Alfred the Great

“ Alfred the Great only survived his last victory over the Danes, at Kent, a few years, when he died greatly lamented. He was a brave soldier, a successful all-around monarch, and a progressive citizen in an age of beastly ignorance, crime, superstition, self-indulgence, and pathetic stupidity. ”

“ But his mother kissed him and gave him the beautiful book. "The prize is yours, Alfred," she said. "I am sure that whether you grow up to be a monk or a king, you will be a wise and noble man."
And Alfred did grow up to become the wisest and noblest king that
England ever had. In history he is called Alfred the Great.
"READ, AND YOU WILL KNOW" "Mother, what are the clouds made of? Why does the rain fall? Where does all the rain water go? What good does it do?"
Little William Jones was always asking questions. ”

“ KING ALFRED AND THE CAKES.
Many years ago there lived in Eng-land a wise and good king whose name was Al-fred. No other man ever did so much for his country as he; and [6] people now, all over the world, speak of him as Alfred the Great.
In those days a king did not have a very easy life. There was war almost all the time, and no one else could lead his army into battle so well as he. And so, between ruling and fighting, he had a busy time of it indeed.
A fierce, rude people, called the Danes, had come from over the sea, and were fighting the Eng-lish. ”

“ T.K. Hervey. A charming and appropriate tale for a New Year's Gift, written as it is with exquisite taste and a most benevolent intent, and set off with a number of capital illustrations by G.H. Thomas. Jubilee Edition of the Complete Works of King Alfred the Great, Part I. This first part of what is intended to be a complete translation of the works of our great Alfred, comprises a prefatory notice of what the whole work is to contain, and a harmony of the chroniclers during the life of King Alfred, that is to say, from A.D. 849 to A.D. 901. ”

“ Wilt thou not be proud to live for this fair country, and these noble men, and to speak the language of Alfred the Great?”
“Alfred the Great! they always weary me with Alfred the Great,” said the boy, pouting. “Alfred the Great, he is the plague of my life! if I am Atheling, men are to live for me, not I for them; and if you tease me any more, I will run away to Duke William in Rouen ”

“ There is in English history no character which combines so many great qualities as that of Alfred. Within and without he found his kingdom in peril and misery, crushed down, ignorant and without religion; he left it a flourishing and peaceful country, united and at rest. When his son, Edward the Elder, succeeded him on the throne, not only Wessex but the whole North of England, with the Scots, took him “for father and lord”; that is, they accepted him, for the first time in history, as king of a united England. ”

“ Again, few things are more striking in Alfred, than the way in which he keeps an equal hand on all branches of the national life, army, navy, church, justice, finance, education, learning. It is no doubt a harder task to co-ordinate the administration of an empire with world-wide possessions and world-wide responsibilities, than of a little state like Wessex. ”

“ In the same way, the manner in which Alfred deals with the works which he translated reveals as much of his mind as an original work could do. And this is not merely the case with works like the Orosius, the Boethius, and the Soliloquies of St. Augustine, in which he allowed himself a large freedom in the way of adaptation and addition. Even in the Cura Pastoralis, in which he keeps extremely close to his original, there are little touches which seem to give us glimpses into the king’s inmost soul [22] . ”

“ Alfred, however, who was now eleven years old, gave signs that if ever he gained the throne of Wessex his enemies would have good reason to fear him. Although a young boy he used to love to go on foot in the dark forest to hunt the fierce wild boars that lived there—a dangerous sport even for a grown man. He also gave every promise that some day he might be a great ruler and bring the people of England to peace and safety, for not only was he bold and proficient in arms and manly exercises, but a diligent scholar, who spent a great part of his time in acquiring wisdom. ”

“ He left young sons, but the men of Wessex crowned Alfred king, because they needed a grown man to lead them in their desperate campaigning. Yet his reign opened inauspiciously: defeated near Wilton, he offered in despair to pay the vikings to depart. He must have Alfred the Great. known, from the experience of Mercian, Northumbrian and Frankish kings, that such blackmail only bought a short respite, but the condition of his realm was such that even a moderate time for reorganization might prove valuable. ”

“ But, putting aside fables, there is quite enough to show that there have been very few Kings, and very few men of any sort, so great and good as King Alfred. Perhaps the only equally good King we read of is Saint Louis of France; and though he was quite as good, we cannot set him down as being so great and wise as Alfred. Certainly no King ever gave himself up more thoroughly than Alfred did fully to do the duties of his office. His whole life seems to have been spent in doing all that he could for the good of his people in every way. ”

“ For three years, there was a war with these Danes; and there was a famine in the country, too, and a plague, both upon human creatures and beasts. But King Alfred, whose mighty heart never failed him, built large ships nevertheless, with which to pursue the pirates on the sea; and he encouraged his soldiers, by his brave example, to fight valiantly against them on the shore. At last, he drove them all away; and then there was repose in England.
As great and good in peace, as he was great and good in war, King Alfred never rested from his labours to improve his people. ”

“ And so he lived and died an Englishman; and after him no ruler, these nine hundred years, has ever sat on the throne of the Engles by right of conquest.
Both Canute and William recognized and prized the worth of Alfred's rule. The virtues of Alfred are the virtues that have made it possible for the Teutonic tribes to girdle the globe. It was Alfred who taught the nobility of industry, service, education, patience, loyalty, persistence, and the faith and hope that abide. By pen, tongue, and best of all by his life, Alfred taught the truths which we yet hold dear. ”

“ I have already cited the passage bearing on the needs and instruments of a king [854] . This was to some extent suggested by a commentary, but it is instinct with the mind of Alfred, as is the oft-quoted sentence with which the chapter closes: ‘My will was to live worthily as long as I lived, and after my life to leave to them that should come after my memory in good works [855] .’ Very Alfredian too are the thoughts that reward [182] should not be looked for in this world [856] , but should be sought from God alone [857] ; that a good name is better than any wealth [858] ”

“ In one class of historical literature, which often very usefully supplements more formal histories, the reign of Alfred is singularly barren, I mean the lives of saints. We have nothing like the lives of Dunstan, Oswald, and Æthelwold, which give us so much help towards the end of the next century; or like the lives of Wilfrid and Cuthbert at an earlier period. The times, indeed, were not favourable to the development of saintship of the mediaeval pattern. The monasteries, the chief schools of that type of sanctity, suffered more than any other institutions at the hands of the Danes ”

“ Lord Rosebery called up before our imaginations the picture of what Alfred would have thought of the vast modern developments of his nation, its immense fleet, its widespread Empire, its enormous contribution to the mechanical civilisation of the world. It cannot be anything but profitable to conceive Alfred as full of astonishment and admiration at these things; it cannot be anything but good for us that we should realise that to the childlike eyes of a great man of old time our inventions and appliances have not the vulgarity and ugliness that we see in them. ”

“ He who strives not only to visualize the outward life, but also to retrace the thoughts and experience the emotions of King Alfred, must by that very effort rise to a higher and better life. To enter into the conscious life of Alfred's age is to reconstruct for one's delectation and edification one of the most fruitful periods of the much underrated and slighted Middle Ages. ”

“ We come now to what is the greatest crux in our whole subject, viz. the so-called life of Alfred which bears the name of Asser. It is obvious that if this work is genuine, it is an historical authority of the highest interest and importance. On the other hand, it must be confessed that there are features in it which do excite suspicion. Apart from difficulties of detail, some of which will come up for subsequent consideration, the general form of the work is most extraordinary, and high authorities have pronounced that, in its present shape, it cannot possibly be original [40] . ”

“ It was fortunate that such a great man was at hand to bear the burden, for never was it more likely than now that the English name would be utterly swept off the face of the earth. In spite of his youth Alfred was quite capable of facing any difficulty or danger. From his boyhood upward he had always shown great promise; when a young child, he had been sent by his father, Aethelwulf, to Rome, and there had attracted the notice of Pope Leo, who Pg 38 anointed him, and predicted that he should one day be a king. ”

“ The continental authorities do not mention Alfred; but [76] they tell how honourably the emperor Charles the Bald received Æthelwulf, and escorted him to the borders of his kingdom [364] ; while the Roman historian gives lists of the offerings which the pious monarch made at the holy places [365] . Gregorovius indeed says that he came ‘to be anointed and crowned by the pope [366] .’ But he gives no authority, and I do not believe that any exists. Some authorities transfer to this visit the royal unction of Alfred [367] , while another places it at Æthelwulf’s death, January, 858 [368] . ”

“ As no other race of men but Anglo-Saxons could have produced an Alfred, so, probably, no other race could have carried out such plans as Alfred formed. It is a race which has always been distinguished, like Alfred their great prototype and model, for a certain cool and intrepid energy in war, combined with and surpassed by the industry, the system, the efficiency, and the perseverance with which they pursue and perfect all the arts of peace. They systematize every thing. They arrange—they organize. Every thing in their hands takes form, and advances to continual improvement. ”

“ Neot, there is no doubt that the historical Alfred has been deformed in [28] an extraordinary degree by the same agency. And in the present instance we may be glad, I think, to free the historical Alfred from the atmosphere of morbid religiosity which taints this whole passage. It may be noted that Florence, with his usual good sense, has entirely recast the incident, so as to remove most of the absurdities above enumerated. Whether the other two passages, which refer to Alfred’s illness [100] , are also to be rejected is less easy to say. ”

“ Britain would have become an outpost of the restored heathenism, which could then have been with difficulty repulsed from the Eastern and Western Frankish empires, afflicted as they were by similar attacks, and governed by the discordant and weak princes who then ruled them. At this moment of peril King Alfred appeared. It was not merely for his own interests, nor merely for those of England, but for those of the world, that he fought. He is rightly called 'the Great;' a title fairly due only to those who have maintained great universal interests, and not merely those of their own country. ”

“ Beneath the visiting moon [929] .’ Florence’s noble panegyric on Alfred is well known, where he tells how there passed away ‘Alfred the king of the Anglo-Saxons, the son of the most pious king Æthelwulf, the famous, the warlike, the victorious, the careful provider for the widow, the helpless [930] , the orphan and the poor; the most skilled of Saxon poets, most dear to his own nation, courteous to all, most liberal; endowed with prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance; most patient in the infirmity from which he continually suffered ”

“ From Wales Alfred got Asser, as we have seen. But Britain alone could not supply Alfred’s needs; and the Frankish empire was now to repay to England some small portion of the debt which it owed for Boniface and Alcuin, in the persons of Grimbald and John the Old Saxon. Of the latter not much is known [623] . He was a monk of Corvey, and was made by Alfred abbot of his new monastery of Athelney. The story of his attempted murder there has been already alluded to [624] . The date of his coming to England is not known. The chronology of Grimbald’s life is also very obscure. ”

“ The son of the oldest son takes precedence always of the brother, for hereditary rights, like water, never move laterally so long as they can continue to descend.
The nobles, however, and chieftains, and all the leading powers of the kingdom of Wessex, which was the particular kingdom which descended from Alfred's ancestors, united to urge Alfred to take the throne. His father had, indeed, designated him as the successor of his [page 132] brothers by his will, though how far a monarch may properly control by his will the disposal of his realm, is a matter of great uncertainty. ”