d on his preferable title;[*] and arming his
partisans, took possession of Winburne, where he seemed determined to
defend himself to the last extremity, and to await the issue of his
pretensions.[**] But when the king approached the town with a great
army, Ethelwald, having the prospect of certain destruction, made his
escape, and fled first into Normandy, thence into Northumberland, where
he hoped that the people, who had been recently subdued by Alfred, and
who were impatient of peace, would, on the intelligence of that great
prince's death, seize the first pretence or opportunity of rebellion.
The event did not disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians
declared for him,[***] and Ethelwald, having thus connected his
interests with the Danish tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body
of these freebooters, he excited the hopes of all those who had been
accustomed to subsist by rapine and violence.[****]

[* Chron. Sax. p. 99, 100.]

[** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
352.]

[*** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
352.]

[**** Chron. Sax. p. 100. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
Burgo, p. 24.]

The East Anglian Danes joined his party; the Five-burgers, who were
seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put themselves in motion; and
the English found that they were again menaced with those convulsions
from which the valor and policy of Alfred had so lately rescued them.
The rebels, headed by Ethelwald, made an incursion into the counties
of Glocester, Oxford, and Wilts; and having exercised their ravages in
these places, they retired with their booty, before the king, who had
assembled an army, was able to approach them. Edward, however, who was
determined that his preparations should not be fruitless, conducted
his forces into East Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the
inhabitants had committed, by spreading the like devastation among them.
Satiated with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire;
but the authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was
not much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of
more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him,
and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved, in the
issue, fortunate to Edward. The Danes assaulted the Kentish men, but
met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field of
battle, they bough