The not very effective intervention of the fleet of Ohthere and Hroald was the last attack on Wessex by Vikings from the Continent. Thenceforward Eadward and Aethelflæd were able to push forward the conquest of the Danelaw with little interference. During the next three years they steadily fortified, and practically shut up the Danelaw in a line of _burhs_. In 916 they made a great combined advance. Guthrum II., King of East Anglia, attempted to stem the attack by establishing a base on English soil at Tempsford, at the junction of the Great Ouse and the Ivel, while the jarls of Leicester and Northampton made a raid on the neighbourhood of Aylesbury. The counter-attack was a hopeless failure. Aethelflæd stormed Derby after a furious resistance, while Guthrum in vain attacked Bedford and Wiggingamere, and had to retreat on Tempsford, only to be assailed there by an English army of _burh-ware_ from all the eastern fortresses. ‘They beset the burh and fought against it until they broke into it, and slew the King and Earl Toglos, and Earl Manna his son, and his brother, and all them that were therein, and would defend themselves, and they took the others and all that was therein.’ Eadward followed up the victory with energy. Though it was ‘in harvest,’ every available man in Kent and Surrey crossed the Thames, joined the men of Essex and the stormers of Tempsford, and marched upon Colchester. ‘They took it, and slew all the garrison, and seized all that was therein, except those men who fled away therefrom over the wall.’ The last hope for the independence of the Danes of England lay in a Viking fleet which had just appeared on the East Anglian coast. Its crews landed, rallied the broken levies of their kinsmen, and, in conjunction with them, besieged Maldon. Before they could complete their cordon, a strong body of English troops, probably part of the victors of Tempsford and Colchester, entered the _burh_, and the combined force made a sortie, repulsed the besiegers, and, by a vigorous pursuit, completely broke them. It was the beginning of the end. No time was given for the broken foe to recover. Late as was the season, Eadward kept the field; from every county the _land-fyrd_ and _burh-ware_ marched in hot haste to reinforce or relieve the army in Essex. Northampton, Huntingdon, and Cambridge surrendered, and with them all East Anglia.