King Aethelred of Wessex had not been able to afford any practical help to his Northumbrian and East Anglian neighbours. It was now his own turn to face the storm which had overwhelmed the two northern realms. In 870 the "Great Army," now under two kings, Guthrum and Bagsaeg, sailed up the Thames and threw itself upon Surrey and Berks, the northern border of Wessex. Aethelred came out in haste against them, and with him marched his younger brother Alfred, the youngest of the four sons of the old Aethelwulf, a youth of eighteen, who now entered on his first campaign. The men of Wessex made a far sterner defence than had the armies of the other English kingdoms. The two warrior-brothers Aethelred and Alfred fought no less than six battles with the "Great Army" in the single year 871. The war raged all along the line of the chalk downs of Berkshire, as the Danes strove to force their way westward. At last the men of Wessex gave them a thorough beating at Ashdown, where the Etheling Alfred won the chief honour of the day. The defeated Vikings sought refuge in a stockaded camp at Reading, between the waters of the Thames and the Kennet. Aethelred could not dislodge them from this stronghold, and in a skirmish with one of their foraging parties at Merton, in Surrey, he received a mortal wound (871). [Sidenote: =Alfred, King of Wessex, 871.=] Wearied with six battles, the army of Wessex broke up, and the thegns sadly bore King Aethelred home, to bury him at Wimborne. His young brother, the Etheling Alfred, succeeded him, and took up the task of defending Wessex in its hour of sore distress. It was fortunate that such a great man was at hand to bear the burden, for never was it more likely than now that the English name would be utterly swept off the face of the earth. In spite of his youth Alfred was quite capable of facing any difficulty or danger. From his boyhood upward he had always shown great promise; when a young child, he had been sent by his father, Aethelwulf, to Rome, and there had attracted the notice of Pope Leo, who anointed him, and predicted that he should one day be a king. He was able and brave, like most of the descendants of Ecgbert, but he was also far above all men of his day in his desire for wisdom and learning, and from his earliest years was known as a lover of books and scholars. Seldom, if ever, did any king combine so much practical ability in war and governance with such a keen taste for literature and science. [Sidenote: =He makes peace with, the Danes.--Conquest of Mercia.=]