1899.] an King Alfred. 83 



but they were reinforced from oversea. Meauwhile, yEthelred bad 

 died soon after Eastertide — possibly of wounds, possibly of sickness 

 contracted in the campaign, but we know nothing of the cause. 

 Alfred reigned alone over the whole of the southern kingdom. Long 

 recognised, it is said, as the ablest of iEthelwulf's sons, he now came 

 to the height of opportunity, responsibility, and — as no distant time 

 was to show — of trial. 



His first act of policy was to make peace with the Danes, on the 

 terms of Wessex being evacuated. We do not know whether money 

 passed or not ; it may be that these Danes already found, as their 

 successors did some years later, that there were more hard knocks 

 than shillings to be got from Alfred's men.* But I fear the proba- 

 bility is the other way. 



Wessex was not attacked again for a few years. The Danes 

 completed at leisure their work of ruining the northern and eastern 

 counties, formerly the centre of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. In 872 

 their headquarters were at London. After being bought off by the 

 Mercians for two years they subdued Mercia in 874. Leicester, 

 Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, Lincoln — afterwards known as the 

 Five Boroughs — were now Danish towns. In 875, starting from 

 Bepton, which had been their winter quarters, one column marched 

 upon Northumbria, while another, with Guthrum — a name to be 

 remembered — as one of their kings, made for Cambridge. From this 

 time dates the Danish settlement in North-Eastern England, marked 

 by the Scandinavian ending of place-names in by, and others as 

 characteristic, though less frequent. Meanwhile Alfred had put some 

 ships in fighting order, met six or seven heathen ships,f and took one 

 of them. 



In 876 the host from Cambridge gained the coast, it seems un- 

 observed, and sailed round into the Channel and to Poole. Thence 

 they established themselves at Wareham in Dorsetshire, in an almost 

 impregnable position. But Alfred was soon on the spot in such force 

 as to be able to treat on better terms than before. This time the 

 Danes undertook to quit Wessex forthwith, gave hostages at Alfred's 

 discretion, and swore by their most binding oath, the holy bracelet, 

 as well as on Christian relics. But the treaty was never kept, for a 

 large part of the army made a dash for Exeter, and wintered there, 

 and sent out an expedition to Mercia the next summer.^ 



* Keary, ' Vikings,' p. 414. Neither Mr. Keary nor Sir James Ramsay doubts 

 that Alfred had to pay the Danes this time. 



t This squadron may or may not have belonged to the Danes in England, 

 and may or may not have been acting in concert with the land army. It may 

 well have come from Ireland. Asser's way of talking about seafaring matters 

 reminds one of Munro's humorous vituperation of Lachmann as a Berliner 

 landlubber on a question about Catullus's yacht. The good Welsh bishop meant 

 well, but he does write like a landlubber — entirely suppressing the voyage round 

 to Poole, for instance, in the next following incident. 



X It is not clear whether this was downright perfidy or only sharp practice. 

 Exeter might still seem West-Welsh rather than West-Saxon to those whose 



G 2 



