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In May 878 Ælfred sent word to the men of Somerset,
Wilts, and Hampshire, met them on the east of
Selwood forest, and, after a day’s march, fell suddenly
on the Vikings at Ethandune.[1]
His victory ended
the campaign ; Guthorm was baptised, taking the
name of Æthelstan, and removed the army to East
Anglia, 879.
In 884 a Danish host, which had left Fulham in
879 for the Continent, returned, and besieged Rochester,
but were driven off. There seems to have been
help given them by the Danes in East Anglia, and
after some sea-fighting a treaty was made, commonly
but inaccurately cited as the Frith of Wedmore, fixing
the boundary. It was to run up the Thames and the
sea to a point near Hertford, thence to Bedford, and
up the Ouse to Watling Street, near Stony Stratford.
This gave London to Wessex, perhaps as a compensation
for the breach of the previous treaty.
Ælfred had learnt in his struggle with Guthorm
the impossibility of meeting sudden invasion with
slowly gathered and temporary local levies, and he
arranged for relays of militia, "so that one-half was
constantly at home, and the other in the field, beside
those whose duty it was to defend the burgs." He
had observed the mobility of the Danes, and we find
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