er Dorchester: and the local ealdorman AEthelhelm,
falling upon them with the levy of Dorset men, was defeated after a
sharp struggle, leaving the heathen in possession of the field. It was
not in Wessex, however, that the wickings were to make their great
success. The north had long suffered from terrible anarchy, and was a
ready prey for any invader. Out of fourteen kings who had reigned in
Northumbria during the eighth century, no less than seven were put to
death and six expelled by their rebellious subjects. Christian
Northumbria, which in Baeda's days had been the most flourishing part of
Britain, was now reduced to a mere agglomeration of petty princes and
clans, dependent on the West Saxon over-lord, and utterly unconnected
with one another in feeling or sympathy. Already we have seen how the
Danes harried Northumbria without opposition. The same was probably the
case with the whole Anglian coast on the east. In 840, the wickings fell
on the fen country. "The ealdorman Hereberht was slain by heathen men,
and many with him among the marsh-men." All down the east coast, the
piratical fleet proceeded, burning and slaughtering as it went. "In the
same year, in Lindsey, and in East Anglia, and among the Kent men, many
men were slain by the host." A year later, the wickings returned,
growing bolder as they found out the helplessness of the people. They
sailed up the Thames, and ravaged Rochester and London, with great
slaughter; after which they crossed the channel and fell upon Cwantawic,
or Etaples, a commercial port in the Saxon land of the Boulonnais. In
842, a Danish host defeated AEthelwulf himself at Charmouth in Dorset;
and in the succeeding summer "the ealdorman Eanulf, with the Somerset
levy, and Bishop Ealhstan and the ealdorman Osric, with the Dorset levy,
fought at Parretmouth with the host, and made a muckle slaughter, and
won the day."

The utter weakness of the first English resistance is well shown in
these facts. A terrible flood of heathen savagery was let loose upon the
country, and the people were wholly unable to cope with it. There was
absolutely no central organisation, no army, no commissariat, no ships.
The heathen host landed suddenly wherever it found the people
unprepared, and fell upon the larger towns for plunder. The local
authority, the ealdorman or the under-king, hastily gathered together
the local levy in arms, and fell upon the pirates tumultuously with the
men of the shire as best