in army had come thither,
that sat before in the mouth of the Limne at Appledore. Hasten
had formerly constructed that work at Barnfleet, and was then
gone out on plunder, the main army being at home. Then came the
king's troops, and routed the enemy, broke down the work, took
all that was therein money, women, and children and brought all
to London. And all the ships they either broke to pieces, or
burned, or brought to London or to Rochester. And Hasten's wife
and her two sons they brought to the king, who returned them to
him, because one of them was his godson, and the other Alderman
Ethered's. They had adopted them ere Hasten came to Bamfleet;
when he had given them hostages and oaths, and the king had also
given him many presents; as he did also then, when he returned
the child and the wife. And as soon as they came to Bamfleet,
and the work was built, then plundered he in the same quarter of
his kingdom that Ethered his compeer should have held; and at
another time he was plundering in the same district when his work
was destroyed. The king then went westward with the army toward
Exeter, as I before said, and the army had beset the city; but
whilst he was gone they went to their ships. Whilst he was thus
busied there with the army, in the west, the marauding parties
were both gathered together at Shobury in Essex, and there built
a fortress. Then they both went together up by the Thames, and a
great concourse joined them, both from the East-Angles and from
the Northumbrians. They then advanced upward by the Thames, till
they arrived near the Severn. Then they proceeded upward by the
Severn. Meanwhile assembled Alderman Ethered, Alderman Ethelm,
Alderman Ethelnoth, and the king's thanes, who were employed at
home at the works, from every town east of the Parret, as well as
west of Selwood, and from the parts east and also north of the
Thames and west of the Severn, and also some part of North-Wales.
When they were all collected together, they overtook the rear of
the enemy at Buttington on the banks of the Severn, and there
beset them without on each side in a fortress. When they had sat
there many weeks on both sides of the water, and the king
meanwhile was in Devonshire westward with the naval force, then
were the enemy weighed down with famine. They had devoured the
greater part of their horses; and the rest had perished with
hunger. Then went they out to the men that sat on the eastern
side of