After Easter, having collected a considerable amount of spoil, and finding the resistance ever increasing, the Danes moved northwards from their forest, intending to march into Essex. The king's forces at once set off to intercept them, and overtook them at Farnham, where the Northmen were completely defeated. All their booty was recaptured, with their horses and stores. Those who escaped fled across the Thames and took refuge on an island in the Colne. The Saxons besieged them there; but when the Danes were about to surrender from want of provisions the news arrived that the Northmen of Northumbria and East Anglia, with 240 ships, had landed suddenly in Devonshire, and had laid siege to Exeter. The siege of the island was at once raised, and King Alfred marched against the new arrivals, and advancing with great speed fell upon them and defeated them. Then hastily returning he came to London and, joined by a strong force from Mercia, marched against Milton, where Hasting had been joined by the great number of the Danes who had formed the army in the Weald. Hasting himself was away, but his army marched out to meet the Saxons. A great battle was fought, but the Danes could not resist the ardour of their assailants. Their army was routed and their fortress stormed. All the booty within it fell into the hands of the victors, together with the wives and families of the Danes, among whom were the wife and two sons of Hasting. The Danish fleet also was captured, and was burned or taken to London. Another great fleet of the East Angles and Northumbrians sailed up the Thames, and landing, the Northmen marched across to the Severn, but were defeated and destroyed by Ethelred of Mercia. Exeter was again invested by a Danish fleet, and again saved by Alfred. The Danes, as they retired along the south coast, landed near Chichester, where they suffered a heavy defeat from the South Saxons. In the following year a fresh fleet sailed up the Thames and thence up the Lea, where they constructed a fortress twenty miles above London. Alfred caused two fortresses to be erected on the Lea below them, with vast balks of timber entirely obstructing the river. The Danes, finding their retreat cut off, abandoned their ships and marched across England to Cwatbridge on the Severn. Their fleet fell into the hands of the Londoners, who burned and broke up all the smaller ships and carried the rest down to London. The Danes were so disconcerted by the many and severe defeats which had befallen them that they now abandoned the idea of again conquering England, and taking ship, sailed for France.