Before the Saxon monarchy had time to develope, the Danes visited the unhappy island with fire and sword. Coasting along the shores, interrupting the commerce, blocking up the mouths of the rivers, or penetrating far inland, their only mission to plunder and destroy, they proved a terrible curse to the nation, and brought the islanders to the verge of ruin and despair. With the name of Penda, is associated that of a very opposite Prince, Alfred, King of the Northumbrians, as he is styled in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Alfred espoused Kyneburga, Penda's daughter, by whom he had issue one son, Osred, who succeeded to the throne. This talented Prince ascended the throne after many vicissitudes, and was slain at Ebberston on the 19th January, 705, and was buried in the church of Little Driffield. It appears that the country was being ravaged by a large body of Danes and Norwegians, and that Alfred pursued and engaged them, holding them to a desperate trial of arms for the whole of the short winter's afternoon. The gloomy night was closing in on the dreadful scene, and the Northmen were breaking before the charges of the royal troops, when an arrow smote the King, and he fell in the front of battle. On the instant a Danish warrior charged the prostrate monarch, and, before a hand could be raised in his defence, wounded him in the thigh. In haste and confusion the wounded man was carried away from the scene of strife, and concealed in a cave until the invaders had retired, when he was borne to the castle of Deira-field, and every attention given to recover him from his wounds, but after a week of suffering he expired, to the regret of his subjects.