Hitherto the English had made the fatal mistake of allowing their enemies to land before attempting to grapple with them, and even the disasters which followed naturally upon such a policy did not arouse them to a sense of the necessity of maintaining an efficient fleet. On the contrary, dispirited by their failures, the English seem to have abandoned all thoughts of naval armament, and to have contented themselves with fortifying their cities and defending them against enemies whom they passively allowed to land. This unhappy condition of things continued through the reigns of Ethelbald, Ethelbert and Ethelred; during which time the Danes conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, and invaded Wessex. In A.D. 867 they took York, and in the following year Nottingham. In 870 they defeated and put to death Edmund, king of East Anglia, whose burial-place was named St. Edmundsbury--Bury St. Edmunds--and during the same year fought no less than nine battles in Wessex. Abbeys, churches and monasteries were burnt, and the whole country was given up to fire and the sword. In the year 871 Alfred came to the throne and found himself a monarch without a people, a king without a country. The long-continued struggle with the Danes, who, like locusts, "came without number and devoured the fruits of the land," had reduced the people to a state of despairing servitude. The wealth, strength, and spirits of the English, who had sometimes been compelled to fight as many as ten or twelve battles in the course of a year, had become exhausted, and instead of attempting to defend themselves further, they began everywhere to submit to the Danes; preferring a settled slavery to a precarious freedom. Although the country had been brought to this low condition, the young king did not despair of its restoration, but with equal vigour and prudence applied himself to the prosecution of the war and the conduct of public affairs. Encouraged by his example and inspired by his spirit, the English at length took heart again, and ultimately--led by his skill and wisdom--defeated the Danes at Exeter in 877, and at Edington in the following year, securing the peace of Wedmore, which, while it gave them little more than the kingdom of Wessex as a possession, ensured them what they needed much more than land, a period of rest and repose, which, but for one short interval, lasted for fifteen years. This period Alfred employed in pursuing the arts of peace and preparing himself for the eventualities of war. In the year A.D. 883 he sent envoys to Rome and India; and in 886 he took and re-fortified the city of London. From 893 to 897 he was once more engaged with his old enemies the Danes. This protracted campaign was by no means a light undertaking. Hasting, the Danish leader, pitched his camp on the hills gently sloping above Benfleet, in Essex, and sent two hundred and fifty Danish ships cruising along the south-west coast of Kent; while he proceeded himself with