But in the same year another great host of 250 sail, by far the largest fleet of which we have yet heard, came to the mouth of the Thames, and there landed, a step which marks a fresh departure in the wicking tactics.
They took Canterbury by assault, and then marched on to London.

There they stormed the busy merchant town, and put to flight Beorhtwulf, the under-king of the Mercians, with his local levy.

Thence they proceeded southward into Surrey, doubtless on their way to Winchester.

King AEthelwulf met them at Ockley, with the West-Saxon levy, "and there made the greatest slaughter among the heathen host that we have yet heard, and gained the day." In spite of these two great successes, however, both of which show an increasing statesmanship on the part of the West Saxons, this year was memorable in another way, for "the heathen men for the first time sat over winter in Thanet." The loose predatory excursions were beginning to take the complexion of regular conquest and permanent settlement.
Yet so little did the English still realise the terrible danger of the heathen invasion, that next year AEthelwulf was fighting the Welsh of Wales; and two years after he went on a pilgrimage to Rome, "with great pomp, and dwelt there twelve months, and then fared homeward." In that same year, "heathen men sat over winter in Sheppey." After AEthelwulf's death the English resistance grew fainter and fainter.
In 860, under his second son, AEthelberht, a Danish host took Winchester itself by storm.

Five years later, a heathen army settled in Thanet, and the men of Kent agreed to buy peace of them--the first sign of that evil habit of buying off the Dane, which grew gradually into a fixed custom.
But the host stole away during the truce for collecting the money, and harried all Kent unawares.
Meanwhile, we hear little of the North.