A century later we find something tangible concerning the Church and Monastery of St. Peter; for Offa, the wise and strong king of Mercia, made certain gifts to it, and in the charter of 785 A.D. confirming these, he spoke of Thorney Island as a "locus terribilis," by which he probably meant "a sacred spot." But after this again there is silence. Once more Britain lay at the mercy of the invaders, this time the fierce Danes, who, as the Saxons had done, swept ruthlessly over the land, devastating and destroying as they went. The church at Thorney was in far too conspicuous a position to escape their notice; they fell upon it in all their fury, and only a few of the monks managed to reach London alive. So were the buildings "reduced to a very mean and low condition." In time, however, the hand of the Dane was stayed. For a hundred years indeed had they held their sway of terror, till at last they were decisively beaten by Alfred of Wessex, that ideal warrior-king, who first freed his people from their oppressors, and afterwards, laying aside all personal ambition, devoted himself to the task of ruling them wisely and well. The Peace of Wedmore was signed in 875, and probably the church and monastery of St. Peter were rebuilt soon after, but we know nothing till we come to the days when Dunstan was made Bishop of London, and "prevailed easily with King Edgar (as indeed he did, and ordered all in Church matters during the reign of that Prince), to have the monastery, then in ruins, restored, and that too at the king’s expense; that is, the walls and what else remained of the ruins repaired and the place made habitable. And he brought hither from Glastonbury twelve monks to make it a small monastery of the Benedictine Order." Dunstan had grown up from childhood under the shadow of that famous monastery at Glastonbury, where he had been the pupil of the well-learned and deeply religious men who had come over there from Ireland, and when at last, after many years of varied fortunes, he found himself all-powerful, he made it his first object to introduce the strict Benedictine rule wherever it was possible in religious houses. For during the time when the Danes held the upper hand the people had fallen back into many heathen ways, and the priests no longer held the torch of Christ’s religion on high, or sought to lead men from darkness to light. Dunstan was full of zeal, and under his strong influence King Edgar made many grants of lands and provisions to the Abbey of St. Peter, in which place Wulsinus, also a monk from Glastonbury, reigned as Abbot. But once again the monks of Thorney Island were driven forth from their cells and their cloisters, this time also at the hands of the Danes, who, led by Sweyn, "marched through the land, lighting war beacons" as they went on their way, avenging the treacherous massacre of their fellow-countrymen in Wessex.