History of Reading, Berkshire earlier folk, or tribal, name. Anglo-Saxon names ending in "-ingas" originally referred not to a place but to a people, in this case specifically the descendants or followers of a man named "Reada", literally "The Red One." In late 870 an army of Danes invaded the then kingdom of Wessex and set up camp at Reading. On 4 January 871, the first Battle of Reading took place, when an army led by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred the Great attempted unsuccessfully to breach the Danes' defences. The battle is described in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and this account provides the
They Were Defeated 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 correspondence that lasted until her death. The historian C V Wedgwood wrote the preface to a 1960 edition of the book, in which she reveals that the novel was written partly at the instigation of Macaulay's publisher, John Murray, who had asked for