When Alfred was chosen king, “almost against his will,” we are told, the prospect was one to appal the stoutest heart. In his boyhood the Northmen had begun to winter in Kent, had taken Canterbury and London by storm, and pushed up the Thames. A few years later they stormed Winchester and ravaged Kent. In the reign of his brother, Ethelred, they stormed York, and invaded Mercia, whose king, Burhred, had married Alfred’s sister. They next laid waste East Anglia, martyred its king, Edmund, and threatened Wessex. The Danes (as they were now known) sailed up the Thames, and formed a camp round Reading. In a fierce battle at Ashdown a victory had been won for the moment by the energy and valour of Alfred; but defeats followed, Surrey was lost, and Ethelred died, it is supposed of his wounds. The young king of twenty-two came to the throne of his ancestors in a dark hour. The supremacy of Wessex in England, won by his grandfather, Egbert, had vanished. Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and parts of Wessex had been desolated; the abbeys had been sacked, the monks murdered, the churches, schools, and homesteads ruined. The Danish invaders were masters of all Northern, Eastern, and Central England, and the heart of Wessex was open to assault. The young king met them at Wilton with a small force, but after a stubborn fight was beaten off. He was forced to purchase a precarious truce. In this year, 871, the _Chronicle_ relates (in its grim, laconic style), the [Danish] army came to Reading, and three nights after, the Alderman Ethelwulf fought them. Four nights after this, Ethelred and Alfred led a large force to Reading, and “there was great slaughter on both sides; the Alderman Ethelwulf was slain, and the Danes held possession of the battle place.” “And four nights after, Ethelred and Alfred fought with all the army at Ashdown”; many thousands were slain; “and they were fighting until night.” And fourteen nights after, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother fought against the army at Basing, and there the Danes gained the victory. “And two months after, King Ethelred and Alfred his brother fought against the army at Merton ... and there was great slaughter on each side, but the Danes held possession of the battle place. And after this fight there came a great summer force [of Danes] to Reading. And the Easter after, King Ethelred died. Then Alfred his brother succeeded to the kingdom of the West Saxons, and one month after, with a small force, he fought against all the army at Wilton, but the Danes held possession of the battle place. _And this year nine great battles were fought against the army in the kingdom south of the Thames; besides which Alfred, the king’s brother, and individual aldermen, and king’s thanes, often rode raids on them, which were not reckoned._”