But the English, more military than the Britons, whom a few
centuries before they had treated with like violence, roused themselves
with a vigor proportioned to the exigency. Ceorle, governor of
Devonshire, fought a battle with one body of the Danes at Wiganburgh,[*]
and put them to rout with great slaughter.
[* H. Hunting, lib. v. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap 3.
Sim. Dunelm. p. 120.]
King Athelstan attacked another at sea, near Sandwich, sunk nine of
their ships, and put the rest to flight.[*]
[* Chron. Sax. p. 74. Asser. p. 2.]
A body of them, however, ventured, for the first time, to take up winter
quarters in England; and receiving in the spring a strong reenforcement
of their countrymen, in three hundred and fifty 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.
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