1899.] on King Alfred. 85 



hills above Ethandun, now called Heddiugton,* on the clowns towards 

 Chippenham, there faced the Danes, completely defeated them, and 

 shut them up in their entrenched camp. After being beleaguered a 

 fortnight, the Danes, cut off from all help of their kinsfolk, and 

 pressed by cold and hunger, came to terms. At last the terms give 

 clear evidence of an English victory. Not only the Danes were to 

 retire to their possessions in East Anglia — for there was no chance 

 of reconquest in that quarter — but Guthrum, their king, and his 

 followers were to receive baptism. That is, they pledged themselves 

 to live side by side with the English as peaceable and law-abiding 

 neighbours. It was as if in India, nine centuries later, a Mahratta 

 horde, after a series of battles with the Mogul power, should have 

 submitted to become Moslems. The treaty was not a surrender to 

 Alfred on the Danish part, but it was a frank recognition that they 

 could not deal with Wessex as they had dealt with Mercia. Nay, 

 more, a good part of Mercia itself was won back. The boundary 

 between the English land and that of the Danes, the " Danelaw," as 

 it was afterwards called, was drawn up the Thames, up the Lea 

 from its junction with the Thames, then to Bedford, then up the 

 Ouse to Watling Street (the great Roman road), by Watling Street 

 to Chester.f English and Danish men of corresponding rank were 

 to be counted of equal worth for the purposes of wergild and com- 

 pensations. 



This time the covenant was well kept. Guthrum and thirty of 

 his chief men duly came to be baptised, and he took the name of 

 iEthelstan. The ceremony of " chrism-loosing " and the attendant 

 festivities were completed at Wedmore. Still it was two years before 

 the Danes were fairly back in East Anglia. It was no longer the march 

 of a flying column, but a deliberate migration of settlers, carried out 

 with only such delays as were natural. At length it was all done, 

 and men could now, for the first time for many years, honestly say 

 that there was good peace in Wessex. 



' Not that Alfred had done with wars. More fighting was to come 

 in later years, even hard fighting, and at least one breach of the treaty 

 of Wedmore. But these were no longer fights for the life of the 

 kingdom. That was assured when the East Anglian Danes became a 

 defined and recognised State, owning that the king of the West-Saxons 

 wielded, in some sort, a paramount power. I purposely use vague 

 terms ; there could be no talk in England, at this time, of definite 

 feudal relations or commendation ; nor is it clear that Alfred could 

 have enforced any formal submission. The later campaigns of 

 Alfred's reign were not critical ; they are interesting partly as 



* 1 take it as the more likely view that Alfred seized a commanding position, 

 and forced the Danes to attack at a disadvantage. Details are wholly wanting : 

 as to the identification of the place, see the note at the end of this paper. 



t The text we have represents a later confirmation. It is possible that the 

 terms of 878 were not so favourable to the English. Green, ' Conquest if 

 England,' 151. 



