Scandinavian-Britain

THE EARLIEST RAIDS 79quest of France, or tried England, as it were, by theback-door. They had formerly struck at Wessexthrough Cornwall now; they attempted the routethrough North Wales, perhaps trying to get the Welshto co-operate as before. ^Ethelwulf gave his daughterin marriage to Burhred, the new king of Mercia, andjoined him, at his request in 853, in an expeditionagainst the Welsh, whom he reduced to subjection.That is to say, King Roderick ap Merfyn, between twofires, must have promised to expel the Vikings ;andwe find in the Ulster Annals, in 855, "Horm, chiefof Black Gentiles, killedby Ruadhri mac Murminn,king of Wales" the Orm who possibly gave theirname to the Ormes Heads at Llandudno. The extentto which Orm's incursion had succeeded may begathered from a Mercian charter of the same year,which mentions the fact that pagans had reached thedistrict of the Wrekin (Birch, 487 ; Kemble, 277).But while ^thelwulf was engaged in the west, thepersistent Danes entered Thanet, and fought a battlewith the men of Kent and Surrey, in which ealdormanEalhere of Kent, who had won the sea-fight alongsideof King ^Ethelstan at Sandwich, was slain. Two yearslater, ^thelwulf was again absent, trusting that allwas quiet ;but the Danes promptly came to winterin Sheppey.He had gone on pilgrimage to Rome. On the wayback he stayed three months with Charles the Bald.His first wife, the mother of Alfred, appears to havedied, and before leaving France he married Judith,daughter of Charles, a child of twelve. It can only