Æthelred of Wessex of Mercia, appealed to him for help against the Vikings. Æthelred and his brother, the future Alfred the Great, led a West Saxon army to Nottingham, but there was no decisive battle, and Burgred bought off the Vikings. In 874 the Vikings defeated Burgred and drove him into exile. In 870 the Vikings turned their attention to Wessex, and on 4 January 871 at the Battle of Reading, Æthelred suffered a heavy defeat. Although he was able to re-form his army in time to win a victory at the Battle of Ashdown, he suffered further defeats on 22 January at
They Were Defeated Puritan incumbent. We learn that Giles and Meg Yarde have both been killed in the war, and that Dr Conybeare is in exile in Holland and Kit in France. John Cleveland has taken Julian's last poem and published it under his own name. They Were Defeated They Were Defeated is a historical novel by Rose Macaulay, first published in 1932. It was published in the USA under the title "The Shadow Flies". It was through the publication of the American edition that Macaulay got back in touch with her cousin, the Rev. John Hamilton Cowper Johnson, and thus began a