fashion of the fighting king, near Athelney. The treaty entered into
with Guthrum restored to Ælfred all Wessex, with the south-western part
of Mercia, from London to Bedford, and thence along the line of Watling
Street to Chester. Thus for a time the Saxons recovered their autonomy,
and the great Scandinavian horde retired to East Anglia. Æthelred,
Ælfred's son-in-law, was appointed under-king of recovered Mercia.
Henceforward, Teutonic Britain remains for awhile divided into Wessex
and the Denalagu–that is to say, the district governed by Danish law.

Though peace was thus made with Guthrum, new bodies of wickings came
pouring southward from Scandinavia. One of these sailed up the Thames to
Fulham, but after spending some time there, they went over to the
Frankish coast, where their depredations were long and severe.
Throughout all Ælfred's reign, with only two intervals of peace, the
wickings kept up a constant series of attacks on the coast, and
frequently penetrated inland. From time to time, the great horde under
Hæsten poured across the country, cutting the corn and driving away the
cattle, and retreating into East Anglia, or Northumbria, or the
peninsula of the Wirrall, whenever they were seriously worsted. "Thanks
be to God," says the Chronicle pathetically "the host had not wholly
broken up all the English kin;" but the misery of England must have been
intense. Ælfred, however, introduced two military changes of great
importance. He set on foot something like a regular army, with a
settled commissariat, dividing his forces into two bodies, so that
one-half was constantly at home tilling the soil while the other half
was in the field; and he built large ships on a new plan, which he
manned with Frisians, as well as with English, and which largely aided
in keeping the coast fairly free from Danish invasion during the two
intervals of peace.