of summer to attack them. In the battle which ensued the Londoners were worsted, and, with the loss of "some four king's thanes," obliged to retreat. The king now arrived with his troops, and encamped near London to protect the reapers as they were gathering in the crops. One day the king, riding along the banks of the river, observed a place, where the river might be so obstructed that the ships of the Danes. would not be able to pass. The idea was immediately put into effect, and two fortresses constructed on the opposite banks of the river. The English had hardly set themselves down to accomplish this work, before the Danes saw the evil which would inevitably ensue to their shipping. Abandoning these to their fate, they hastily left their position on the Lea, and crossing the country, arrived at Quatbridge', supposed to be the modern Bridgenorth, or Quatford, on the Severn. Here

Saxon Ch.

7 6 Cwatbricge, SAX. CH. Cambricge, ETHEL. Quatbrig, FLOR. WIG. Quantebrige, MATT. WESTM. [as in the printed copies; but Cantebrigge in MS. Laud. L. 44. Cantebrege in MS. 193, Musei Bodl. Cantebregge in MS. Hatton 97.] Quadruge, HUNT. Brugges BROMT. Mr. Somner is of opinion, that 'tis the same town that is now called Cambridge in Gloucestershire, not far from a branch of the river Severn, called Cam. But this conjecture, as Dr. Gibson [in explicat. nom. locorum ad fin. Chron. Sax.] has very well observed, seems improbable from the distance between the Severn and Cambridge, which is at least two miles, and consequently very badly situated to answer the end of the Danes in raising this fortress, which was to obstruct the passage of the king's ships up this river. Upon which account, considering that one MS. of the Saxon Chron. calls it Bricge, which is the name 'tis vulgarly called by now, and that Quatford is not above a mile from it, he inclines to our celebrated author's [Spelman's] opinion, that 'tis the same with Bridgenorth and Quatford in Shropshire. And of this opinion likewise was Mr. Leland, as appears from the first volume of his Collections, f. 199 a." HEARNE, p. 89.

they speedily entrenched themselves, and the third year of the campaign passed away with, apparently, little prospect that a war against so active and vivacious an enemy would ever come to an end.

But, in reality, the strength of the Danish invaders was now departed from them. Though often reinforced by their friends the old Danish settlers, the tide of success was evidently setting against them, and the policy or the mercy of Alfred was directed to separate the interests of the Danes located in the island from those of the new-comers. His armies, too, were more than a match for the whole united army, which by its frequent defeats were lessened in numbers and dispirited in courage. Their fleet, also, by Alfred's stratagem on the river Lea, was now lost to them. The citizens of London took possession of the ships in the Lea, whilst Alfred's army gallopped westwards after the enemy: some of the best of the vessels were towed to London, others were destroyed, and the enemy's main dependence in all enterprises, their fleet, was entirely annihilated.

In the summer of 897, the army at Quatbridge broke up altogether: some of the soldiers retired to East-Anglia, some into Northumberland, and others, the most destitute, procured such ships as they could get, and crossed over sea to the mouth of the Seine in France. Long before this happened, we lose sight of Hasting, the principal of the Danish leaders: his object in coming to England, whatever it might have been, whether to gain for himself a kingdom, or simply to amass plunder, was clearly defeated by the superior talents of his great opponent. But we may not suffer ourselves to be deluded into an erroneous judgment on the nature and result of this campaign: if Alfred's star

was predominant over that of his baffled competitor, it was less the difference between the kings, than between the two systems of which they were the heroes: Alfred was the champion of a settled society, of equal rights, and of civilized life: Hasting represents the barbarian, who, roving over the world, and with no law but that of his sword, may inflict, for a time, the greatest woes upon mankind, but will assuredly fall at last, the victim of a ferocious system, which engulfs all that enter into it.

CHAP. XXV.

THE EAST ANGLIAN AND NORTHUMBRIAN DANES CONTINUE TO INFEST THE SOUTHERN COAST.-SEA FIGHT BETWEEN SIX DANISH AND NINE ENGLISH SHIPS NEAR THE ISLE OF WIGHT-TRANQUILLITY RESTORED TO ENGLAND-MORTALITY OF MEN AND CATTLE-ALFRED ENDS HIS DAYS IN PEACE ON THE 26TH OF OCTOBER, A D. 901.— CONCLUSION.

THE departure of the foreign Danes restored to the king the leisure of which their coming had deprived him; but though the main body of his enemies was dissipated, its fragmental parts were still dispersed throughout his dominions, principally around the coasts, where they perpetrated petty outrages, and alarmed the peaceable inhabitants. In East Anglia also and Northumberland, the surface of society continued to heave and swell, before the storm, which had agitated those countries, could subside. Their taste for plunder and their old habits of roving had been revived by the arrival of Hasting's army, and perhaps their minds had not been perfectly reconciled to the dominion of an Anglo-Saxon king. Hence we find, that the south of England still suffered from their piratical attempts, which the navy of Alfred now employed their leisure to repress.

One of these adventures has been recorded, and may serve as an instance of the predatory warfare in which the campaign of 893-897 terminated. "Six Danish ships," says the Saxon Chronicle, "came to land at the

Isle of Wight, where they did much damage, as well as in Devonshire and elsewhere on the sea-coast. The king then commanded nine of his ships to go thither, and these obstructed the passage from the port towards the outer sea. Three of the enemy's ships came out to meet the English ships, but the other three were lying dry at the upper end of the port, and their crews had gone ashore. The English then captured two of the three ships which came out against them, and killed all their crews: the third ship, after all its crew but five had been killed, effected its escape, because the English ships ran aground also. They were aground in a very disadvantageous manner, three of them being on the same side of the channel as the Danish, and the rest on the other side, so that neither party could assist the other. When the tide had ebbed several furlongs from the ships, the crews of the three Danish ships attacked those of the three English which were on the same side as themselves, and a combat ensued. They slew Lucumon the king's reeve, Wulfheard, Ebb, and Ethelhere, three Frisians, and Ethelferth the king's neatherd, and in all, of Frisians and English, they slew seventy-two men. Of the Danes a hundred and twenty were killed. After this the flood-tide came in and floated the Danish ships, so that they got out before the Christians could shove theirs off; but they were so damaged, that they could not row round the coast of Sussex, and the sea cast two of them ashore : their crews were carried to Winchester, and brought before the king, who commanded them to be hanged

• See page 277.

b

As pirates and rebels taken in arms, they deserved this sentence; which, however, the king could not have justly inflicted on the other Danes who came from abroad.