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356 brother. The king then put himself once more at the head of the levies of central Wessex, his men meeting him early in May 878 on the borders of Wiltshire just to the east of Selwood Forest. Two days later he fell upon Guthrum's army at Edington (Ethandun) near Westbury, and so utterly defeated it that a fortnight later at Chippenham a peace was agreed to. The terms arranged were remarkable; for Guthrum not only promised that he would withdraw his army from Wessex, but also that he would accept baptism. The ceremony was accordingly performed in June at Aller near Athelney, the chrism-loosing taking place at Wedmore, a village near Glastonbury. The departure of the Danes from Wessex was carried out before long. In 879 we find them at Cirencester, and from that time forward the West Saxons were never again in any serious danger of being conquered by the Northmen.

To the Mercians, in the yet unravaged valley of the Severn, the peace made at Chippenham, often inaccurately called the "Peace of Wedmore," only meant an increase of danger. The move to Cirencester seemed clearly to portend that Guthrum hoped to find satisfaction in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire for his failure in Wessex, and the danger seemed all the greater when it became known, in the summer of 879, that a new fleet of vikings had arrived in the Thames and landed at Fulham. In this predicament the magnates of the Hwicce decided to take an important step. To depend on the puppet king Ceolwulf for defence was clearly useless. They accordingly turned to the victor of Edington, and led by Aethelred of Gloucester their foremost duke, and by Werfrith, the Bishop of Worcester, offered Alfred their allegiance. How many of the leading Mercians supported Aethelred in this submission to Wessex is not recorded. All that can be said is that we find Aethelred after this treated by Alfred to some extent as a vassal and given in charters the title of "Duke of the Mercians." Thus ended the independent kingdom of Mercia.

On the Danes the effect of this politic stroke was immediate. In 880 the province of the Hwicce was evacuated without any fighting, and Guthrun withdrew from Cirencester and marched his army back into East Anglia, while the Fulham fleet returned to Flanders. Next there followed the apportionment of Hendrica, Essex and East Anglia among Guthrum's followers, while in Middle Anglia a second series of boroughs were set up, at Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge and Bedford, each ruled by a more or less independent jarl and each with its dependent territory defended by its own "army." Guthrum's own sphere was large enough to be regarded as a kingdom. It had Norwich, Thetford, Ipswich, Colchester and London for head centres, and when first established stretched westwards over half the district of the Cilternsaete. We may guess in fact that it was the creation of Guthrum's new Danish kingdom which first brought about the division of this old