Three of the Viking vessels were at anchor, the others beached higher up the inlet. Two of the three anchored vessels were immediately taken; the third escaped, but with only five sorely wounded men surviving out of her crew. Meanwhile the tide was ebbing, and seems to have compelled six of the English vessels to stand farther off the shore, leaving the other three aground in the rapidly retreating waves. The Danes on shore waded through shallow water and made desperate attempts to board the stranded ships. Lucomon, a royal reeve (perhaps the commodore of the squadron), was slain, and with him Æthelfrith, one of the King’s herdsmen, three Frisian officers, and sixty-two seamen; but they accounted for one hundred and twenty Danes, and the Viking ships escaped only because the returning tide floated their light craft before the heavier English vessels. Only one of the three Danish vessels succeeded in reaching East Anglia, the other two went ashore on the coast of Sussex, and their crews were captured and hanged at Winchester, by order of the usually so merciful King. The great King had now completed his gigantic task. He had welded together the unconquered half of England so firmly that there was no fear that the Vikings would overpower its united force. During his reign of over twenty-eight years he was, to a very large extent, occupied in resisting, and in organizing resistance to, the invaders. The success that attended his operations was emphatically due to his fine character, his capacity for organization, his steady concentration on the work of uniting England against the common foe, and his clear-sighted vision that saw the necessity of being able to attack by sea as well as on land; and over and above all these qualities, his power of inspiring men with something of his own exalted ideals. On October 26, 900, he died; probably the greatest, beyond doubt the best and noblest, monarch who has reigned over England. [Illustration: NORSE SHIP FOUND AT GOKSTAD. (_In the Museum at Christiania._)] CHAPTER VII THE CONQUEST OF THE DANELAW Alfred’s death left Wessex and western Mercia still faced by a mass of more or less hostile Danish settlers in the Danelaw and Deira, but fairly well knit together by the consciousness of sufferings endured and victories gained in conjunction, and with a growing sense of national unity. At first it is doubtful whether Eadward I. intended to subjugate the Danelaw; but he was quickly made aware that there was hardly any alternative. His cousin Aethelwald, son of Aethelred I., who had been passed over on account of his youth in favour of Alfred, and conceived himself to have a better title to the throne than Eadward, rose in revolt, and was supported by the Danish settlers.