Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 290. This

land is your land, this land is my land. This show is ad-free due to member support

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Brunem Burr had been a Titanic struggle. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle speaks of how the fighting

lasted from morning to night until, quote, the field grew dark with the blood of men,

end quote. And that was blood that was spilled from warriors of no less than four separate

kingdoms. The scribe speak of how the ground was littered with men impaled upon spears. This

was human devastation on a scale that had been seen on the island in living memory. And

now the Scots, Northmen, and Strathclyde Britons were fleeing the field. But it wasn't over.

If allowed to regroup, the armies of Dublin, Scotland, and Strathclyde could come back.

And Appleston was sure to have realized that he had come dangerously close to losing that

battle. He needed to end this decisively. So the Chronicle and William of Momsbury tell

us that as the multinational army fled the field of Brunem Burr, the West Saxons mounted

up and chased after them. This was no longer simply about winning. This was about ensuring

that the invading forces were destroyed completely. And the military use of horses was rare in

the early days of the Anglo-Saxons. But that had changed over the centuries. Appleston had

mandated the landlords provide no less than two mounted warriors for every plow they owned.

Mentions of cavalry units are frequent in the written record. Alfred the Great himself was a

...