Chapter 8

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at Shoebury and a second cross-country raid was attempted, on this occasion a forced march along the Watling Street until the army reached a deserted and ruined Roman town, Chester. Æthelred's levy was taken by surprise and could not prevent the Danes from sheltering in safety behind the strong walls of the abandoned city; but winter was at hand, and it seemed sufficient for the English to destroy everything in the neighbourhood that could possibly provide sustenance for the Danes or their horses. This done, the English force withdrew to watch events.
       The result of the stratagem was successful, for in the next year, 894, the lack of provisions compelled the Danes to vacate Chester and to go plundering in Wales. Then they made off with their booty and returned to Mersea in Essex, but in crossing England they were careful to make a wide detour through Northumbria and East Anglia so as to keep out of reach of the English army which is said even to have dared to threaten York in an attempt to catch the retreating vikings. At the same time the viking band that Alfred had defeated in Devonshire was also on its way back to East Anglia; while they were sailing up the south coast they had tried to plunder in Sussex, but the men of Chichester had risen up against them and routed them, even capturing some of their boats. The remnant, however, found their way to the new camp on the island of Mersea, where they joined the vikings of the Chester raid.
       At the end of the year the Danes returned to the attack. A large fleet sailed from Mersea up the Thames and then up the Lea to a point 20 miles north of London where a fortified camp was made and where the fleet remained for six months unchallenged. In the summer of 895 they were attacked by an English force collected in and around London, but the attempt to storm the fortress failed and the levy retired, having suffered serious losses. The vikings were now plundering boldly, and so, in the harvest time, Alfred himself marched to London with his army to protect the neighbourhood while the corn was being cut. He did not attack the Danish camp, but he found a place where the river could be blocked by the construction of two works, one on either bank, and no sooner had he begun to construct them than the Danes realized that their ships were going to be shut in. They did not wait to be caught in the trap, for they abandoned their boats at once and, sending their women safely away into East Anglia, they set off overland on one last desperate raid into Mercia. Their goal was Bridgenorth on the Severn, and there, when they had eluded the pursuing English army, they built a fort and settled down for the winter. In the meantime the men




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of London had taken the abandoned ships, towing some down to London and destroying the remainder.
       The end was now at hand. The Englishmen had shown themselves sufficiently strong to make it certain that there could be no prospect of conquests in Mercia as a result of these irregular and ill-supported raids, while in the Danelaw the settlers were becoming less and less disposed to risk the security of their holding by further offending this most resolute king who opposed them. The veteran Hastein and the viking party, the marauders, were now a discredited minority, and so it came about that the summer of 896 saw the pirate host break up, the Bridgenorth Danes returning some to East Anglia and some to Northumbria; then those of the vikings who did not succeed in obtaining a grant of land in the Danelaw and those who still chose to lead a pirate life sailed off to renew their ravages on the Seine.
       The Danelaw, however, even with this unruly element gone, was not a land of peaceful colonists only, for in this very year there were minor raids on the south coast of Wessex, raids from Northumbria and East Anglia that were carried out in the old ships that had brought the Danes to England. To put an end to this buccaneering Alfred ordered the construction of a new fleet of 'long ships' that were nearly double the size of the Danish boats, some having sixty oars and some even more. They were built neither on the Frisian nor the Danish model, but were designed by the king himself and were thought to be swifter and steadier than the foreign craft. This was a courageous experiment, but it seems that the crews, both English and Frisian sailors, found their fine new boats exceedingly difficult to manage, for when nine of these ships of Alfred's engaged six pirate boats the English made a sad muddle of the fight by running aground ('very awkwardly' as the chronicler candidly says). The chronicler also records that twenty ships, crews and all, were lost on the south coast during this same summer, and he was probably referring to English ships. But though these new boats were evidently not an unqualified success, the king was under no delusions as to the proper way to treat these buccaneers when he caught them. In the fight in which the English ships ran aground, three of the Danish boats escaped, and two of these were subsequently driven ashore on the coast of Sussex. The crews were led to Winchester to the king and Alfred hanged every man of them.
       He died in October 899, this great king, and for the last three years of his reign Wessex had had peace. Alfred had saved his




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kingdom from the Danes, and by saving Wessex he had saved England. But he had done more than achieve a mere deliverance of his realm; for he had toiled ceaselessly at the interior organization and military equipment of Wessex, and he left his kingdom a powerful and enlightened state, no longer the defenceless prey of the Danes but now an avenger that was to dare to advance to the conquest of the Danelaw. Over this reborn Wessex his son, Edward the Elder, was now elected to rule.
       At the outset of his reign Edward had a quarrel with his cousin Æthelwald to whom Alfred had left estates in Surrey and Sussex, and this prince fled to Northumbria where he took refuge with the Danes. A few years later he made an alliance with the East Anglian Danes, whose king was now Eric, Guthrum having died in 890, and he succeeded in inciting them to attack Wessex. In 904 a Danish force, with Æthelwald among the leaders, marched out across Chilternsaete, crossed the upper Thames at Cricklade, plundered in the Braden Forest district, and returned home unchallenged. But Edward replied with a vigorous counterattack, and sending an army of Kentish men and Londoners into the Danelaw he ordered the devastation of Middle Anglia. This expedition came to grief as the army was slow to heed Edward's command to withdraw and was consequently caught by the Danish army under Eric and Æthelwald. A fierce battle took place at Holme near Biggleswade (1) in Bedfordshire in which the English came off worse although the Danes lost both their king and Æthelwald. Another Guthrum succeeded Eric, and immediately afterwards Guthrum and Edward concluded a peace at Yttingaford, near Linslade in Buckinghamshire, whereby the older treaty of 886 between Guthrum and Alfred was re-affirmed, and it was further stipulated that the Danes in the dioceses of London and Dorchester should become Christians and pay the proper tithes and church dues to the bishops.
       The Danes remained quiet for, some years after this show of force by Edward and they are not heard of again until 910 when they once more attacked Mercia. Edward was in Kent with his fleet, but he sent his army immediately to the assistance of Æthelred so that the Duke of Mercia was able to confront the invaders with a big force when they began their homeward march. A battle took place at Tettenhall in Staffordshire and the result was a complete overthrow of the Danes, who suffered very heavy losses.