the Thames, and there
landed, a step which marks a fresh departure in the wicking tactics.
They took Canterbury by assault, and then marched on to London. There
they stormed the busy merchant town, and put to flight Beorhtwulf, the
under-king of the Mercians, with his local levy. Thence they proceeded
southward into Surrey, doubtless on their way to Winchester. King
AEthelwulf met them at Ockley, with the West-Saxon levy, "and there made
the greatest slaughter among the heathen host that we have yet heard,
and gained the day." In spite of these two great successes, however,
both of which show an increasing statesmanship on the part of the West
Saxons, this year was memorable in another way, for "the heathen men for
the first time sat over winter in Thanet." The loose predatory
excursions were beginning to take the complexion of regular conquest and
permanent settlement.

Yet so little did the English still realise the terrible danger of the
heathen invasion, that next year AEthelwulf was fighting the Welsh of
Wales; and two years after he went on a pilgrimage to Rome, "with great
pomp, and dwelt there twelve months, and then fared homeward." In that
same year, "heathen men sat over winter in Sheppey."

After AEthelwulf's death the English resistance grew fainter and fainter.
In 860, under his second son, AEthelberht, a Danish host took Winchester
itself by storm. Five years later, a heathen army settled in Thanet, and
the men of Kent agreed to buy peace of them--the first sign of that evil
habit of buying off the Dane, which grew gradually into a fixed custom.
But the host stole away during the truce for collecting the money, and
harried all Kent unawares.

Meanwhile, we hear little of the North. The almost utter destruction of
its records during the heathen domination restricts us for information
to the West Saxon chronicles; and they have little to tell us about any
but their own affairs. In 866, however, we learn that there came a great
heathen host to East Anglia--an organised expedition under two
chieftains--"and took winter quarters there, and were horsed; and the
East Anglians made peace with them." Next year, this permanent host
sailed northward to Humber, and attacked York. The Northumbrians, as
usual, were at strife among themselves, two rival kings fighting for the
supremacy. The burghers of York admitted the heathen host within the
walls. Then the rival kings fell upon the town, broke the slender
fortifi