entirely conquered or finally expelled from the kingdom were very
few. As years passed on, Alfred found his army diminishing, and the
strength of his kingdom wasting away. His resources were exhausted,
his friends had disappeared, his towns and castles were taken, and, at
last, about eight years after his coronation at Winchester as monarch
of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, he found himself reduced
to the very last extreme of destitution and distress.

[Footnote 1: For an account of Henrietta's adventures and sufferings
at Exeter, see the History of Charles II., chap. iii]




CHAPTER VIII.

THE SECLUSION.


Notwithstanding the tide of disaster and calamity which seemed to
be gradually overwhelming Alfred's kingdom, he was not reduced to
absolute despair, but continued for a long time the almost hopeless
struggle. There is a certain desperation to which men are often
aroused in the last extremity, which surpasses courage, and is even
sometimes a very effectual substitute for strength; and Alfred might,
perhaps, have succeeded, after all, in saving his affairs from utter
ruin, had not a new circumstance intervened, which seemed at once to
extinguish all remaining hope and to seal his doom.

This circumstance was the arrival of a new band of Danes, who were, it