[* Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelwerd, lib.
iv. cap. 4.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 83.]
[*** Asser. p 8.]
But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without
seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred's army; and having put it to
rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince
collected new forces, and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one
year eight battles with the enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost
extremity. He hearkened, however, to new proposals of peace, and was
satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in
England,[**] and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into the
kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty, which
it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he heard that
another body had landed, and, having collected all the scattered troops
of their country men, had surprised Chippenham, then a considerable
town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around them.
This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced
them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they
had undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the
vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new
band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among
them, they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and
delivered over to those swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus
incessantly poured forth against them.
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