Wide tracts of country had been devastated, the men slaughtered, and the women and children taken captives, and the people, utterly dispirited and depressed, no longer listened to the voices of their leaders, and refused again to peril their lives in a strife which seemed hopeless.

Alfred therefore called his ealdormen together and proposed to them, that since the people would no longer fight, the sole means that remained to escape destruction was to offer to buy off the Danes.
The proposal was agreed to, for although none of them had any hope that the Danes would long keep any treaty they might make, yet even a little respite might give heart and spirit to the Saxons again.

Accordingly negotiations were entered into with the Danes, and these, in consideration of a large money payment, agreed to retire from Wessex.
The money was paid, the Danes retired from Reading, which they had used as their headquarters, and marched to London.

King Burhred, the feeble King of Mercia, could do nothing to oppose them, and he too agreed to pay them a large annual tribute.
From the end of 872 till the autumn of 875 the country was comparatively quiet.

Alfred ruled it wisely, and tried to repair the terrible damages the war had made.