stry, when, by reason of his resistance,
and the exhausted condition of the country, they could no longer
subsist by plunder; and that they might serve him as a rampart against
any future incursions of their countrymen. But before he ratified
these mild conditions with the Danes, he required that they should
give him one pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to
incorporate with the English, by declaring their conversion to
Christianity [b]. Guthrum and his army had no aversion to the
proposal; and without much instruction, or argument, or conference,
they were all admitted to baptism. The king answered for Guthrum at
the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his
adopted son [c].
[FN [y] W. Malm. lib. 2. cap. 4. [z] Chron. Sax. p. 85. [a] Asser.
p. 10. Chron. Sax. p. 85. Simeon Dunelm. p. 128. Alured Beverl. p.
105. Abbas Rieval, p. 354. [b] Chron. Sax. p. 85. [c] Asser. p. 10.
Chron. Sax. p. 90.]

[MN 880.] The success of the expedient seemed to correspond to
Alfred's hopes: the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in
their new quarters: some smaller bodies of the same nation, which were
dispersed in Mercia, were distributed into the five cities of Derby,
Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called
the Fif or Five-burghers. The more turbulent and unquiet made an
expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except
by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at
Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country
in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the
inroads of those barbarians [e].
[FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4. Ingulph. p. 26. [e] Asser. p. 11.]

The king employed this interval of tranquillity in restoring order to
the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in
establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds
of men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of
like calamities. He was, more properly than his grandfather, Egbert,
the sole monarch of the English, (for so the Saxons were now
universally called,) because the kingdom of Mercia was at last
incorporated in his state, and was governed by Ethelbert, his brother-
in-law, who bore the title of Earl: and though the Danes, who peopled
East Anglia and Northumberland, were for some time ruled immediately
by their own princes, they all a