like
violence, roused themselves with a vigour proportioned to the
exigency. Ceorle, governor of Devonshire, fought a battle with one
body of the Danes at Wiganburgh [r], and put them to rout with great
slaughter. King Athelstan attacked another at sea near Sandwich, sunk
nine of their ships, and put the rest to flight [s]. A body of them,
however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter quarters in
England; and receiving in the spring a strong reinforcement of their
countrymen in 350 vessels, they advanced from the Isle of Thanet,
where they had stationed themselves, burnt the cities of London and
Canterbury, and having put to flight Brichtric, who now governed
Mercia under the title of king, they marched into the heart of Surrey,
and laid every place waste around them. Ethelwolf, impelled by the
urgency of the danger, marched against them at the head of the West
Saxons, and carrying with him his second son, Ethelbald, gave them
battle at Okely, and gained a bloody victory over them. This
advantage procured but a short respite to the English. The Danes
still maintained their settlement in the Isle of Thanet, and being
attacked by Ealher and Huda, governors of Kent and Surrey, though
defeated in the beginning of the action, they finally repulsed the
assailants [MN 853.], and killed both the governors. They removed
thence to the Isle of Shepey; where they took up their winter
quarters, that they might farther extend their devastation and
ravages.
[FN [r] H. Hunt. lib. 5 Ethelward, lib. 3. cap. 3. Simeon Dunelm. p.
120. [s] Chron. Sax. p. 74. Asserius, p. 2.]

This unsettled state of England hindered not Ethelwolf from making a
pilgrimage to Rome, whither he carried his fourth and favourite son,
Alfred, then only six years of age [t]. He passed there a twelvemonth
in exercises of devotion, and failed not in that most essential part
of devotion, liberality to the church of Rome. Besides giving
presents to the more distinguished ecclesiastics, he made a perpetual
grant of three hundred mancuses [u] a year to that see; one-third to
support the lamps of St. Peter's, another those of St. Paul's, a third
to the pope himself [w]. In his return home he married Judith,
daughter of the emperor, Charles the Bald, but on his landing in
England, he met with an opposition which he little looked for.
[FN [t] Asserius, p. 2. Chron. Sax. 76. Hunt. lib. 5. [u] A mancus
was about the weight of our present half-cro