The North Folk of East Anglia were equally happy to send it off toward the South Folk.

While there was so little cohesion between the parts of the same kingdoms, there was no cohesion at all between the different kingdoms over which AEthelwulf exercised a nominal over-lordship.

The West Saxon kings fought for Dorset and for Kent, but there is no trace of their ever fighting for East Anglia or for Northumbria.

They left their northern vassals to take care of themselves.

"It was never a war between the Danes and the national army," says Prof.Pearson, "but between the Danes and a local militia." It would have been impossible, indeed, to resist the wickings effectually without a strong central system, which could move large armies rapidly from point to point: and such a system was quite undreamt of in the half-consolidated England of the ninth century.