Buthred was the king of Mercia. He could not resist Hubba and his
Danes alone, and he could not now have Alfred's assistance. Alfred was
censured very much at the time, and has been condemned often since,
for having thus made a separate peace for himself and his own
immediate dominions, and abandoned his natural allies and friends, the
people of the other Saxon kingdoms. To make a peace with savage
and relentless pagans, on the express condition of leaving his
fellow-Christian neighbors at their mercy, has been considered
ungenerous, at least, if it was not unjust. On the other hand, those
who vindicate his conduct maintain that it was his duty to secure the
peace and welfare of his own realm, leaving other sovereigns to take
care of theirs; and that he would have done very wrong to sacrifice
the property and lives of his own immediate subjects to a mere point
of honor, when it was utterly out of his power to protect them and his
neighbors too.

However this may be, Buthred, finding that he could not have Alfred's
aid, and that he could not protect his kingdom by any force which he
could himself bring into the field, tried negotiations too, and he
succeeded in buying off the Danes with money. He paid them a large
sum, on condition of their leaving his dominions finally and forever,
and not coming to molest him any more. Such a measure as this is
always a very desperate and hopeless one. Buying off robbers, or
beggars, or false accusers, or oppressors of any kind, is only to
encourage them to come again, after a brief interval, under some
frivolous pretext, with fresh demands or new oppressions, that they
may be bought off again with higher pay. At least Buthred found it so
in this case. Hubba went northward for a time, into the kingdom of
Northumberland, and, after various conquests and plunderings there, he