230 ROGER OF AVENDO VER. [A.D . 895. ened by a deep trench, and thence he made continual irruptions and desolated the whole country around. Moreover the pagans who had settled at Appletre, as has been said before, joined Hastein there, forming an immense body of warriors. Whereupon the troops that king Alfred had left to subdue them, joining to themselves the citizens of London and other warriors who had come at the king's summons from the coasts of the Northumbrians and the East-Angles, marched to Beamfleot, but did not find Hastein in the town. Nevertheless they engaged in battle with his people who came out of the town against them, and so furious was their onset that they put them to flight forthwith, and assaulted and destroyed the town. They moreover captured the wife of Hastein and his two sons, and took some of his ships, which they conveyed to the city of Rochester, where they were burnt, and they sent Hastein's wife and two sons to the city of London. After these things, king Alfred, having gained an easy victory over the pagans, on account of whom he had gone to Exeter, cutting them in pieces and driving them to their ships, returned to the city of London, where earl Ethelred presented to the king the wife of Hastein and his two sons, requesting that it might be adjudged what should be done with the wife and sons of that traitor, who had broken the agreement he had made with the king. When all had given sentence that they were worthy the most shameful death, the king would not do them any harm, inasmuch as he had himself raised one of the boys from the holy font, as has been related above, and earl Ethelred had done the like to the other; he therefore permitted as well the mother as the sons to depart. Severe war and destruction of the Danes. In the year of our Lord 895, pope Formosus* sat in the * The chronology of Formosus and the six following popes is incorrect. The correct dates are as follow:— Formosus consecrated Sept. 891 died April, 896 Boniface VI April,896 May, 896 Stephen VI Aug. 896 Oct. 897 Romanus Oct. 897 Feb. 898 Theodore II Feb. 898 March,898 John I X June,898 Nov. 900 Benedict IV Nov. 900 Oct. 903 To Benedict IV. succeeded Leo V. in the year 903, as is correctly stated in the text under that year.