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Rh and in 867 both Aelle and Osbeorht were killed in a joint attempt to regain it. With their deaths the independence of Deira came to an end; but it would appear that the comparatively unfertile districts of Bernicia did not much attract the invaders, with the result that the country from the Tees northwards to the Scotch boundary remained subject to English princes, scated at Bamborough. These rulers retained for their diminished territories the name of Northumberland, which after this gradually ceases to be applied to the Yorkshire districts actually adjoining the Humber. Their small principality, however, could hardly be regarded as a kingdom, and so they soon dropped the title of king and came to be styled either dukes or later still "high-reeves of Bamborough."

Having secured their footing in the vale of York, the Danes next marched south along the Trent to Nottingham to see whether they could not also establish themselves in the ancient Mercian homeland. Attacked thus in the very heart of his kingdom, Burhred invoked help from the West Saxons; but though Aethelred, who was Burhred's brother-in-law, willingly came to his aid, the allied kings apparently dared not risk a pitched battle, and in 868 the Mercians were reduced to buying a truce by offers of tribute. For the moment this satisfied the Vikings, who withdrew once more to Deira. There they stayed quiet for a year, but in the autumn of 869 they again rode south, perhaps to meet fresh reinforcements, and after harrying Eastern Mercia from the Humber to the Ouse determined to try their luck against Edmund of East Anglia, whose territories they had spared on landing. Details of their march southwards are missing: but it was doubtless then that the fenland monasteries of Bardney, Medeshamstede, Crowland and Ely, after Worcester the chief centres of Mercian learning and civilisation, were destroyed, and much of Lindsey and Middle Anglia given over again to heathendom. Burhred made no efforts, it would seem, to organise defensive measures for these districts, but a much stouter resistance awaited the Viking forces at Thetford, where they proposed to take up their winter quarters. Again details are very confused and scanty, but it is clear that the English forces were decisively beaten, and we are told that Edmund himself was captured by Ingwar and Ubba and put to death on November 20 at Hoxne in Suffolk by their orders because he refused to abjure Christianity. In the spring of 870 all East Anglia submitted, and there, too, heathendom and the worship of Thor and Woden was partially re-introduced, but their fallen king's memory was so cherished by the vanquished East Anglians that he soon came to be regarded as a saint and martyr, and a generation later the site of his tomb at Beadricesworth had grown to be a new Christian centre, which in a short time became famous under the name of St Edmund's Bury.

What became of Ingwar after Edmund's death is not known. It is possible that he returned to Deira to secure his first conquests and went thence to Scotland to assist the Irish Vikings, who, led by Olaf the