Career
In 1013 during the siege of London by the Danes, Aethelred and his family took refuge in Normandy. Aethelred regained the throne in 1014 and died in 1016. In 1035, Canute died, and during the uncertainty that followed, the heirs of the former Anglo-Saxon rulers attempted to restore the House of Wessex to the throne of England.
Alfred Aetheling landed on the coast of Sussex with a Norman mercenary body guard and attempted to make his way to London.
However he was betrayed, captured by Earl Godwin of Wessex, and blinded: he died soon afterwards. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle there is an account of this fateful encounter:
When Harthacnut succeeded his half-brother Harold, he prosecuted Earl Godwin and Lyfing, Bishop of Worcester and Crediton, for the crime against his half-brother.
The Bishop lost his see for a while and Godwin gave the king a warship carrying eighty fighting men as appeasement and swore that he had not wanted the prince blinded and that whatever he had done was in obedience to King Harold. Tradition holds that like Harthacnut, Edward the Confessor considered Godwin guilty.
The Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex was restored through the accession of Alfred"s brother Edward in 1042.
In 1929 the remains of 223 soldiers, probably Norman soldiers based on their stature, prominent skulls and slender leg bones, were found on the prominent hillside immediately west of Guildford"s centre. They were bound and had been executed. The grave has been dated to c.1040.
Some bore skulls placed between their legs and one skeleton in particular had a neck vertebra sliced by a sword.
A coin of Edward the Confessor, Alfred"s brother, dating to 1043AD - seven years after the mass slaying - was found at the site. In charge of the excavations were Colonel O H North and archaeologist A West G Lowther.
The later Chronicle suggests that they were the vanguard of Prince Alfred, of whom nine out of ten were killed.
