, axes thudding into bodies with hideous force. Unable to hold back while his father's men died, Eadulf gave a blast on his battle-horn and charged from the trees, brandishing his sword.
While Elfwald threw his own bodyguard and even his archers into the fray, Eadulf appeared over the crest of the hill and slammed down into the right flank of the Mercians.
The combined onslaught was too much for the enemy. Unit after unit of huscarles pulled back, to regroup and charge in again. And to his horror, Elfwald could only watch as his only son, laying about him furiously with his sword, was hacked down by the great axes of the Mercians.
Though the battle was won, Elfwald felt no joy. Not only had his own cadre of huscarles been wiped out in the fray, but his son and heir was killed, his line in danger. The little kingdom enjoyed a year of peace, during which Elfwald mourned and retrained his fyrd. The Mercian king Edward would not listen to Elfwald's pleas for peace, and eventually Elfwald gave up. His only desire now was for honorable death in battle.
In 873, the Mercians again invaded Lothene, with more huscarles. With his scanty resources, Elfwald mustered the fyrd and met the Mercians on a bare hill. But although Elfwald desired death, he could not in conscience abandon what was left of the kingdom by reckless behavior. With fury and valor born of desparation, the men of the fyrd and of Elfwald's bodyguard cut down the Mercians and drove them from the field.
That winter the men of Lothene and those who flocked to Elfwald's banner enjoyed a great feast. But for the king himself, there was no joy to be had. He drank the mead with his men but his mind was on numbers of troops, shields, spears -- and the madness of holding out against the might of a united Mercia.
In 874 Elfwald gathered his men for the last time in defence of their homeland. It was the softness of early summer. Clouds scudded across a brilliant northern sky and the rugged land stretched out beneath a king and his men who stood ready to kill and to die.
Edward himself, the king of Mercia, had come to grind the last resistance of Northumbria under his heel.
His eyes staring down at his doom approaching, Elfwald spoke in a loud, clear voice. "You are men," he shouted to his fyrd, his fresh recruits who clutched their heavy unfamiliar spears in nervous hands. "You are men of the North!" The fyrdmen shook their spears and shouted out their lungs in reply.
The enemy huscarles, close enough now to look in the face, unslung their axes and jogged forward. With a wordless yell, Elfwald and his bodyguard surged forward, his fyrd following closely. The lines met, and, caught between the press of the shield-walls, the two kings clashed.
For what seemed like ages the shield-walls held stubbornly, as men were hacked down and stepped over. But finally the Northumbrian fyrd was overcome by the better-equipped Mercian hearth-troops. Terrified of the death-hunger in Elfwald's eyes, Edward shouted for his armoured spears to come to his aid, and the Mercian king slunk away to watch from a distance while his rival was overwhelmed. Elfwald's retainers fell, but as they fell the Mercian bodies piled up around them, and as they fell they chanted the song of the doomed, the song of the oath-bound:
hige sceal the heardre, heorte the cenre
mod sceal the mare, the ure magen lytlath
mind must be bolder, heart must be harder,
spirit shall be stronger as our strength lessens
Until it was Elfwald alone who stood and slew and sang.
With his death the kingdom of Northumbria fell.
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That was a magnificent -- albeit tragic -- tale! Let us remember Elfwald and drink to his great deeds! 
Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars
. I'd been sitting on that story for awhile actually. 
Re: Last Lord of the North
. I'm really suprised that the Mercians weren't at war with the Saxons, as that Generally the case by that time, or had Mercia Already absorbed the Saxons?
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