After the agreement was concluded between King Alfred and Guthrum, East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria came under the rule of the Danelaw and King Alfred continued to rule the Saxon Kingdom of Wessex.
A year later 879 the Danes had been cleared from Mercia to the west of Watling street and for a few years there was peace. To secure Wessex against further attack, Alfred began the building of Burhs (Fortified towns, the forerunners of today’s Boroughs) all over kingdom. The Burhs eventual ringed Wessex so that no town or village was more that twenty miles from a place of safety. To ensure the burhs were adequately defended, each hide of land (A hide was big enough to support a family) had to provide one adult male to man the defences of a burh. The idea of the burhs was to keep the enemy occupied while Alfred raised the fyrd (a levied army) and marched to relieve them.
In 885 the Danes landed in Kent near Plucks Gutter on the river Stour and besieged Rochester. The city managed to hold out until Alfred arrived with his army and drove them back to their ships. Some fled to the continent, but some of them only travelled as far as East Anglia, there they encouraged the Danes there to rise against the Saxons and together they attacked Benfleet in Essex. The fyrd was raised once more and after driving the Danes back to the fortified Roman part of London (which was within Guthrum’s East Anglia) they attacked and eventually overran the city. The new Danes then fell out with the East Anglian Danes and left for continent. Alfred sent a fleet to East Anglia, which was defeated by the Danes.Alfred and Guthrum came to an agreement (Known as the Firth deed of Alfred and Guthrum) and Alfred gave London into the keeping of his son in law, Aethelred the Earldorman of West Mercia.
Peace of a sort reigned for the next few years and in 890 Alfred’s old adversary Guthrum King of Danish East Anglia died.
Meanwhile, the Danes under pressure on the continent looked towards England again and in 892 a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships arrived in the estuary of the Lympe. After rowing four miles inland they captured a half built fortress at Appledore in Kent. At more or less the same time another fleet of eighty ships under Haesten landed at Milton also in Kent and built themselves a fort there. Since the Danes in both of the fleets had brought their families with them it was obviously a major attempt to conquer and colonise Saxon lands.
Alfred with his army set up camp on higher ground between the two forts so that he could observe both of the Danish camps and be in position to react quickly if either should leave their fortress. As had become standard practice Alfred paid Danegelt to Haesten who gave him in exchange his oath and hostages. In addition Haesten agreed that his two sons be baptised Christians with Alfred and Earldorman Aethelred standing as Godparents. Partway through these negotiations the Danes at Appledore broke out, headed inland and rampaged throughout Hampshire and Berkshire looting and burning.
Splitting his army into two, Alfred sent his son Edward the Elder after them. Edward caught up and attacked them at Farnham as they were returning to their ships; the Danes were routed and fled to an island in the river Colne. Edward recovered the loot and blockaded the island. While all this was going on the Nortumbrian and East Aglian Danes had gathered a fleet and were besieging Exeter and a fort in north Devon. Having completed his negotiations with Haesten, Alfred was on his way to join Edward when he heard the news and he turn to go to the assistance Exeter. Haesten meanwhile had left Milton and gone to Benfleet, where he began to raze the countryside.
Back on the island in the Colne the Danes blockaded by Edward were forced to submit and the survivors retreated to join Haesten at Benfleet.
Alfred sent part of the army to London where they gathered reinforcements and while Haesten was away on a raid, stormed his camp at Benfleet capturing the women and children, including Haesten’s wife and two sons, destroying some of his ships and capturing the rest. (Alfred later sent Haesten’s sons back to him)
While Alfred was in Exeter, the rest of the Danish army moved to Shoebury and after building a fortress there travelled up the Thames valley gathering reinforcements on the way. This much expanded army then travelled up the Severn valley until they met with a combined army from Wessex Mercia and Wales, led by Earldorman Aethelred, Eardorman Aethelhelm and Eardorman Aethelnoth. The combined army surrounded and besieged the Danes at Buttingham for several weeks. The starving Danes were eventually driven to eat their horses and when all sustenance was gone, had no choice but to attempt a break out. They burst out and attacked the men on the eastern side of the river and many of the King’s thanes were killed, including Ordhelm. Many of the Danes were slain, the rest fled, returned to their fortress in Essex and from there moved into East Anglia.
Once more they were reinforced and after leaving their women and children safe in East Anglia, marched day and night until they reached the city of Chester in Wirheal. The Saxons taken by surprise did not catch up with them until they were firmly ensconced within the fortress. Not wanting to enforce a winter blockade the Saxons seized all the nearby cattle and burnt or consumed all the corn in the surrounding district.
Early the next year the starving Danes broke out, marched into the south of Wales and after creating havoc in Gwent and Glywysing, took the loot that they had captured and returned via Danish held lands to eastern Essex. They then rowed up the river Thames and into the river Lea until they were twenty miles to the northeast of London and built a fort, where they over wintered.
Meanwhile the Army that had attacked Exeter was driven away by Alfred and sailed back home to Northumbria and East Anglia. On the way they decided a raid into Sussex near Chichester, but were driven off by the locals, who killed hundreds of them and captured some of their ships.
In the summer of the next year 895, the Mercians of London raised an army and attacked the Danes, but they were routed and sent fleeing. Later in the year Alfred camped nearby and blockaded the river lower down by building two forts. Unable to break out via the river the Danes abandoned their ships and marched overland to Bridgenorth on the river Seven, where they built a fort.
While the Saxon army followed the Danes, the men of London attacked and overpowered the Danes left to guard the fort on the Lea and took most of the ships back to London, those they did not take they burnt. The Danes in Bridgenorth over wintered there and in the spring of 896 dispersed, some back to East Anglia, some to Northumbria and the rest back to the continent from whence they came.
The Saxons heaved a sigh of relief. For the past four years, led by King Alfred, they had fought against this latest Danish invasion and now they could settle down to a time of peace and for most of them it was, although the south coast continued to be harassed by roving bands of Danes. Alfred only lived another three years, he died in 899, but in those few years he had bigger ships built and continued to fight the Danes at sea.
