The departure of the Danish host, led by Haesten, left the English time to breathe and to recruit their strength.

Henceforth, for nearly a century, the direct wicking incursions cease, and the war is confined to a long struggle with the Northmen already settled in England.

Four years later, the east Anglian Danes broke the peace and harried Mercia and Wessex; but Eadward overran their lands in return, and the Kentish men, in a separate battle, attacked and slew Eric their king with several of his earls.

In 912, AEthelred the Mercian died, and Eadward at once incorporated London and Oxford with his own dominions, leaving his sister AEthelflaed only the northern half of her husband's principality.

Thenceforth AEthelflaed, "the Lady of the Mercians," turned deliberately to the conquest of the North.
She adopted a fresh kind of tactics, which mark again a new departure in the English policy.