"And after this, at Easter, King Alfred, with a small band, constructed a fortress at Athelney, and from this fortress, with that part of the men of Somerset which was nearest to it, from time to time they fought against the army'."

ties, is of opinion that it was a small triangular banner, fringed, bearing a black raven on a blood-red field.

e Athelney, once an island, is now a marshy tract between the rivers Tone and Parret, near Langport, in the southern part of Somersetshire.

A very beautiful specimen of gold enamelled work is preserved

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in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which is commonly known by the name of Alfred's jewel, as it bears his name, and was found in 1693 in the immediate neighbourhood of his retreat. It is of filagree work, inclosing a piece of rock-crystal, under which appears a figure in enamel, which has not been satisfactorily explained. The ground is of a rich blue, the face and arms of the figure white, the dress principally green, the lower portion partly of a reddish brown. The inscription is "Aelfred mec heht gevvrcan" (Alfred ordered me to be made).

The Saxon Chronicle gives no particulars of Alfred's residence in Athelney, but Asser relates the well-known tale of the cakes suffered to burn whilst he prepared his weapons, and also tells us that it was in consequence of tyrannical conduct on his part, and neglect of the reproof of his kinsman St. Neot, that the king was so utterly forsaken by his subjects.

THE ANGLO-DANES.

Alfred leaves his retreat in May. He defeats the Northmen at Ethandun (Edington, near Westbury), and besieges them in their fortress.

The Northmen surrender after a fourteen days' siege, and give hostages. Guthrum "and some thirty men, who were of the most distinguished in the army," are baptized; Guthrum has Alfred for his godfather, and receives the name of Athelstan.

Alfred makes a peace with the Northmen, ceding to them a large portion of territory, thus limited: "first, concerning our land boundaries: up on the Thames, and then up on the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then right to Bedford, and then up the Ouse into Watling Street 8."

By this formal cession of so large a tract, as well as the loss of what Halfdane already possessed, and held apparently only by the sword, the sole monarchy esta blished by Egbert scarcely fifty years before may be re

The other provisions of this treaty declare: "if a man be slain, we estimate all equally dear, English and Danish, at eight half marks of pure gold," and at 200 shillings each for the Saxon ceorl and the Danish liesing or freeman; settle modes of trial, and the warranty "for men, for horses, and for cattle," and regulate the intercourse between the two armies and their followers.

garded as broken up. The Anglo-Danes, as they are now to be called, it is true, professed allegiance to Alfred and his successors, but seem never to have yielded it unless to princes who were able to enforce the claim, and they were ruled by chiefs whose coins prove them to have assumed the style of independent kings". They received constant accessions to their numbers in consequence of the attempts made by the kings of Norway early in the tenth century to render themselves absolute monarchs, many of the chiefs preferring voluntary exile to submission, and they thus speedily became in some districts, what the Normans afterwards were in the whole country, a fierce military aristocracy governing without mercy or discretion a herd of serfs, it being recorded as a glorious achievement of Edmund I. that he freed the English inhabitants of certain districts "who had dwelt long in captive chains to heathen meni.” They also extended themselves over Mercia, and as that state as well as their own district had its peculiar laws, the country was rather three separate kingdoms, of which Wessex was occasionally able to assume a supremacy over the others, than one united monarchy, as it is usually represented. It appears, too, from the names

h In 1840 a hoard of about 7,000 silver coins (beside many silver ornaments) was discovered at Cuerdale, near Preston, in Lancashire, 3,000 of which bore such inscriptions as "Cnut Rex," "Alfden Rex," "Sitric Comes," and they are by the best informed numismatists considered indisputably to belong to the chiefs of the Danish invaders in the ninth century, and their immediate successors. i See p. 109.

England is recognised as divided into the three states of Wessex, Mercia, and the province of the Danes, in the laws of Henry I. ; the latter province, sometimes styled the Danelagh, appears to have comprised the whole tract north and east of the Watling Street.

of the witnesses to contemporary documents, that the Anglo-Danes soon became possessed of important posts both in the Church and at the court of the AngloSaxon kings, and the divisions thus introduced into its councils, and the help they constantly gave to their invading countrymen, reduced the country to a state of weakness which left it a comparatively easy prey. first to Canute, and next to William the Norman.

A.D. 879. Guthrum and his forces withdraw to Cirencester, and remain there during the year.

A fresh body of Northmen take up their quarters on the Thames at Fulham.

A.D. 880. Guthrum and his forces settle in East Anglia. The Northmen leave the Thames, and besiege Ghent.

A.D. 881. The Northmen penetrate into France. The Northmen land in Scotland, and defeat and kill Constantine II. at Crail, in Fifeshire.

A.D. 882. Alfred goes to sea, and captures four vessels of the enemy.

A.D. 883. The Northmen ascend the Scheldt, and besiege Condé.

Alfred sends alms to Rome, and also to India, “ which he had vowed to send, when they sat down against the army at London.”

A.D. 884. The Northmen besiege Amiens.

A.D. 885. The Northmen again land in England, and besiege Rochester. Alfred relieves the city, and drives the besiegers beyond sea.

"This year the army in East Anglia broke the peace with King Alfred."

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Alfred sends a fleet against them, which captures sixteen of their ships. Alfred's fleet is defeated on its return.

A.D. 886. "King Alfred repaired London, and all the English submitted to him, except those who were under the bondage of the Danishmen; and then he committed the town to the keeping of Ethelred, the ealdorman."

The Northmen besiege Paris.

England now seems to have had peace for a while, for the Saxon Chronicle for the next seven years only records offerings sent to Rome, which became so customary that it is thought worthy of special remark, that in 889 "there was no journey to Rome, except that King Alfred sent two couriers with letters."

A bishop's see1 re-founded at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire. A.D. 887. The Northmen pass the bridge at Paris,

and ravage the interior of France.

Alfred founds the monasteries of Shaftesbury and Athelney.

A.D. 888. Athelswith (Alfred's sister, and relict of Burgred of Mercia) dies on her way to Rome, and is buried at Pavia.

A.D. 890. Guthrum dies.

The Northmen in France defeated by the Bretons.

A.D. 891. The Northmen defeated in the east of France, near Louvaine, Sept. 1.

A.D. 893. The Northmen, having crossed France, embark at Boulogne, and land at Limenemouth (Lymne, in Kent). "They caine over, horses and all, at one

1 The bishop's see founded here ir. 635 by Birinus (see p. 63), was removed to Winchester in 676.