The Danelaw was the region of northern and eastern England ruled by the Danes from 865 to 954, comprising of the 15 shires of Leicestershire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, and Buckinghamshire. The Great Heathen Army of Vikings invaded the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria in 865 to avenge the death of Ragnarr Lodbrok at the hands of King Aella of Northumbria, as well as to establish a new homeland for Danes emigrating from the sandy and infertile lands of Denmark. In 866, the Vikings captured the Northumbrian capital of York, which they converted into the kingdom of Jorvik, ruled by Halfdan Whiteshirt. Reinforced by Vikings from Frisia, Francia, Ireland, and other parts of Scandinavia, the Great Heathen Army was able to press on to conquer East Anglia in 869 and most of Mercia in 870, but Wessex, the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom, checked their advance at the Battle of Ashdown in 871 and finally defeated them at the Battle of Edington in 878. After Edington, the Vikings agreed to be confined to their new kingdoms of Northymbre and East Engle, and the Viking soldiers settled down to become farmer, colonizing northern England. This region became known as the "Danelaw", and, starting in the reign of King Edward the Elder from 899, the Danelaw shrunk in size as Wessex and the remnants of Mercia (led by Queen Aethelflaed, a powerful female warrior-queen) launched offensives against the Danes. In 917, Essex and East Anglia were reconquered by Wessex, and Aethelflaed took the city of Derby before taking over the other four of the Five Boroughs in the Midlands. In 918, Aethelflaed died before York could formally submit to her, and Edward inherited the throne of Mercia as well, uniting the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as "England". In 919, the Norse ruler of Dublin Ragnvald Sygtryggsson took York in a lightning attack, bringing war back to northern England. In 920, Edward received the submissions of the Scots, English, Norwegians, Danes and the other peoples of Northumbria and of Welsh Strathclyde. In 954, the English victory over Eric Bloodaxe in Northumbria ended Danish rule in England, and the Danelaw became a part of England. From 1070 to 1085, the Danes failed to reclaim their old kingdom, whose population became assimilated as Englishmen.
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