Mobility of the Danes.
§ 71. Another and very important point is this. The chief difficulties of our forefathers under Alfred, as of us, their descendants, in South Africa at the present day, arose from the extreme mobility of the enemy[503], and the way in which they used the horses which they brought with them or captured[504], not indeed for fighting (that was never either the Danish or the Saxon mode of warfare), but for dashing from point to point, and eluding[505] and surprising the enemy. They were, in modern phrase, mounted infantry. It would seem as if the English were learning to copy them in this. You may have noticed that in the extract from the Chronicle which I read just now, describing the sequel of the battle of Edington, it is said that Alfred ‘rode after the enemy to their fort.’ The only other occasion up to this campaign[506], where any such phrase is used of an English force, is in the preceding year, where the Chronicler describes the brave but ineffectual dash which Alfred made to try and intercept the treacherous Danes before they got into Exeter[507].
Alfred’s personal influence.
But after all, the greatest of all human causes of success (though it is not merely human) is contained in those words of the Chronicler already quoted, ‘they were fain of him.’ The personality of Alfred was beginning to tell, and to rally to itself all that was worthiest in the nation. It has been compared, not unaptly, to the resurrection of France under Joan of Arc[508].
Comparative peace. Revolt of the East Anglian Danes.
§ 72. For the next few years Alfred had comparative peace, the Danes being mostly occupied on the Continent. There was a small, but successful, naval engagement in 881 or 882[509], and in 884[510] a body of the enemy landed in Kent and laid siege to Rochester, throwing up their usual fortifications round their own positions. But the besieged defended themselves successfully till Alfred came with the fyrd, and the besiegers were in their turn besieged, and withdrew, possibly by agreement, to the Continent once more, leaving their prisoners, and the horses which they had brought with them from over seas, in Alfred’s hands[511]. The appearance of their kinsmen in Kent seems to have been too much for the loyalty of the Danes in East Anglia. ‘They broke the peace with King Alfred[512].’ Alfred at once sent his fleet from Kent[513], where it had no doubt been supporting his operations at Rochester, across the broad estuary of the Thames, and at the mouth of the Stour, between Essex and Suffolk, the English defeated and captured a fleet of sixteen sail; but on their way back were met by a superior fleet of East Anglian Danes, and defeated in their turn. It will be remembered that it is in reference to this defeat that the earlier writer in Simeon of Durham gives us the wonderful story based on the corrupt reading in Asser of ‘dormiret’ for ‘domum iret[514].’
Alfred wins London.
§ 73. The next stage in the liberation of England was a very important one, being nothing less than the acquisition of London by Alfred. This is placed by the Chronicle in 886. But we have seen that the Chronicle is here in advance by a year of the true chronology; the true date is therefore probably 885. It is clear that Alfred did not gain this great success without the use of force[515]; and I am inclined to see in this the culmination of the measures which he took to chastise the East Anglian Danes for their breach of the peace in the preceding year[516]. It is with this that we must associate the document known as Alfred and Guthrum’s peace[517], often wrongly confused with the settlement of 878. By this treaty the boundaries of 878 were materially modified in Alfred’s favour. They now ran up the Thames to the mouth of the Lea, up the Lea to its source, thence to Bedford, and so up the Ouse to Watling Street. By this, not only London, but a considerable district east of Watling Street was made over to Alfred. The Danes had paid heavily for their momentary treachery. But again it illustrates the fragmentary nature of our sources, that we hear nothing of the military operations which must have led up to this success.
Effect of this on Alfred’s position. Alfred, the second founder of London.
It had an immense effect upon Alfred’s position, and made him more clearly than ever the head of the nation. ‘There submitted to him the whole Angle-kin that was not in subjection to the Danes.’ The city was restored and fortified, and committed to the care of Alfred’s son-in-law, Æthelred, whom soon after 878[518] he had made ealdorman of the part of Mercia which fell to him by the settlement of that year. Once, in 851, under Berhtwulf, the Danes had captured London; they had occupied it in 872 under Burgred; it had fallen to their share at the division of Mercia in 877. But never again, after Alfred’s restoration of it, was it ever forcibly captured by them or by any other foreign host. Alfred is rightly called the second founder of London[519].