[* Asser. p. 8. Chron. Sax. p. 82. Ethelwerd, lib. iv. cap. 4.]
But the Danes, little apprehensive of the danger suddenly, without seeking any pretence, fell upon Alfred’s army; and having put it to rout, marched westward, and took possession of Exeter. The prince collected new forces, and exerted such vigor, that he fought in one year eight battles with the enemy,[*] and reduced them to the utmost extremity. He hearkened, however, to new proposals of peace, and was satisfied to stipulate with them, that they would settle somewhere in England,[**] and would not permit the entrance of more ravagers into the kingdom. But while he was expecting the execution of this treaty, which it seemed the interest of the Danes themselves to fulfil, he heard that another body had landed, and, having collected all the scattered troops of their country men, had surprised Chippenham, then a considerable town, and were exercising their usual ravages all around them.
This last incident quite broke the spirit of the Saxons, and reduced them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they had undergone in their persons and in their property, after all the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence, a new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among them, they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and delivered over to those swarms of robbers which the fertile north thus incessantly poured forth against them. Some left their country and retired into Wales, or fled beyond sea; others submitted to the conquerors, in hopes of appeasing their fury by a servile obedience.[***] And every man’s attention being now engrossed in concern for his own preservation, no one would hearken to the exhortations of the king, who summoned them to make, under his conduct, one effort more in defence of their prince, their country, and their liberties. Alfred himself was obliged to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest disguises from the pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself under a peasant’s habit, and lived some time in the house of a neat-herd, who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows.[****]