The result of this battle was a treaty between Alfred and the Danes. The Danish king, Guthrum, desired to settle in England, where he had lived for many months; and he sent messengers to Alfred, offering to be baptized as a Christian, promising never again to bear arms against the people of Wessex. Alfred accepted the Danish proposal gladly, for his people were weary to death of war and hardship, and needed peace to till their lands. So Alfred, while he probably could have conquered all England, left the Danes in the part that had been most thoroughly conquered by them, calling it the Danelaw, and gave the Danes permission to live there unmolested, providing they promised to disturb his kingdom no further. The pact held good, and although at times it was broken, in general it was adhered to for many years. Saxons and Danes intermingled and married into the families of their enemies, and from them a new people gradually came into being.
As soon as peace was assured Alfred provided against future attacks on the part of the Northmen by ordering all the forts and strongholds throughout the kingdom of Wessex to be rebuilt and put into good order. He knew that the Danes could not be trusted and feared that at any time new galleys might be seen bearing down upon the English coast. So he organized his army into several parts and thought out a system by means of which soldiers might always be on guard duty to withstand an invasion, while the rest of the people were peacefully tilling the soil.
He also framed a code of laws. In the war and confusion into which his country had been thrown, the laws had fallen into a sorry state and were frequently disobeyed. In his code Alfred did not introduce new laws, which his people disliked, but rather arranged and put in order the laws then existing, and his dominions soon became so orderly and so free from robbers that it is doubtful if all our police could do better to-day. Also the King found that the law had been hindered and impeded by many corrupt and worthless judges, some of whom knew nothing whatever about the duties of their office--and these he warned to study and acquaint themselves with what a judge must know or renounce their positions in law altogether.