86 Sir Frederick Pollock [March 3, 



showing how much he had improved his military dispositions, partly 

 as indications of the still unahated power of the Northmen on the 

 Continent. These renewed incursions were really in the nature of 

 overflows to the English coast from far greater storm-waves, the last 

 of the plundering and desolating raids of the old Viking type, which 

 now had their centres in Northern France and the Rhineland. So 

 far as the present sketch is concerned, these episodes may he passed 

 over with a rapid survey. 



In 884 a division from the Danish host in France hesieged 

 Eochester, hut was driven off", leaving many slaves and horses ; they 

 had brought their own horses from the mainland. They must have 

 received aid from East Anglia, for Alfred sent a fleet to make re- 

 prisals on the east coast ; his sailors captured thirteen Danish ships 

 at the mouth of the Stour (that is, hard by the modern Harwich),* 

 but were afterwards beaten by a fresh squadron. On the whole, 

 Alfred was able to reassert his supremacy, as we shall presently see. 

 In 892 the Vikings, who had been signally defeated in Flanders, 

 turned to England ; one fleet fell on the south and made Appledore 

 their quarters.f another went up the Thames under Haesten or Hasting, 

 a renowned freebooter, and held Milton, near Sheppey. Now followed 

 three seasons of fighting up and down the country ; but this time 

 Alfred commanded the powers not only of Wessex, but of Mercia 

 outside the Danelaw, and even a North Welsh contingent joined him. 

 Alfred's son, Edward, afterwards his worthy successor, won his spurs 

 (to use the phrase of chivalry before its due time) by checking the 

 host from Appledore at Farnham in Surrey. Then the East Anglian 

 Danes became involved in the strife ; a Northumbrian fleet came 

 against Exeter ; there were many fights and a leaguer on the Severn. 

 We hear of Hasting after this at Chester,:}: in Wales and on the 

 Lea. In 896 both sides had suffered much, but the Danes more. 

 They found that on the whole nothing was to be gained in England, 

 and dispersed. Some of them remained as settlers in the Danelaw, 

 while others sought adventures in France. Nothing is recorded of 

 any formal peace-making ; probably there w<ts no permanent ruler to 

 make a treaty with. Meanwhile, Alfred had built ships of a new 

 design, and larger than the Danish galleys, to keep the peace of the 

 southern coast. Their power was gained at the expense of handiness, 

 at least it seems so from the only account we have of their behaviour 



* Assuming that the East Anglian and not the Kentish Stour is meant by the 

 chronicler, which seems on the whole the more likely view. 



t This Appledore lies in Kent to the west of Romney Marsh, not far from the 

 borders of Sussex. 



X The details are to be elucidated, if at all, only by a special student of the 

 mediaeval art of war ; and I collect from Mr. Oman's essay, already mentioned, 

 that he too has found them obscure. The chronicles expect us to believe that 

 Hasting made his way across from the Severn Valley to his ships in Essex, and 

 then back again across Mercia to Chester. For the dates I follow the received 

 correction of the chronicle years. 



