Scandinavian-Britain

88 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINIn the spring of 867 the Great Army rode acrossthe Humber, and on November i had taken York.On March 21, 868, all Northumbria joined in anattack on their position, and utterly failed. If it hadbeen Ivar's object to ravage, he would have overrunBernicia ; if he had wished to destroy, he would nothave left the great churches at York and Riponstanding. Shrines were plundered, but the land wasleft under a native king, one Ecgberht, who either asa downright renegade or in the hope of restoring someorder from the wreck consented to hold it as theDanes' tributary. Thus he founded a lasting dynasty.Ivar's plan was to clear the board of Mercia, andto put Wessex in check. He seized Nottingham :Burhred slowly called out his forces, and called inhelp from ^Ethelred and Alfred but the;only resultwas a treaty under which Ivar returned leisurely toYork, and fortified the city anew in the winter of869, 870. Their almost Roman habit of entrenchinga position was a fresh feature in English warfare,learnt perhaps from the Carlovingian empire, andimitated by Alfred ; for, as Asser says, the old wallsof York were poor defences.In 870 Ivar's army, avoiding central Mercia, andso far respecting the treaty of Nottingham, inarchedthrough Lincolnshire to intrench itself at Thetford.King Eadmund of East Anglia attacked it in vain, andfell ;some accounts tell us that he was slain inbattle; the later legend of his martyrdomis wellknown. But if the tale of cruelty is true, the onlyexplanation, at this period, would be that he was