In a few years afterwards (894 or 895) the city underwent a heavy calamity, from its invasion by Harold, King of the Danes, Mancolin, King of the Scots, and another confederate prince, who are said to have encamped on Hoole heath, near Chester, and, after a long siege, reduced the city. These predatory pirates were soon after attacked and conquered by Alfred, who utterly routed them from the military defences in which they had embosomed themselves, and destroyed all the cattle and corn of the district. After the evacuation of the city by the Danes, it remained in ruins until about the year 908, when it was restored by Ethelred, the first Earl of Mercia, and Ethelfleda, his wife, who, it is said, enlarged it to double the extent of the Roman town. Sir Peter Leycester says that “Ethelred and his countess restored Caerleon, that is Legecestria, now called Chester, after it was destroyed by the Danes, and enclosed it with new walls, and made it nigh such two as it was before; so that the castle that was sometime by the water without the walls, is now in the town within the walls.” All the narratives which have been handed down to us of this celebrated woman represent her as possessed of incomparable talent, great enterprise, and pure mind. She employed the great power and opportunity she possessed with admirable wisdom, and made them subservient to acts of munificence and piety. She died at Tamworth in 922, whence her body was translated to Gloucester. Leycester gives a lengthy record of her good deeds, which prepares us for the fact that her loss was deeply and universally regretted throughout the whole kingdom. [Picture: Edgar’s Cave]