One battle memorable beyond all the rest was that which took place at Eschendun.[139] The Danes, having collected an army at this place, divided it into two bodies; their two kings commanded the one, all their earls the other. Ethelred drew near with his brother Alfred. It fell to the lot of Ethelred to oppose the kings, while Alfred was to attack the earls. Both armies eagerly prepared for battle, but night approaching deferred the conflict till the ensuing day. Scarcely had the morning dawned ere Alfred was ready at his post, but his brother, intent on his devotions, had remained in his tent; and when urged on by a message, that the pagans were rushing forward with unbounded fury, he declared that he should not move a step till his religious services were ended. This piety of the king was of infinite advantage to his brother, who was too impetuous from the thoughtlessness of youth, and had already far advanced. The battalions of the Angles were now giving way, and even bordering on flight, in consequence of their adversaries pressing upon them from the higher ground, for the Christians were fighting in an unfavourable situation, when the king himself, signed with the cross of God, unexpectedly hastened forward, dispersing the enemy, and rallying his subjects. The Danes, terrified equally by his courage and the divine manifestation, consulted their safety by flight. Here fell Oseg their king, five earls, and an innumerable multitude of common people. The reader will be careful to observe that during this time, the kings of the Mercians and of the Northumbrians, eagerly seizing the opportunity of the arrival of the Danes, with whom Ethelred was fully occupied in fighting, and somewhat relieved from their bondage to the West Saxons, had nearly regained their original power. All the provinces, therefore, were laid waste by cruel depredations, because each king chose rather to resist the enemy within his own territories, than to assist his neighbours in their difficulties; and thus preferring to avenge injury rather than to prevent it, they ruined their country by their senseless conduct. The Danes acquired strength without impediment, whilst the apprehensions of the inhabitants increased, and each successive victory, from the addition of captives, became the means of obtaining another. The country of the East Angles, together with their cities and villages, was possessed by these plunderers; its king, St. Edmund, slain by them in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 870, on the tenth of November, purchased an eternal kingdom by putting off this mortal life. The Mercians, often harassed, alleviated their afflictions by giving hostages. The Northumbrians, long embroiled in civil dissensions, made up their differences on the approach of the enemy. Replacing Osbert their king, whom they had expelled, upon the throne, and collecting a powerful force, they went out to meet the foe; but being easily repelled, they shut themselves