The Danes were now much more easy to deal with than in the old days, for they had given hostages to fortune, and were the possessors of towns and villages which could be plundered, farmsteads that could be burned, and cattle that could be lifted. So when they found that they could not storm the "burghs" of Edward and Aethelflaed, or drive off the garrisons which raided on their fields, they began one after the other to submit. The last Danish king of East Anglia was slain in battle at Tempsford, near Bedford, in 921, and his realm was incorporated with Wessex. Then, while Aethelflaed compelled Derby and Leicester to yield, her brother subdued Stamford and Lincoln. So all England south of the Humber was won and cut up into new shires, like those of Wessex. Having accomplished her share in this great work, the Lady Aethelflaed died, and the great ealdormanry which she had ruled was absorbed into her brother's kingdom. [Sidenote: =Edward over-lord of all England.=] In their terror at Edward's ceaseless advance and never-ending successes, not only did the Danes of Northumbria do him homage, but even the distant kings of the Scots and the Strathclyde Welsh "took him to father and lord" in a great meeting held at Dore in 924. [Sidenote: =Aethelstan, 925-941.--Subjection of Northumbria.--Battle of Brunanburgh.=] Having thus become the over-lord of all Britain, Edward died in 925, leaving the throne to his son Aethelstan. This prince was his worthy successor, and carried out still further the process of annexing all England to the Wessex inheritance. His great achievement was the complete subjection and annexation of Northumbria. When Sihtric the Danish King of York died, Aethelstan seized on his kingdom, and drove his sons over sea. The dispossessed princes stirred up enemies against their conqueror, and formed a great league against him. Anlaf, the king of the Danes of Ireland, brought over a great host of Vikings, while Constantine, king of the Scots, and Owen, king of Cumbria, came down from the north to join him. The Danes of Yorkshire at once rose in rebellion to aid the invaders. Against this league Aethelstan marched forth at the head of the English of Mercia and Wessex. He met them at Brunanburgh, a spot of unknown site, somewhere in Lancashire. There Aethelstan smote them with a great slaughter, so that Anlaf returned to Ireland with but a handful of men, and Constantine--who lost his son and heir in the fight--fled away hastily to his own northern deserts. The fight of Brunanburgh, the greatest battle that the house of Alfred had yet won, finally settled the fact that Danish England was to be incorporated with the realm of the Wessex over-kings, and that there was to be one nation, not two, from the borders of Scotland to the British Channel. This great victory drew from an unknown poet the famous "Song of Brunanburgh" which has been inserted in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle." It tells of the glories of Aethelstan, and how--