CHAPTER VIII.
THE SECLUSION.
Notwithstanding the tide of disaster and calamity which seemed to be gradually overwhelming Alfred's kingdom, he was not reduced to absolute despair, but continued for a long time the almost hopeless struggle.

There is a certain desperation to which men are often aroused in the last extremity, which surpasses courage, and is even sometimes a very effectual substitute for strength; and Alfred might, perhaps, have succeeded, after all, in saving his affairs from utter ruin, had not a new circumstance intervened, which seemed at once to extinguish all remaining hope and to seal his doom.
This circumstance was the arrival of a new band of Danes, who were, it seems, more numerous, more ferocious, and more insatiable than any who had come before them.

The other kingdoms of the Saxons had been already pretty effectually plundered.

Alfred's kingdom of Wessex was now, therefore, the most inviting field, and, after various excursions of conquest and plunder in other parts of the island, they came like an inundation over Alfred's frontiers, and all hope of resisting them seems to have been immediately abandoned.

The Saxon armies were broken up.