The Northmen were now advancing into the heart of Wessex, and so heavy had been the losses in the campaign that it was a task of exceeding difficulty to reorganize the army. About a month after Marden Alfred took up a position at Wilton with the small force which he had been able to collect. Says Asser: ‘The Saxons had been worn out by eight battles in one year against the pagans, of whom they had slain one king, nine dukes, and innumerable troops of soldiers.’ Alfred and his little army made a gallant resistance, and for long beat back the assaults of their enemies; but the favourite Viking stratagem of a feigned retreat and a counter-attack turned the day against them. Defeated, and with the Northmen in the heart of his ancestral kingdom, Alfred was forced to sue for terms. The invaders also had suffered very severely, and were ready to depart for a time to some other more promising field of plunder. Asser and the Chronicle merely say that Alfred made peace with the pagans. We must assume that they were bought off with a subsidy. The respite could not be a long one--the Northmen of the ninth and tenth centuries were the most perjured of mankind--but Alfred might be trusted to turn the interval in the fighting to the best advantage. The position of England at the end of 871 could scarcely have been worse. The results of the lack of national unity were terribly apparent. Northumbria and East Anglia had practically disappeared from the roll of English kingdoms; Mercia was tottering. Only Wessex had succeeded in retaining its independence, and was still ready to fight fiercely for liberty. The situation was similar to what it had been four centuries before, when the first assaults of the English, after occupying the east, were checked by Ambrosius and Artorius. But while the British leaders left no successors worthy of them, it was otherwise with Ecgberht and Aethelwulf. The youngest son of the latter was to be the greatest and noblest of English kings, and to pass on his sceptre to successors worthy of his name. CHAPTER VI ALFRED AND THE SAVING OF WESSEX