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and Kent ; and the fourth, an attack on London and
Rochester, after which the Danes drew off to Cwentawic
(Étaples), and soon after sacked Rouen and
Nantes, in 845 besieging Paris. They returned to the
attack on England at Charmouth (Dorset) where
Æthelwulf himself, engaging the crews of thirty-five
Danish ships, was beaten. But the Danes then did
not follow up their success. At the mouth of the
Parret they were repulsed by the levies of Somerset
and Dorset, and again at "Wicganbeorh" in Dorset
in 851.
But by this time more serious efforts at conquest
were in preparation. In 850 a party landed on Thanet
(or on Sheppey) and wintered there, the first wintering
on English ground, and early next year a great fleet
of 350 ships sailed into the Thames; Canterbury and
London were sacked ; Beorhtwulf of Mercia was put
to flight and died, perhaps of his wounds. Mr. Keary
(The Vikings in Western Christendom, p. 273) thinks
that this fleet was commanded by Rorik, one of the
family then ruling in Denmark. Rorik, if he was the
leader, hoped to found a kingdom of his own as other
leaders had done in Ireland : but there was more
resistance to be met with in the Saxons than in the
Celts. King Æthelwulf of Wessex fought the invaders
at Ockley in Surrey, and defeated them with great loss,
while his son Æthelstan, king of Kent, put out to
sea—the first indication of naval efforts on the part of
the Saxons—and won a battle off Sandwich, taking
nine ships and putting the rest to flight.
For a time the Danes fell back on the easier conquest
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