In the following summer (896) “the _here_ went some to East Anglia, some to Northumbria, and those who were moneyless got them ships and fared over sea to the Seine. Thus had the army,” says the chronicler, “not utterly broken all the English race. But they were more fearfully broken during those three years by pestilence both of cattle and of men, especially because the most eminent of the king’s thegns died in those three years.” The chronicler then gives the name and rank of the chief victims of the plague: the bishops of Rochester and Dorchester, the ealdormen of Kent, Essex and Hants, a king’s thegn of Sussex, the town-reeve of Winchester, a grand constable (king’s horse-thegn) and many others. Though the great land invasion was thus defeated, the king had still to deal with a harassing swarm of sea-pirates, whose long ships named “ashes,” built of the wood of the ill-omened ash tree, were constantly appearing off the southern coast, often manned by insurgent Danes from East Anglia and Northumbria. In order to grapple with these pestilent enemies Alfred turned shipbuilder. He may have already taken some steps towards this end, but the following entry in the Chronicle for the year 897 (= 896) is the earliest definite information that we receive as to the beginnings of England’s navy: “Then King Alfred bade build long ships against the ashes; they were full nigh twice as long as the others. Some had sixty oars, some more. They were both swifter and steadier and eke higher than the others. They were not built on Frisian nor yet on Danish lines, but as he himself thought that they might be most serviceable.”