The Franks resisted bravely, and in two pitched battles defeated their invaders with great loss.

The struggle going on across the Channel was watched with great interest by the Saxons, who at first hoped to see the Danes completely crushed by the Franks.
The ease, however, with which the Northmen moved from point to point in their ships gave them such immense advantage that their defeats at Hasle and Saucourt in no way checked their depredations.

Appearing suddenly off the coast, or penetrating into the interior by a river, their hordes would land, ravage the country, slay all who opposed them, and carry off the women and children captives, and would then take to their ships again before the leaders of the Franks could assemble an army.
Alfred spent this time of repose in restoring as far as possible the loss and damage which his kingdom had suffered.

Many wise laws were passed, churches were rebuilt, and order restored; great numbers of the monks and wealthier people who had fled to France in the days of the Danish supremacy now returned to England, which was for the time freer from danger than the land in which they had sought refuge; and many Franks from the districts exposed to the Danish ravages came over and settled in England.
Gradually the greater part of England acknowledged the rule of Alfred.
The kingdom of Kent was again united to that of Wessex; while Mercia, which extended across the centre of England from Anglia to Wales, was governed for Alfred by Ethelred the Ealdorman, who was the head of the powerful family of the Hwiccas, and had received the hand of Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda.

He ruled Mercia according to its own laws and customs, which differed materially from those of the West Saxons, and which prevented a more perfect union of the two kingdoms until William the Conqueror welded the whole country into a single whole.