East Anglia or for Northumbria. They left their northern vassals to take
care of themselves. "It was never a war between the Danes and the
national army," says Prof. Pearson, "but between the Danes and a local
militia." It would have been impossible, indeed, to resist the wickings
effectually without a strong central system, which could move large
armies rapidly from point to point: and such a system was quite undreamt
of in the half-consolidated England of the ninth century. Only war with
a foreign invader could bring it about even in a faint degree: and that
was exactly what the Danish invasion did for Wessex.

The year 851 marks an important epoch in the English resistance. The
annual horde of wickings had now become as regular in its recurrence as
summer itself; and even the inert West Saxon kings began to feel that
permanent measures must be taken against them. They had built ships,
and tried to tackle the invaders in the only way in which so partially
civilised a race could tackle such tactics as those of the Danes–upon
the sea. A host of wickings came round to Sandwich in Kent. The
under-king Æthelstan fell upon them with his new navy, and took nine of
their ships, putting the rest to flight with great slaughter. But in the
same year another great host of 250 sail, by far the largest fleet of
which we have yet heard, came to the mouth of the Thames, and there
landed, a step which marks a fresh departure in the wicking tactics.
They took Canterbury by assault, and then marched on to London. There
they stormed the busy merchant town, and put to flight Beorhtwulf, the
under-king of the Mercians, with his local levy. Thence they proceeded
southward into Surrey, doubtless on their way to Winchester. King
Æthelwulf met them at Ockley, with the West-Saxon levy, "and there made
the greatest slaughter among the heathen host that we have yet heard,
and gained the day." In spite of these two great successes, however,
both of which show an increasing statesmanship on the part of the West