England. Thirty-three piratical ships sailed up Southampton Water to
pillage Southampton, perhaps with an ultimate eye to the treasures of
royal Winchester, the capital and minster-town of the West Saxon
over-lord himself. This was a bold attempt, but the West Saxons met it
in full force. The ealdorman Wulfheard gathered together the levy of
fighting men, attacked the host, and put it to flight with great
slaughter. Shortly after a second Danish host landed near Portland,
doubtless to plunder Dorchester: and the local ealdorman Æthelhelm,
falling upon them with the levy of Dorset men, was defeated after a
sharp struggle, leaving the heathen in possession of the field. It was
not in Wessex, however, that the wickings were to make their great
success. The north had long suffered from terrible anarchy, and was a
ready prey for any invader. Out of fourteen kings who had reigned in
Northumbria during the eighth century, no less than seven were put to
death and six expelled by their rebellious subjects. Christian
Northumbria, which in Bæda's days had been the most flourishing part of
Britain, was now reduced to a mere agglomeration of petty princes and
clans, dependent on the West Saxon over-lord, and utterly unconnected
with one another in feeling or sympathy. Already we have seen how the
Danes harried Northumbria without opposition. The same was probably the
case with the whole Anglian coast on the east. In 840, the wickings fell
on the fen country. "The ealdorman Hereberht was slain by heathen men,
and many with him among the marsh-men." All down the east coast, the
piratical fleet proceeded, burning and slaughtering as it went. "In the
same year, in Lindsey, and in East Anglia, and among the Kent men, many
men were slain by the host." A year later, the wickings returned,
growing bolder as they found out the helplessness of the people. They
sailed up the Thames, and ravaged Rochester and London, with great
slaughter; after which they crossed the channel and fell upon Cwantawic,
or Étaples, a commercial port in the Saxon land of the Boulonnais. In