Scandinavian-Britain

THE AGE OF ALFRED 97him putting his men on horseback; he began to fortifyand garrison important points, and he continued improvinghis fleet.Consequently, when Hastein came,circumstances were far less favourable to his enterprisethan they would have been twenty years earlier ;andnot even his army of veterans, highly organised, wellequipped, and thoroughly trained as they were, couldsucceed where Halfdan and Guthorm had failed. Hewas a daring adventurer; his exploits in Spain andthe Mediterranean read like a romance (see C. F.Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom^ pp. 320-326), and in France he had been the terror of theLoire for twenty years. Of late he had moved toFlanders, with his head-quarters at Louvain. Hecame to England, not with the great designs of Ivar,but rather through necessity; being beaten with asignal defeat on the Dyle (Sept. i, 891), and starvedout by the famine of 892, he was forced to seek a newhome.In the autumn of 892 a fleet of 250 ships came overfrom Boulogne to the Roman Portus Lemanis and upthe river Limen (then in existence) to Appledore, inKent. There the Vikings found a fort in process ofbuilding, which they seized and completed. Soonafterwards Hastein himself with 80 ships entered theThames, and fortified a position at Milton, nearSittingbourne. Alfred tried to forestall interferenceby exacting pledges which proved in vainthat East Anglia and Northumbria would not helpthe invaders. He negotiated with Hastein, whoallowed his sons to be baptised, but refused or wasG