Guthorn and his followers would be viewed with hostility by their countrymen, whose hatred of Christianity was intense, and East Anglia would, therefore, naturally seek the close alliance and assistance of its Christian neighbour.
Great were the rejoicings in the Saxon camp that night.

Seldom, indeed, has a victory had so great and decisive an effect upon the future of a nation as that of Ethandune.

Had the Saxons been crushed, the domination of the Danes in England would have been finally settled.
Christianity would have been stamped out, and with it civilization, and the island would have made a backward step into paganism and barbarism which might have delayed her progress for centuries.
The victory established the freedom of Wessex, converted East Anglia into a settled and Christian country, and enabled King Alfred to frame the wise laws and statutes and to establish on a firm basis the institutions which raised Saxon England vastly in the scale of civilization, and have in no small degree affected the whole course of life of the English people..