The Battle of Basing was a battle

Battle

Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...

 on 22 January 871 at Old Basing

Old Basing

Old Basing is a village in the north-east of the English county of Hampshire. It is situated just to the east of Basingstoke, and in the 2001 census had a population of 7,232...

 in what is now the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county of Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

. It was one of a series of battles that took place following an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

 by an army of Danes. Both battle and campaign are described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

.

The Danes had established a camp at Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

, and the previous battles of Englefield

Battle of Englefield

The Battle of Englefield was a battle on 31 December 870 at Englefield, near Reading in what is now the English county of Berkshire. It was one of a series of battles, with honours to both sides, that took place following an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes, during which...

, Reading

Battle of Reading (871)

The first Battle of Reading was a battle on 4 January 871 at Reading in what is now the English county of Berkshire. It was one of a series of battles, with honours to both sides, that took place following an invasion of the then kingdom of Wessex by an army of Danes led by Bagsecg and Halfdan...

 and Ashdown

Battle of Ashdown

The Battle of Ashdown, in Berkshire , took place on 8 January 871. Alfred the Great, then a prince of only twenty-one, led the West Saxon army of his brother, King Ethelred, in a victorious battle against the invading Danes.Accounts of the battle are based to a large extent on Asser's "Life of...

 had proved indecisive, with victories to both sides.

Two weeks after the Saxon victory at Ashdown, the armies met again at Basing. The Saxon army, led by King Ethelred

Ethelred of Wessex

King Æthelred I was King of Wessex from 865 to 871. He was the fourth son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex...

, was beaten by the Danes. But just like its predecessors, this battle was indecisive, and it was followed just over a month later by the Battle of Marton

Battle of Marton

The Battle of Marton or Meretum took place on the 22nd March 871 at a place recorded as Marton, perhaps in Wiltshire or Dorset, after Æthelred of Wessex, forced into flight following their costly victory against an army of Danish invaders at the Battle of Ashdown, had retreated to Basing , where...

, where the Saxons prevailed. In April Ethelred died, to be succeeded by Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

, and much of King Alfred's 28-year reign was taken up with the Danish conflict.