governor of Dorsetshire,
routed another band which had disembarked at Portsmouth, but he
obtained the victory after a furious engagement, and he bought it with
the loss of his life [p]. Next year the Danes made several inroads
into England, and fought battles, or rather skirmishes, in East Anglia
and Lindesey and Kent, where, though they were sometimes repulsed and
defeated, they always obtained their end of committing spoil upon the
country, and carrying off their booty. They avoided coming to a
general engagement, which was not suited to their plan of operations.
Their vessels were small, and ran easily up the creeks and rivers,
where they drew them ashore, and having formed an entrenchment round
them, which they guarded with part of their number, the remainder
scattered themselves every where, and carrying off the inhabitants and
cattle and goods, they hastened to their ships and quickly
disappeared. If the military force of the county were assembled, (for
there was no time for troops to march from a distance,) the Danes
either were able to repulse them, and to continue their ravages with
impunity, or they betook themselves to their vessels, and setting
sail, suddenly invaded some distant quarter, which was not prepared
for their reception. Every part of England was held in continual
alarm, and the inhabitants of one county durst not give assistance to
those of another, lest their own families and property should in the
mean time be exposed by their absence to the fury of these barbarous
ravagers [q]. All orders of men were involved in this calamity, and
the priests and monks, who had been commonly spared in the domestic
quarrels of the Heptarchy, were the chief objects on which the Danish
idolators exercised their rage and animosity. Every season of the
year was dangerous, and the absence of the enemy was no reason why any
man could esteem himself a moment in safety.
[FN [n] Wm. Malmes. lib. 2. cap. 2. [o] Chron. Sax. p. 73.
Ethelward, lib. 3. [p] Chron. Sax. p. 73. H. Hunting. lib. 5. [q]
Alured. Beverl. p. 108.]

[MN 851.]
These incursions had now become almost annual, when the Danes,
encouraged by their successes against France as well as England, (for
both kingdoms were alike exposed to this dreadful calamity,) invaded
the last in so numerous a body, as seemed to threaten it with
universal subjection. But the English, more military than the
Britons, whom a few centuries before they had treated with