Border Country

Milton Keynes is now a peaceable part of a United Kingdom. But it has not always been that way (in a future post I will look at the motte and bailey castles put up in Shenley, Bradwell and Wolverton at the time of "the anarchy" during King Stephen's reign)

At school, I was taught that the Anglo-Saxon kingdom was divided from a Viking kingdom (known as the 'Danelaw') by Watling Street.

In fact this border ran across the country using the old Roman road - until it came to the crossing of the Great Ouse - where Watling Street ran through Old Stratford into Stony Stratford. At that point the boundary follows the Great Ouse to Bedford. It then went directly south to the source of the River Lea and followed that to the Thames.

A Treaty between King Alfred of Wessex (see http://jdmhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/alfred-great.html) and Guthrum, the leader of a Viking force that had invaded in 874 and brought Wessex to the point of extinction in 878, and then became the ruler of East Anglia - was agreed at some point between 878 and 890.