PON the accession of Alfred to the degraded throne, the Danes held the isle of Thanet, which gave them the command of the river Thames and the coasts of Kent and Essex; they had thoroughly overrun or conquered all Northumbria, from the Tweed to the 'Humber; they had planted strong colonies at York, which city, destroyed during the wars, they rebuilt. South of the Humber, with the exception of the isle of Thanet, their iron grasp on the soil was less sure, but they had desolated Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk; and, with numbers constantly increasing, they ranged through the whole length of the island, on this side the Tweed, with the exception only of the western counties of England, and had established fortified camps between the Severn and the Thames. The Anglo-Saxon standard had been gradually retreating towards the south-western corner of the island, which includes Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and which was now about to become the scene of Alfred's most romantic adventures. For a while, the English expected the arrival of their foes during the spring and summer

months, and their departure at the close of autumn; but now a Danish army had wintered seven years in the land, and there was no longer a hope of the blessing of their ever departing from it.

But Alfred, the saviour of his people, did not despair, even when worse times came: he calmly abode the storm over which his valour, but still more his prudence, skill, and wisdom finally triumphed. Though only twenty-three years of age, he had been already tried in many battles. He had scarcely been a month on the throne when his army, very inferior in force to that of the Danes, was forced into a general engagement at Wilton. After fighting desperately through a great part of the day, the heathens fled; but seeing the fewness of those who pursued, they set themselves to battle again, and got the field. the field. Alfred was absent at the time, and it is probable his army was guilty of some imprudence; but the Danes suffered so seriously in the battle of Wilton, that they were fain to conclude a peace with him, and evacuate his kingdom of Wessex, which they hardly touched again for three years. The invading army withdrew in the direction of London, in which city they passed the winter. In the following spring, having been joined in London by fresh hosts both from Northumbria and from their own country, they marched into Lyndesey, or Lincolnshire, robbing and burning the towns and villages as they went, and reducing the people whose lives they spared, to a complete state of slavery. From Lincolnshire they marched to Derbyshire, and wintered there at the town of Repton.

The next year (A. D. 875) one army under Halfden, or Halfdane, was employed in settling Northumbria, and in waging war with that probably mixed population that still dwelt in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Galloway, or what was called the kingdom of Strathclyde. They now came into hostile collision with the Scots, who were forced to retreat beyond the Friths of Clyde and Forth. Halfdane then divided the mass of the Northumbrian territory among his followers, who, settling among the Anglo-Saxons there, and

intermarrying with them, became, in the course of a few generations, so mixed as to form almost one people. It is not easy, from the vagueness of the old writers, to fix limits; but this fusion was probably felt strongest along the north-eastern coast between Tees and the Tweed, where some Danish peculiarities are still detected among the people. While Halfdane was pursuing these measures in the north, a still stronger army, commanded by three kings, marched upon Cambridge, which they fortified and made their winter-quarters. By this time the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, were entirely obliterated, and the contest lay between the Danes and Alfred's men of Wessex.

At the opening of the year 876, the host that had wintered in Cambridge took to their ships, and, resolving to carry the war they had renewed into the heart of Wessex, they landed on the coast of Dorsetshire, surprised the castle of Wareham, and scoured the neighbouring country. But in the interval of the truce, Alfred's mind had conceived an idea which may be looked upon as the embryo of the naval glory of England. After their establishment in the island, the Saxons, who, at their first coming, were as nautical a people as the Danes, imprudently neglected sea affairs; but, in his present straits, Alfred saw the advantages to be derived from the employment of ships along the coast, where they might either prevent the landing of an enemy, or cut off all their supplies and reinforcements, which generally came by sea, and as frequently from the continent as elsewhere. The first flotilla he set afloat was small and almost contemptible; but in its very first encounter with the enemy, it proved victorious, attacking a Danish squadron of seven ships, one of which was taken, the rest put to flight. This happened immediately after the surprise of Wareham; and when, in a few days, the Danes agreed to treat for peace, and evacuate the territory of Wessex, the consequences of the victory were magnified in the eyes of the people. In concluding this peace, after the Danish chiefs or kings had sworn by their golden

bracelets-a most solemn form of oath with them-Alfred, who was not above all the superstitions of his age, insisted that they should swear upon the relics of some Christian saints. The Danes swore by both, and the very next night fell upon Alfred as he was riding with a small force, and suspecting no mischief, towards the town of Winchester. The king had a narrow escape; the horsemen who attended him were nearly all dismounted and slain, and seizing their horses, the Danes galloped off in the direction of Exeter, whither, as they were no doubt informed, another body of their brethren were proceeding, having come round by sea, and landed at the mouth of the Exe. Their plan now was to take Alfred in the rear of his stronghold in the west of England, and to rouse again the people of Cornwall against the Saxons. A formidable Danish fleet sailed from the mouth of the Thames to reinforce the troops united in Devonshire; but Alfred's infant navy, strengthened by some new vessels, stood ready to intercept it. A storm which arose, caused the wreck of half the Danish ships on the Hampshire coast; and when the others arrived tardily and in a shattered condition, they were met by the Saxon fleet that blockaded the Exe, and entirely destroyed, after a gallant action. Before this, his second sea victory, Alfred had come up with his land forces, and invested Exeter; and king Guthrun, the Dane, who held that town, on learning the destruction of his fleet, capitulated. and gave hostages and oaths, and marched with his Northmen from Exeter and the kingdom of Wessex into Mercia.

Alfred had now felt the value of the fleet he had created. and which, weak as it was, maintained his cause on the sea during the retreat to which he was now about to be condemned. The crews of these ships, however, must have been oddly constituted; for, not finding English mariners enough, he engaged a number of Friesland pirates or rovers to serve him. These men did their duty gallantly and faithfully. It is curious to reflect, that they came from the same country which, ages before, had sent forth many of the Angles to the conquest of Britain; and they may have felt even

at that distance of time a strong sympathy with the AngloSaxon adherents of Alfred. The reader has already weighed the value of a Danish treaty of peace. Guthrun had no sooner retreated from Exeter, than he began to prepare for another war; and this he did with great art, and by employing all his means and influence; for he had learned to appreciate the qualities of his enemy, and he was himself the most skilful, steady, and persevering of all the invaders. He fixed his head-quarters at no greater distance from Alfred than the city of Gloucester, around which he had broad and fertile lands to distribute among his warriors. His fortunate raven attracted the birds of rapine from every quarter; and when every thing was ready for a fresh incursion into the west, he craftily proceeded in a new and unexpected manner. A winter campaign had hitherto been unknown among the Danes, but on the first day of January, 878, his choicest warriors received a secret order to meet him on horseback, at an appointed place. Alfred was at Chippenham, a strong residence of the Wessex kings. It was the feast of the Epiphany, or Twelfth-night, and the Saxons were probably celebrating the festival, when they heard that Guthrun and his Danes were at the gates. Surprised thus, by the celerity of an overwhelming force, they could offer but an ineffectual resistance. Many were slain; the foe burst into Chippenham, and Alfred escaping with a little band, retired, with an anxious mind, to the woods and the fastnesses of the moors. As the story is generally told, the king could not make head against the Danes; but other accounts state that he immediately fought several battles in rapid succession. We are inclined to the latter belief, which renders the broken spirits and despair of the men of Wessex more intelligible; but all are agreed in the facts, that not long after the Danes stole into Chippenham, they rode over the kingdom of Wessex, where no army was left to oppose them; that numbers of the population fled to the Isle of Wight and the opposite shores of the continent, while those who remained tilled the soil for their hard taskmasters, the Danes, whom they tried