themselves the strongest.  Then, moreover, the Danes had been now for many years in Britain.  Vast numbers had quietly settled on agricultural lands.  They had become peaceful inhabitants.  They had established, in many cases, friendly relations with the Saxons.  They had intermarried with them; and the two races, instead of appearing, as at first, simply as two hostile armies of combatants contending on the field, had been, for some years, acquiring the character of a mixed population, established and settled, though heterogeneous, and, in some sense, antagonistic still.  To root out all these people, intruders though they were, and send them back again across the German Ocean, to regions where they no longer had friends or home, would have been a desperate—­in fact, an impossible undertaking.

Alfred saw all these things.  He took, in fact, a general, and comprehensive, and impartial view of the whole subject, instead of regarding it, as most conquerors in his situation would have done, in a partisan, that is, an exclusively Saxon point of view.  He saw how impossible it was to undo what had been done, and wisely determined to take things as they were, and make the best of the present situation of affairs, leaving the past, and aiming only at accomplishing the best that was now attainable for the future.  It would be well if all men who are engaged in quarrels which they vainly endeavor to settle by discussing and disputing about what is past and gone, and can now never be recalled, would follow his example.  In all such cases we should say, let the past be forgotten, and, taking things as they now are, let us see what we can do to secure peace and happiness in future.

The policy which Alfred determined to adopt was, not to attempt the utter extirpation of the Danes from England, but only to expel the armed forces from his own dominions, allowing those peaceably disposed to remain in quiet possession of such lands in other parts of the island as they already occupied.  Instead, therefore, of treating Guthrum with harshness and severity as a captive enemy, he told him that he was willing not only to give him his liberty, but to regard him, on certain conditions, as a friend and an ally, and allow him to reign as a king over that part of England which his countrymen possessed, and which was beyond Alfred’s own frontiers.  These conditions were, that Guthrum was to go away with all his forces and followers out of Alfred’s kingdom, under solemn oaths never to return; that he was to confine himself thenceforth to the southeastern part of England, a territory from which the Saxon government had long disappeared; that he was to give hostages for the faithful fulfillment of these stipulations, without, however, receiving on his part any hostages from Alfred.  There was one other stipulation, more extraordinary than all the rest, viz., that Guthrum should become a convert to Christianity, and publicly avow his adhesion to the Saxon faith by being baptized in the presence of the leaders of both armies, in the most open and solemn manner.  In this proposed baptism, Alfred himself would stand his godfather.