invasions was more widely known and no Danish leader more heartily execrated than Ívarr, their commander on this occasion. After their victory in East Anglia the Danes attacked Wessex. Their struggle with Aethelred and his brother Alfred was long and fierce. In the end Danes and English came to terms by the peace of Wedmore (878), and the ensuing "peace of Alfred and Guthrum" (885) defined the boundary between Alfred's kingdom and the Danish realm in East Anglia. It ran by the Thames estuary to the mouth of the Lea (a few miles east of London), then up the Lea to its source near Leighton Buzzard, then eastwards along the Ouse to Watling Street, somewhere near Fenny or Stony Stratford. The northern half of Mercia was also in Danish hands, their authority centring in the Five Boroughs of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Stamford. Northumbria was at the same time under Viking rule, its king until 877 being that Halfdanr (Halfdene) who was killed on Strangford Lough. There can be little doubt that the chief Viking leaders during these years (Halfdanr, Ívarr and Ubbi) were sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók, the greatest of Viking heroes in Scandinavian tradition, but it is impossible to say how much truth there may be in the story which makes their attacks part of a scheme of vengeance for the torture and death of Ragnarr at the hands of Aella, King of Northumbria. One incident is perhaps of interest in connexion with the family of Loðbrók. When Ubbi was fighting in Devonshire in 878 the English captured from him a raven-banner which, say the Annals of St Neot, was woven for the sons of Loðbrók by their sisters.
Though Alfred had secured an enlarged and independent kingdom, his troubles were not at an end, and during the years from 880-896 England suffered from attacks made by raiders issuing from their quarters on the Seine, the Somme and other Continental rivers. The Northumbrian and East Anglian settlers remained neutral on the whole, but they must have been much unsettled by the events of these years, and when they commenced raiding once more, Alfred built a fleet of vessels to meet them, which were both swifter and steadier than the Danish ships. After 896 the struggle between English and Danes was confined almost entirely to those already settled in the island, no fresh raiders being mentioned until 921.
During all this time the Vikings were almost continuously active on the Continent; raids on Frankish territory continued without cessation, and it was only on the Eider boundary that a permanent peace was established by a treaty between Louis the German and King Horic. In 845 a Danish fleet of some 120 vessels sailed up the Seine under the leadership of Reginherus, i.e. probably Ragnarr Loðbrók himself. Paris was destroyed and the Viking attack was only bought off by the payment of a large Danegeld. The years from 850-878 have been said, not without justice, to mark the high tide of Viking invasion in Western Frankish territory. We find Danish armies taking up more or less
