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of France, or tried England, as it were, by the
back-door. They had formerly struck at Wessex
through Cornwall ; now they attempted the route
through North Wales, perhaps trying to get the Welsh
to co-operate as before. Æthelwulf gave his daughter
in marriage to Burhred, the new king of Mercia, and
joined him, at his request in 853, in an expedition
against the Welsh, whom he reduced to subjection.
That is to say, King Roderick ap Merfyn, between two
fires, must have promised to expel the Vikings ;
and we find in the Ulster Annals, in 855, "Horm, chief
of Black Gentiles, killed by Ruadhri mac Murminn,
king of Wales"—the Orm who possibly gave their
name to the Ormes Heads at Llandudno. The extent
to which Orm’s incursion had succeeded may be
gathered from a Mercian charter of the same year,
which mentions the fact that pagans had reached the
district of the Wrekin (Birch, 487 ; Kemble, 277).
But while Æthelwulf was engaged in the west, the
persistent Danes entered Thanet, and fought a battle
with the men of Kent and Surrey, in which ealdorman
Ealhere of Kent, who had won the sea-fight alongside
of King Æthelstan at Sandwich, was slain. Two years
later, Æthelwulf was again absent, trusting that all
was quiet ; but the Danes promptly came to winter
in Sheppey.
He had gone on pilgrimage to Rome. On the way
back he stayed three months with Charles the Bald.
His first wife, the mother of Ælfred, appears to have
died, and before leaving France he married Judith,
daughter of Charles, a child of twelve. It can only
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