In this crisis Edward proved himself worthy of his illustrious father, and acted with a promptitude and decision which ultimately secured to him his crown. Immediately after the battle of Wimborne, in which he had defeated his rival, he marched against him and his new allies, his army increasing daily. The Danes, unable to resist the overwhelming forces led against them, dismissed the pretender from amongst them, and ceded several strongholds as the price of peace.
In 910 the war between the two races broke out once more, and lasted, with brief intermission, for ten years; when the Danes, finding they were losing ground, sued for peace. Those who inhabited Mercia were the first to submit; the East Anglians followed their example, and the Northumbrians were the last.
Edward was materially assisted in these struggles by his warlike sister Ethelflæd, the widow of the Alderman of Mercia, who, despite her sex, appears to have delighted in arms. Aided by her brother's troops, she attacked the Welsh, who had sided with the Danes, and obliged them to pay tribute to her. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in the history of this time than the ease and rapidity with which Edward and his sister reconquered the Danelagh, as the district inhabited by the Danes was called. The reason of this prompt submission was that the two warriors, as we may fairly call them, were not content with merely winning battles, but took care to fortify and garrison the towns that fell into their hands. At the time of her death, in 918, the Lady of the Mercians had reconquered the country as far north as York, and was actually treating for the surrender of that city. She had, moreover, built a strong fortress at Chester, which held down the turbulent Welsh. On her death, however, Edward took the administration of Mercia into his own hands, instead of leaving it to be governed by a separate alderman. This is an important step in the consolidation of the kingdom.
There was something like a general rising in 921, but it was easily suppressed, and soon the various states of England and Scotland submitted in succession. The kings of the Welsh submitted in 922; they were followed by the king of the Scots, by Northumbria and Strathclyde. So Edward became lord of all England. The Danish invasion had indirectly helped towards this end, for by it several of the lines of under-kings had been exterminated. The kings of England from this time forward regarded themselves as emperors, and showed their independence of the Emperor of Germany by assuming the titles of _Imperator_ and _Basileus_. Edward did not do so as far as we know, probably because he had no time, for in the year which followed his great success he died (925).