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At the risk of creating a Viking-wank, here's a short timeline I made in my spare time, still working on it, this be just the beginning. And away we go, please do comment if you think it's plausible or not, I'm probably gonna have to create some stuff up, especially as to the newer Kings, etcetra. First time trying anything like this, yeah.

In the summer of the year the year 866, Halfdan Ragnarsson and his brother Ivar Ragnarsson, better known as Ivar 'the boneless' moved north from East Anglia where they had endured the winter of 865 to Norþanhymbra (Northumbria). Osbhert, having ruled since the death of the son of Æthelred II of Norþanhymbra, sat on the throne in Norþanhymbra for 19 winters before the invasion by the Danes. The Great Army reached Eoforwic (York) and would capture it in November of the same year, with both Osbhert and the pretender to the throne of Norþanhymbra being slain. In an attempt to curtail tensions before they arise, the Danes picked an Angle from the prominent families, and placed a man named Ecgberht upon the throne in Norþanhymbra to serve as client-king to the Danes. In 868 Æthelred I, King of Westseaxana (Wessex) raised his banners as in our timeline and rode with his brother Alfred to Nottingham. Unlike OTL, the Danes gave battle to the Saxon's, the results of which would be the death of both Æthelred and Alfred of Westseaxana. The death of the King and his only visible successor left a small succession crisis in Wessex, with the only remaining child of King Ethelwulf, who came before Æthelred, being Æthelswith, a daughter. Married to Burgred of Mercia, the throne of Wessex passed to him through her.

With the defeat of the Saxons in Nottingham, the Great Army pressed on into Mercia, drunk from the triumph of war. Continuing their invasion, the traditional capital of Mercia in Tamworth was captured by the Danes in early 869. The armies of Wessex (and Mercia by extension) weak, Burgred made peace as in OTL with the Danes, effectively ceding all the Danes had captured so long as Wessex and what little of Mercia remained to him would not be molested. The Army would remain quiet until the summer of 870, in which the new Summer Army from Scandinavia bolstered their numbers and the invasion of East Anglia was made by the Danes. Arriving at Thetford, the Danes slew Edmund, King of East Anglia, overrunning the remainder of the Kingdom. Reaping great havoc, the 'pagan' Danes burned a number of monasteries and Christian priories. Continuing west, ignoring the same oath made a year prior, Reading came under attack by the Danes, Burgred once again begging for peace. Ivar promptly ignored the first request, sacking Reading and weaving a trail of havoc all the way down the Thame valley, until eventually confronted by Saxon armies outside Oxford, Ivar swore oath on that sunny Autumn day in 871 to keep the peace, and Burgred did the same, promising to pay tribute to the Danish lords in Eoforwic, East Anglia, and Mercia.

Although Viking (not purely Danish) settlement was already occurring in Britain prior to the conquest of Northumbria and East Anglia, it began to take speed with the accession of Guthrum as King of the Danes in England. Gradually consolidating his holdings in Mercia, Guthrum would loose his armies upon Wessex once more, his main force driving down the southern coast of England. The Wallingford was sacked and taken to the north, and in the south Exeter came under attack by the Danes. Burgred, leading his own host to battle west of the city, in which he perished. Leaving behind no direct descendants, the throne of Wessex was left to no one, and numerous claimants came forth. Despite it, Winton was eventually taken by the Danish, and the Great Army ground to a halt, settling down for the winter of 874, the five boroughs, Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria, and a good deal of Wessex in Viking hands.

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