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→Key Battles
The next major encounter was the Battle of Edington (Figure 2), which pitted Guthrum of the Danes against Alfred. The Danes had likely assumed Alfred to be significantly weakened after being forced to flee. The battle was characterized by Alfred summoning his fyrds, or the popular army from different parts of his kingdom, that gathered to fight the Danes. This allowed Alfred to create a greater force and demonstrated he retained the loyalty of his ealdormen despite his earlier losses. Once again, the ability for the Saxons to muster a large force and launch an attack likely surprised the Danes. Egbert's stone was used as the meeting point for the fyrds in the series as well as in the chronicles describing the events. In effect, much of these events are true historically. The battle, unlike the series, involved an encounter of the armies where the Danes were driven into a fort and were besieged afterwards. In the series, the main battle is only depicted as a pitched encounter and the siege was not shown.
In both cases, after Dane leader Guthrum was defeated and baptized, as a condition of the peace, the Danes led their remaining army away. Eventually, the Danes formed another kingdom called Danelaw that represented areas where the Danes ruled for nearly another 100 years. This was based on a treaty with Alfred, where areas north of Wessex and in East Anglia represented Danelaw. For some years, there was peace between Wessex and the Danes. Alfred, after this time, build the boroughs, which were fortifications that helped protect Wessex. While relatively simple, these fortifications helped strengthen Wessex and made it more difficult for later Danish invasions. Although the invasions against Wessex continued, no serious threat ever occurred by Danish forces against Wessex.<ref>For more on the Battle of Edington, see: Hunter Blair, P. H., & Keynes, S. (2006). <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521537770/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521537770&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=c7f4a0f8d82609fab94dd2527fcc39ad An introduction to Anglo-Saxon England]</i>d (3. ed., repr). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, pg. 111</ref> Arguably, this was the battle that may have prevented all of England falling to Danish hands in the 9th century.
===Historical Figures===
