'886. In the same year King Alfred restored (_gesette_) London, and all the Angle race turned to him that were not in the bondage of the Danish men, and he then committed the burgh to the keeping of the Alderman Æthered.' The great difficulty in this passage is the word _gesette_, which probably means occupied, but may mean much more, as founded or settled. Some authorities have therefore changed the word to _besaet_, besieged. Professor Earle proposed the following solution of the problem, which seems highly probable. London was a flourishing, populous and opulent city, the chief emporium of commerce in the island, and the residence of foreign merchants. Properly it had become an Angle city, the chief city of the Anglian nation of Mercia, but the Danes had settled there in great numbers, and they had many captives whom they had taken in the late wars. Thus the Danes preponderated over the free Angles, and the latter were glad to see Alfred come and restore the balance in their favour. It was of the greatest importance for Alfred to secure this city, not only the capital of Mercia, but able to do what Mercia had not done, to bar the passage of pirate ships to the Upper Thames. Accordingly, Alfred in 886 planted the garrison of London, _i.e._, introduced a military colony of men, and gave them land for their maintenance, in return for which they lived in and about a fortified position under a commanding officer. Professor Earle would not have _Lundenburh_ taken as merely an equivalent to London. Alfred therefore founded not London itself but the burh of London.[8] Under Athelstan we find the city increasing in importance and general prosperity. There were then eight mints at work, which shows great activity and the need of coin for the purposes of trade. The folkmoot met in the precincts of St. Paul's at the sound of the bell, which also rang out when the armed levy was required to march under St. Paul's banner. For some years after the decisive Battle of Brunanburh (937) the Danes ceased to trouble the country. But one may affirm that fire was almost as great an enemy as the Dane. Fabyan, when recording the entire destruction of London by fire in the reign of Ethelred (981), makes this remarkable statement: 'Ye shall understande that this daye the cytie of London had most housynge and buyldinge from Ludgate toward Westmynstre, and lytell or none wher the chief or hart of the citie is now, except [that] in dyvers places were housyng, but they stod without order.'[9]