82 Sir Frederick Pollock [March 3, 



Alfred came up with the full muster of Wessex, and prepared to sit 

 down before the Danish fort. They cut off or drove in any stragglers 

 left in the open, but had no other success. A furious sortie of the 

 Danes drove back the English after a hard-fought combat. iEthel- 

 wulf, the earldorman of Berkshire, who had won the little fight of a 

 few days before, was among the slain. 



The events of the next few days are obscure.* But, whatever had 

 been happening in the meantime, after those days we find both sides 

 apparently in something like equal force, and the English in good 

 older, on the part of the Berkshire Downs called Ashdown, over- 

 looking Wantage or perhaps Moulsford. The Danes, under two 

 leaders of kingly rank and many earls, were on higher ground ; they 

 formed in two divisions, the kings leading one half f and the earls 

 the other. The English made their dispositions to meet them with 

 a similar front, iEthelred against the kings and Alfred against the 

 earls. It was to be a battle of hand-to-hand shock, the shield-wall 

 of either line backed by a dense mass of men. Standing still on lower 

 ground to receive the enemy's charge was an obvious disadvantage. 

 The heathen were moving, but King iEthelred was hearing mass in 

 his tent, and would not let the office be interrupted. Alfred was at 

 his post, and took upon himself to order a counter-attack by the whole 

 English power,* without waiting for his brother. He led his men 

 " as it were a wild boar," says Asser, perhaps echoing some song made 

 in the camp. There was a stubborn fight, which raged mainly round 

 a certain stunted thorn tree : the tree was shown to Asser when he 

 visited the ground. The Danes gave way at last, and fled with heavy 

 losses, a king and five earls, and an unknown number of lesser men ; 

 and the English pursued through the night and all the next day. 

 What was left of the Danish host took refuge in the fort at Beading. 

 Tradition preserved the memory of the fight as the greatest slaughter 

 known since the Saxon invasion of Britain. Yet the power of the 

 Danes was checked, not broken. Fighting went on all the year, 

 once as far to the west as Wilton,§ and Asser counts eight battles in 

 the year besides untold skirmishes and onfalls. When the English 

 had the better, which they had not always, they still lost more than 

 they could afford. The Danes had, no doubt, as many losses, or more ; 



* The earliest authorities give no details, and those given by later writers are 

 improbable. If the English had retreated upon Windsor, they could surely not 

 have been in force at Ashdown within four days. The battle was somewhere 

 on the Ridgeway, but the spot cannot be fixed. Probably it was towards the 

 eastern end. The White Horse proves nothing. 



t Asser's " medium partem " = " dimidiam," like Fr. mi-, It. mezzo. 



% So I read Asser. There would be nothing so remarkable if he had moved 

 only his own division. I am glad to learn that Mr. Oman, in his chapter on 

 "Alfred as Warrior," contributed to the volume published by the King Alfred 

 Committee, takes the same view. Asser ascribes the victory as much to 

 JEthelred's piety as to Alfred's valour. 



§ It is said that Alfred could not be at this battle, whore the English were 

 defeated. 



