alliance between the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia" according to a news report. "These coins enable us to re-interpret our history at a key moment in the creation of England as a single kingdom," said Gareth Williams, curator of early medieval coins at the British Museum. A listing about the Archenfield area of Herefordshire appeared in the 1870-72 Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales with the following specifics about early incidents involving the Danes:IRCHINGFIELD, or ARCHENFIELD, a quondam liberty and a rural deanery in the S of Hereford. The liberty was known to the ancient Welsh as Urging, to the Saxons as Ircingafeld, and at Domesday as Arcenfelde; was ravaged in 905 by the Danes, and given afterwards, by the Crown, to the Earls of Shrewsbury; and had the custom of gavelkind, and some other peculiar customs. In 914 CE the Danes again made their way up the Severn to the district of Archenfield and ravaged the area. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (915 CE, Worcester Manuscript, p. 99), the jarls leading the raids, Ohtor and Hroald, captured Cyfeiliog, also referred to as Cameleac or Cimeliauc, the Bishop of Llandaff. The bishop was later ransomed by King Edward the Elder for forty pounds in silver. The "jarl Hroald and the other jarl Ohtor's brother" were killed in 915 CE, probably at "Killdane Field" (or "Kill Dane") in Weston-under-Penyard and the raiders left the area, leaving some hostages as a peace bond. In 921 CE, the Danes besieged Wigmore, which had been rebuilt in that year by Edward the Elder. From the time of its first settlement the district was the scene of constant border warfare with the Welsh, and Harold, whose earldom included this county, ordered that any Welshman caught trespassing over the border should lose his right hand. In the period preceding the Conquest much disturbance was caused by the outrages of the Norman colony planted in this county by Edward the Confessor. Richard I's castle in the north of the county was the first Norman fortress erected on English soil, and Wigmore, Ewyas Harold, Clifford, Weobley, Hereford, Donnington and Caldicot were all the sites of Norman strongholds. Then William the Conqueror entrusted the subjugation of Herefordshire to William FitzOsbern, but Edric the Wild, in conjunction with the Welsh, prolonged violent resistance against him for two years. Return to English control During "The Anarchy" – the prolonged civil war