King Alfred the Great

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He was made King just after the Danes had gained a great victory, and for the first eight years of his reign he was fighting them continually. At one time they had conquered almost the whole of England, and they would have killed Alfred if they could have found him.
You know, a wise prince always disguises himself when danger becomes very great. So Alfred disguised himself as a farm labourer, and went to live with a farmer, who used to make him feed the beasts and help about the farm, and had no idea that this labourer was the great King himself. ”

“ King Alfred died exactly one thousand years ago. Great Britain and the English-speaking world have just held fitting commemorations of this event. It is an occasion when the civilized world dwells with admiration upon one of the world's greatest characters. ”

“ He was chosen king over his brother’s son, who was a mere lad, because the English wanted a brave leader at this perilous time, and Alfred had shown his courage in many a fierce fight with the invaders.
2. Alfred the Great.—Few kings have been such good rulers as Alfred, and few have had so many difficulties to overcome. When quite a little lad at his mother’s knee he was fond of reading and learning, although books at that time were very scarce. He was sent to Rome when four years old, and there learned much which helped him greatly after he became king. ”

“ Little by little they came to recognize in Alfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen. Never had it seen a king who lived solely for the good of his people. Never had it seen a ruler who set aside every personal aim to devote himself solely to the welfare of those whom he ruled. It was this grand self-mastery that gave him his power over the men about him. Warrior and conqueror as he was, they saw him set aside at thirty the warrior's dream of conquest; and the self-renouncement of Wedmore struck the keynote of his reign. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Edmund. In 867 the never-ending civil discords of Northumbria opened that country also to the invaders; and there too a separate peace was made, and a puppet king, Egbert, was set up by the Danes [429] in the district north of the Tyne, just as they set up Ceolwulf, a few years later, in Mercia. Mercia’s turn was to come the following year.
Accession of Æthelred; Alfred’s public life begins.
But meanwhile, in 866, Æthelred had succeeded his brother Æthelberht on the throne of Wessex, and it is under Æthelred that the public life of Alfred begins. ”

“ Early the next morning soldiers loudly knocked at the door, and said, “We seek King Alfred!” Then she knew she had treated her king shamefully. Alfred was great and good enough to ask her forgiveness for burning the cakes.
Soon after that the king gathered his men together again, won a great battle, drove the Danes back to their own country, and all the rest of his days ruled his people wisely and well. But this story of King Alfred and the Cakes has never been forgotten in all the after years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It might be injured pride, stern necessity, or the very despair which drives men to retire from the contest, to wait for better days. There is one undeniable point clearly in his favour, he did not retreat to enjoy a life of luxury and ease, but to endure one of hardship, privation, and suffering. In this he still remained the great and noble-hearted king. Asser, who loved him, clearly proves that Alfred, at this time, laboured under a low, desponding, and melancholy feeling. ”

“ II In the year 871, when Alfred was twenty-two years old, the Danes invaded various parts of England. Some great battles were fought, and Alfred’s elder brother Ethelred, king of the West Saxons, was killed. Thus Alfred became king.
The Danes still continued to fight the Saxons, and defeated Alfred in a long and severe struggle. They took for themselves the northern and eastern parts of England.
Moreover, Danes from Denmark continued to cross the sea and ravage the coast of Saxon England. They kept the people in constant alarm. ”

“ It has always been a puzzle to me, but doubtless so wise a man must have known what was best. But to your king the fighting is not a duty but a pleasure. He is greedy of it. He grudges it to others. He would like to do all of it himself. Yes; you are right, he is an incomparable warrior. He is a veritable Achilles. ”

“ So, in three days from the breaking up of his little camp at Athelney, Alfred was once more King of all England south of the Thames; for this army of pagans, shut up within their earthworks on Bratton Edge, are little better than a broken and disorderly rabble, with no supplies and no chance of succor from any quarter. Nevertheless he will make sure of them, and above all will guard jealously against any such mishap as that of 876, when they stole out of Wareham, murdered the horsemen he had left to watch them, and got away to Exeter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The flight of the king was the signal for a general rout, as far, at least, as the left wing and centre of the Persian host were concerned. It was no longer a battle; it was a massacre. Alexander pressed furiously on, eager to capture the fugitive Darius. But the very completeness of his victory, it may be said, hindered him. So headlong was the flight that the dust, which, after months of burning summer heat, lay thick upon the plain, rose like the smoke of some vast conflagration. The darkness was as the darkness of night. ”

“ But so it has been, and I weep therefor in my very heart."
Then said I:
"What is past is past, King Alfred, and best friend. Look on to the days to come, for I think that there shall rise a new and happier England before the winter comes again. There is no man whom I have met in all the hosts in whose heart is not love and best thoughts of you. Old days are forgotten as if they had never been, save that you led and conquered in the great battles beyond the Thames." ”

“ But besides the King's faithful neatherd, whose name is not preserved, there are other churls in the forest, who must be Alfred's comrades just now if he will have any. And even here he has an eye for a good man, and will lose no opportunity to help one to the best of his power. Such a one he finds in a certain swineherd called Denewulf, whom he gets to know, a thoughtful Saxon man, minding his charge there in the oak woods. The rough churl, or thrall, we know not which, has great capacity, as Alfred soon finds out, and desire to learn. ”

“ In this way the West Saxon folk heard of great, unknown countries and peoples, and the sons of the nobles learned not only "to run, to ride, to swim and to make runes or rhymes," but to be great rulers and adventurers as their forefathers had been.
Alfred was a very busy King, for not only had he to receive ambassadors and counsellors, but he had to ride through the land, seeing justice done, and restoring the ruined churches and monasteries. He taught the workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, "to build houses majestic and good, beyond all that had been built before. ”

“ And a king’s raw material and instruments of rule are a well-peopled land, and he must have men of prayer, men of war, and men of work.... Without these tools he cannot perform any of the tasks entrusted to him.’
Court school.
It was with a view to providing these necessary ‘tools,’ that Alfred seems to have established, probably after the example of Charles the Great [617] , a Court school, for the education specially of the sons of the upper classes, in which books of both languages, Latin and Saxon, were read, especially the Psalms and Saxon poems, and writing also was taught ”

“ So excited were the soldiers that there was no knowing what they might not do. Were a fatal result to follow, the guard itself would hardly be able to protect the unfortunate man. Charondas obtained, as he had expected, admission for himself and his companion by the mention of his name. The first sight of the physician was curiously reassuring. He was perfectly calm and confident. “What about the king?” was the question eagerly put to him. “Do not fear,” was the quiet reply, “he will recover.” Just as he spoke a slave entered the room with a communication from the attendants of the king. ”

“ David’s by Hemeid, king of Dyfed, who had on one occasion expelled Archbishop Novis, Asser’s relative, and himself. Alfred was in a position to help, for some time previously all the princes of South Wales had commended themselves to Alfred; Hemeid himself, and Helised ap Teudyr, king of Brecheiniog, owing to the pressure of the sons of Rotri Mawr, king of North Wales; while Howel ap Rhys, king of Glewissig, Brochmail and Fernmail, sons of Mouric, kings of Gwent, took the same step, owing to the pressure of Æthelred of Mercia. ”