Page 24 of 155

     [* Asser. p. 2. W. Malms, lib. ii. chap. 2.
     Ingulph. p. 869. Sim. Dunelm. p. 120, 139.]

     [** Asser. p. 5. M. West, p. 167.]

     [*** Asser. p. 7.]

     [**** Asser. p. 22. Sim. Dunelm. p. 121.]

He marched against them with the few troops which he could assemble on a sudden, and, giving them battle, gained at first an advantage; but, by his pursuing the victory too far, the superiority of the enemy’s numbers prevailed, and recovered them the day. Their loss, however, in the action, was so considerable, that, fearing Alfred would receive daily renforcements from his subjects, they were content to stipulate for a safe retreat, and promised to depart the kingdom. For that purpose, they were conducted to London, and allowed to take up winter quarters there; but, careless of their engagements, they immediately set themselves to the committing of spoil on the neighboring country. Burrhed, king of Mercia, in whose territories London was situated, made a new stipulation with them, and engaged them, by presents of money, to remove to Lindesey, in Lincolnshire, a country which they had already reduced to ruin and desolation. Finding, therefore, no object in that place, either for their rapine or violence, they suddenly turned back upon Mercia, in a quarter where they expected to find it without defence; and fixing their station at Repton, in Derbyshire, they laid the whole country desolate with fire and sword. Burrhed, despairing of success against an enemy whom no force could resist, and no treaties bind, abandoned his kingdom, and, flying to Rome, took shelter in a cloister.[*] He was brother-in-law to Alfred, and the last who bore the title of king in Mercia.

The West Saxons were now the only remaining power in England; and though supported by the vigor and abilities of Alfred, they were unable to sustain the efforts of those ravagers, who from all quarters invaded them. A new swarm of Danes came over this year under three princes, Guthrum, Oscitel, and Amund; and having first joined their countrymen at Repton, they soon found the necessity of separating, in order to provide for their subsistence. Part of them, under the command of Haldene, their chieftain,[**] marched into Northumberland, where they fixed their residence; part of them took quarters at Cambridge, whence they dislodged in the ensuing summer and seized Wereham, in the county of Dorset, the very centre of Alfred’s dominions. That prince so straitened them in these quarters, that they were content to come to a treaty with him, and stipulated to depart his country. Alfred, well acquainted with their usual perfidy, obliged them to swear upon the holy relics to the observance of the treaty;[***] not that he expected they would pay any veneration to the relics; but he hoped that, if they now violated this oath, their impiety would infallibly draw down upon them the vengeance of Heaven.

     [* Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelwerd, lib.
     iv. cap. 4.]

     [** Chron. Sax. p. 83.]

     [*** Asser. p 8.]

But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince collected new forces, and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one year eight battles with the enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost extremity. He hearkened, however, to new proposals of peace, and was satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in England,[**] and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into the kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty, which it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he heard that another body had landed, and, having collected all the scattered troops of their country men, had surprised Chippenham, then a considerable town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around them.

This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they had undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among them, they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and delivered over to those swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus incessantly poured forth against them. Some left their country and retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea; others submitted to the conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile obedience.[***] And every man’s attention being now engrossed in concern for his own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of the king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more in defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties. Alfred himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest disguises from the pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself under a peasant’s habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd, who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows.[****]

     [* Asser. p. 8. The Saxon Chronicle, p. 82, says
     nine battles.]

     [** Asser. p. 9. Alured. Beverl. p. 104.]

     [*** Chron. Sax. p. 84. Alured. Beverl. p. 105.]

     [**** Asser. p. 9.]

There passed here an incident, which has been recorded by all the historians, and was long preserved by popular tradition, though it contains nothing memorable in itself, except so far as every circumstance is interesting which attends so much virtue and dignity reduced to such distress. The wife of the neat-herd was ignorant of the condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy, by the fireside, in trimming his bow and arrows, she desired him to take care of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed elsewhere in other domestic affairs. But Alfred, whose thoughts were otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction; and the good woman, on her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely, and upbraided him, that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her warm cakes though he was thus negligent in toasting them.[*]

By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more remiss, collected some of his retainers, and retired into the centre of a bog, formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in Somersetshire. He here found two acres of firm ground; and building a habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed. This place he called thelingay, or the Isle of Nobles;[**] and it now bears the name of Athelney. He thence made frequent and unexpected sallies upon the Danes, who often felt the vigor of his arm, but knew not from what quarter the blow came. He subsisted himself and his followers by the plunder which he acquired; he procured them consolation by revenge; and from small successes, he opened their minds to hope that, notwithstanding his present low condition, more important victories might at length attend his valor.