now dead, and Alfred had to contend against his formidable enemy
alone.

Hastings selected a point on the southern coast of England for his
landing. Guthrum's Danes still continued to occupy the eastern part of
England, and Hastings went round on the southern coast until he got
beyond their boundaries, as if he wished to avoid doing any thing
directly to awaken their hostility. Guthrum himself, while he lived,
had evinced a determination to oppose Hastings's plans of invasion.
Hastings did not know, now that Guthrum was dead, whether his
successors would oppose him or not. He determined, at all events,
to respect their territory, and so he passed along on the southern
shore of England till he was beyond their limits, and then prepared
to land.

[Illustration: HASTINGS BESIEGED IN THE CHURCH.]

He had assembled a large force of his own, and he was joined,
in addition to them, by many adventurers who came out to attach
themselves to his expedition from the bays, and islands, and harbors
which he passed on his way. His fleet amounted at least to two hundred
and fifty vessels. They arrived, at length, at a part of the coast
where there extends a vast tract of low and swampy land, which was
then a wild and dismal morass. This tract, which is known in modern
times by the name of the Romney Marshes, is of enormous extent,
containing, as it does, fifty thousand acres. It is now reclaimed, and
is defended by a broad and well-constructed dike from the inroads of
the sea. In Hastings's time it was a vast waste of bogs and mire,
utterly impassable except by means of a river, which, meandering
sluggishly through the tangled wilderness of weeds and bushes in a