ted 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 [l]. 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 valour and policy of
Alfred had so lately rescued them. The rebels, headed by Ethelwald,
made an incursion into the Counties of Gloucester, 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 bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest
leaders, and among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the
action [m]. The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a
competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles [n].
[FN [g] W. Malmes lib. 2. cap. 5 Hoveden, p. 421. [h] Chron. Sax. p.
99, 100. [i] Ibid. p. 100. H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352. [k] Chron.
Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting. lib. 5. p. 352. [l] Chron. Sax. p. 100.
Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 24. [m] Chron. Sax. p. 101.
Brompton, p. 832. [n] Chron. Sax. p. 102. Brompton, p. 832. Matth.
West. p. 181.]

In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was
then capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of
the Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia,
continually infested the bowels of the kingdom. Edward, in order to
divert the force of these enemies, prepared a fleet to attack them by
sea; hoping that, w