The same note of a religious war is struck in the campaign in which Alfred finally triumphed. He issued forth from his stronghold in the marsh of Athelney to make frequent assaults upon the pagans. In the seventh week after Easter, 878, he rode to Ecgbryht’s Stone (Brixton-Deverill) in the eastern part of the Selwood, or Great Wood, in British Coit Mawr, and on the third day reached Edington, where he fought with valour and persistence against the pagans and defeated them completely, killing all who were not within the earthworks. The survivors he hemmed in for fourteen days. At the end of that time the pagans were worn out, and begged for terms of peace. Their leader Guthrum proposed to become a Christian. It was agreed that those who would be baptized might settle in England; those who would remain pagan must leave the island.[10] In the final terms, as in every phrase of Asser’s story, it stands out as a religious war, and as a great religious victory it ended. From that time Christian Danes and Christian Saxons could agree. II HIS REIGN His early years as king—Communications with Rome—Education of his children and others—His own labours—Religious exercises—Introduction of learned men—Invention of candle-clocks—Distribution of income—Foundation of monasteries—Formation of his Manual—Embassies to foreign parts—Ecclesiastical laws. In the early and distressful days of Alfred’s reign his position was almost unbearable. He would not listen to the appeals for help and protection pressed upon him by his subjects. What was there that he could do to help and protect them? He was maturing his plans; meanwhile, he repulsed his subjects, and paid, or seemed to pay, no heed to their requests. The holy man St. Neot, who was his relation—some say his father’s brother—often told him that he would suffer great adversity on this account, but Alfred turned, or seemed to turn, a deaf ear to the reproofs of the man of God. His sin, Asser tells us, did not go unpunished; Alfred fell into so great misery that sometimes none of his subjects knew where he was or what had become of him. If this is true, it is sufficiently accounted for by his grave anxieties, and the terrible and mysterious disease which seized him suddenly in the midst of his marriage feast in 868, three years before his accession, and never left him free from pain, or the threat of pain, from the twentieth to the forty-fourth year of his age. But most probably the episode is merely part of the legendary life of St. Neot, inserted after Asser’s time in his _Life of Alfred_.