59. An Eclipse.[136]—In that same year an eclipse[137] of the sun took place between nones and vespers, but nearer to nones.
60. The Danes in East Anglia.[138]—In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 880, which was the thirty-second of King Alfred’s life, the oft-mentioned army of heathen left Cirencester, and went to East Anglia, where they divided up the country and began to settle.
61. The Smaller Army leaves England.[139]—That same year the army of heathen, which had wintered at Fulham, left the island of Britain, and sailed over sea to East Frankland, where they remained for a year at a place called Ghent.
62. The Danes fight with the Franks.—In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 881, which was the thirty-third of King Alfred’s life, the army went further on into Frankland, and the Franks fought against them; and after the battle the heathen, obtaining horses, became an army of cavalry.
63. The Danes on the Meuse.[140]—In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 882, which was the thirty-fourth of King Alfred’s life, the aforesaid army sailed their ships up into Frankland by a river called the Meuse, and there wintered one year.
64. Alfred’s Naval Battle with the Danes.[141]—In that same year Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, fought a battle at sea against the heathen fleet, of which he captured two ships, and slew all who were on board. Two commanders of the other ships, with all their crews, worn out by the fight and their wounds, laid down their arms, and submitted to the king on bended knees with many entreaties.
65. The Danes at Condé.[142]—In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 883, which was the thirty-fifth of King Alfred’s life, the aforesaid army sailed their ships up the river called Scheldt to a convent of nuns called Condé, and there remained one year.
66. Deliverance of Rochester.[143]—In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 884, which was the thirty-sixth of King Alfred’s life, the aforesaid army divided into two parts: one body of them went into East Frankland, and the other, coming to Britain, entered Kent, where they besieged a city called in Saxon Rochester, situated on the east bank of the river Medway. Before the gate of the town the heathen suddenly erected a strong fortress; but they were unable to take the city, because the citizens defended themselves bravely until King Alfred came up to help them with a large army. Then the heathen abandoned their fortress and all the horses which they had brought with them out of Frankland, and, leaving behind them in the fortress the greater part of their prisoners on the sudden arrival of the king, fled in haste to their ships; the Saxons immediately seized upon the prisoners and horses left by the heathen; and so the latter, compelled by dire necessity, returned the same summer to Frankland.
67. Alfred’s Naval Battle at the Mouth of the Stour.[144]—In that same year Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons, shifted his fleet, full of fighting men, from Kent to East Anglia,[145] for the sake of spoil. No sooner had they arrived at the mouth of the river Stour than thirteen ships of the heathen met them, prepared for battle; a fierce naval combat ensued, and the heathen were all slain; all the ships, with all their money, were taken. After this, while the victorious royal fleet was reposing,[146] the heathen who occupied East Anglia assembled their ships from every quarter, met the same royal fleet at sea in the mouth of the same river, and, after a naval engagement, gained the victory.
68. Death of Carloman, of Louis II, and of Louis III.[147]—In that same year also, Carloman, King of the West Franks, while engaged in a boar-hunt, was miserably slain by a boar, which inflicted a dreadful wound on him with its tusk. His brother Louis, who had also been King of the Franks, had died the year before. Both these were sons of Louis,[148] King of the Franks, who also had died in the year above mentioned, in which the eclipse of the sun took place.[149] This Louis was the son of Charles,[150] King of the Franks, whose daughter Judith[151] Æthelwulf, King of the West Saxons, took to queen with her father’s consent.