Such were the disasters with which Alfred’s reign began. His fighting-men were exhausted or slaughtered; his kingdom torn from side to side, and its chief towns stormed: the northern, central, and eastern kingdoms had been blotted out. Burhred of Mercia was driven over sea, and Wessex was forced to buy a brief rest with gold. Alfred equipped a few ships and gained some temporary success. But soon after, the Danes with a great fleet swept round the south coast and penetrated into Dorsetshire and Devonshire. Thence passing northwards into Gloucestershire, and reinforced by a new fleet in the Bristol Channel, the Danish host suddenly fell upon Wiltshire. The Saxon defence was broken in pieces. “The [Danish] army harried the West Saxons’ land, and settled there, and drove over sea much of the people, and of the rest the most they harried. _And the people submitted to them, save the King Alfred; and he, with a little band, withdrew to the woods and fastnesses in the moors._” Alfred seemed utterly ruined. He, the grandson of Egbert overlord of England, the successor on the throne of Wessex of his father and his three brothers, had been king just seven years, and in scores of battles he had been fighting the Danes for ten years. He had seen the three northern kingdoms of Angles broken up and the reigning house in each exterminated. Step by step he had seen Kent, Surrey, and Wessex overrun; assailed by sea and land, from the coast, the rivers, and the Bristol Channel. His own people had been driven across sea, or crushed into submission; and he himself, with a small band of followers, was forced to find shelter in woods and swamps. His lot seemed hopeless, but he alone did not despair.