The Resistance of Wessex

In the centre and the north the Danes had succeeded in their conquest. Would they carry their efforts further and subjugate the south also? Wessex alone among the kingdoms was able to resist ; and upon its king, Ethelred, and his brother Alfred fell the heavy burden of saving the English people from a Danish yoke and England from becoming a Daneland. The year 870-871 was critical in the history of the struggle, for it was in that year that the Danish "army," hurling itself on Wessex, fought stubbornly for the victory. In famous battles thelred and the aetheling Alfred fought the Danes among the hills and marshes of Berkshire. On December 31, 870, at Englefield, they defeated jar' Sidroc and a plundering party. Four days later (January 4, 871), pushing on to where the Danes were intrenched in camp at Reading, they suffered defeat and were obliged to withdraw. The Danes advanced to Ashdown, between Wallingford and Marlborough, and there was fought one of the most brilliant battles of the year (January 8). The West Saxons slew one king, Bagseg, five jar's, and many thousand of the heathen host. It was a great victory, and to it no one contributed more than did the young Alfred, who led the attack and sustained the brunt of the fighting.

But the Danes soon took their revenge. Turning southward from Ashdown, they attempted to reach the chief West Saxon city, Winchester; they were intercepted at Basing and forced to fight, but they won the day (January 22). Falling back to their camp at Reading, they remained for two months inactive or engaged at most only in plundering raids; but in March y they pushed again into central Wessex. There they engaged the West Saxons at Marton, and though seeming to have lost the day, they remained in the end "masters of the field of death " (March 22). In this battle Ethelred received a mortal wound, and died a month afterward, April 23. He was succeeded by his brother Alfred, who had so loyally sustained him and upheld the cause of Wessex during these eventful months.

Alfred the Great and the Danes

Alfred the Great, by common repute the noblest of the early English kings, succeeded to his inheritance in the midst of war and became king of the West Saxons in the hour of their greatest peril. From his boyhood he had been considered by all who knew him as the most promising of thelwulf's sons; in battle he had shown himself resourceful in command and a brave fighter on the field. He was comely in person, aristocratic in sympathies, and superior to all the men of his time in his love of learning and desire for the improvement of his semi-barbarous people. In 871) when twenty-three years old, he succeeded to the throne of the only kingdom in England which possessed any real national life or made any pretence to an efficient political organization.

The first outlook was discouraging. With only a small army behind him, King Alfred was unable to make a prolonged

ALFRED THE GREAT.

From G. King's engraving of a painting in University College, Oxford. It is of course wholly imaginary, and is only reproduced here to give a seventeenth-century idea of what Alfred looked like. No authentic portrait of Alfred exists.

effort to dislodge the Danish army from northern Wessex. A month after he came to the throne, his fighting force, without him, met the Danes at Wilton on. the Willy, and though victorious for the moment, was defeated in the end. Then Alfred sued for peace, and after paying a heavy tribute, for which he was obliged to tax his people, he obtained a respite for a few years.

The Danes, being bought off, turned aside from Wessex, and while Guthrum remained at Cambridge, Halfdene completed the conquest of Northumbria, and settled there in 875-876. A year later, Ubba and Guthrum renewed their assault on Wessex. They overran the eastern portion of the kingdom, captured London and Winchester, and occupied a fortified camp at Chippenham. Alfred built a fleet of long ships in 877 to guard the coast from attack, and twice paid additional money to the Danes to withdraw. But the latter did not carry out their part of the bargain. Finally, with a little band Alfred made his way into Somerset, to an island called Athelney, a place situated at the junction of the Tone and the Parrot and surrounded by marshes and rivers, into which no one could enter without boats . Here he made a fort and laid his plans for victory; and here, in 1693, was found the enamelled jewel with its inscription, " lfred mec heht gewyrcan" ("Alfred ordered me to be made"). Gradually, between March and May, 878, he gathered the men of Somerset, Wilts, and Hampshire about him. At the same time a body of Devon L men attacked and destroyed a freebooting party under Ubba, slew their king, and captured their raven war-flag. Then Alfred, secretly meeting his tribesmen at Egbertstone, the seat of the shiremot, advanced with them to Edington thandune), where he fell upon the whole Danish "army" and defeated it with great slaughter. Having driven back the Danes to their retreat at Chippenham, he laid siege to the place, and by threatening them with starvation, compelled them to sue for peace (878).