the victory of Nectansmere in 685.
In the century
which followed Ecgfrith's defeat, its kings reduced
the Scots of Dalriada from nominal dependence to
actual subjection, the annexation of Angus and Fife
carried their eastern border to the sea, while to the
south their alliance with the Northumbrians in the
warfare which both waged on the Welsh extended
their bounds on the side of Cumbria or Strath-Clyde.
But the hour of Pictish greatness was marked by the
extinction of the Pictish name. In the midst of
the ninth century the direct line of their royal house
came to an end, and the under-king of the Scots of
Dalriada, Kenneth Mac Alpin, ascended the Pictish
throne in right of his maternal descent.1 For fifty
years more Kenneth and his successors remained
kings of the Picts. At the moment we have reached
however, the title passed suddenly away, the tribe
which had given its chief to the throne gave its name
to the realm, and "Pict-land" disappeared from history
to make room first for Alban or Albania, and then
for "the land of the Scots." 2 With these internal
revolutions its English neighbours had little concern.
But a common suffering drew the new monarchy in
the north to the new monarchy which was rising
in the south, for the storm of invasion had broken
more roughly over Alban than over England itself.

1 The most complete account of Pictish history during this obscure period is given by Skene in his "Celtic Scotland,” i. cap. vi. Kenneth's accession was in 844.

2 Skene, "Celtic Scotl." i. 335. The first instance of the use of "Scotti" for any inhabitants of "Pict-land" proper seems to be in 877. Skene, "Celtic Scotl." i. 328. "Pictavia" becomes "Albania" from 889. Ibid. i. 335.

CHAP. IV.

Elfred.

878901.

Ælfred.

878. 901.

CHAP. IV. Shattered by a strife in which its northern and western districts had become almost independent, and menaced with the danger of actual extinction, it was natural that the kingdom of the Scots should look for friendship if not for actual succour to the West Saxons and their king.

Elfred death.

The strife however for which this diplomacy was preparing the way, was to be wrought by hands other than the king's. Hardly four years in fact had passed since the triumph over Hasting when the “stillness” he had sighed for came to him. Ælfred died on the 28th of October, 901. "So long as I have lived," he wrote, as life was closing about him, "I have striven to live worthily." It is this height and singleness of purpose, this concentration of every faculty on the noblest aim, that lifts Elfred out of the narrow bounds of Wessex, for if the sphere of his action seems too small to justify a comparison of him with the few whom the world owns as its greatest men, he rises to their level in the moral grandeur of his life. And it is this that still hallows his memory among Englishmen. He stands indeed in the forefront of his race, for he is the noblest as he is the most complete embodiment of all that is great, all that is loveable in the English temper, of its practical energy, its patient and enduring force, of the reserve and self-control that give steadiness and sobriety to a wide outlook and a restless daring, of its temperance and fairness, its frankness and openness, its sensitiveness to affection, its poetic tenderness, its deep and reverent religion. Religion indeed was the groundwork of Ælfred's character. His temper

was instinct with piety. Everywhere throughout his writings that remain to us the name of God, the thought of God, stir him to outbursts of ecstatic. adoration. But of the narrowness, the want of proportion, the predominance of one quality over another which commonly goes with an intensity of religious feeling or of moral purpose he showed not a trace. He felt none of that scorn of the world about him which drove the nobler souls of his day to monastery or hermitage. Vexed as he was by sickness and constant pain, not only did his temper take no touch of asceticism, but a rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity and mobility of nature, gave colour and charm to his life. He had the restless outlook of the artistic nature, its tenderness and susceptibility, its quick apprehension of unseen danger, its craving for affection, its sensitiveness to wrong. It was with himself rather than with his reader that he communed, as thought of the foe without or of ingratitude and opposition within broke the calm pages of Gregory or Boethius; but the loneliness that breathes in such words never begot in him a contempt for men or the judgement of men. Nor could danger or disappointment check for an hour his vivid activity. From one end of his reign to the other every power was bent to the work of rule. His practical energy found scope for itself in a material and administrative restoration of the wasted land; his intellectual energy breathed fresh life into education and literature; while his capacity for inspiring trust and affection drew the hearts of Englishmen to a common centre, and began the upbuilding of a new England. Little by little men

CHAP. IV.

Ælfred.

878

901.

CHAP. IV.

Ælfred.

878901.

came to recognize in Ælfred a ruler of higher and nobler stamp than the world had seen. Never had it seen a king who lived only 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 won him love and reverence in his own day, and it is this that has hallowed his memory ever since. "I desire," said the King, to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works." His aim has been more than fulfilled. His memory has come down to us with a living distinctness through the mists of exaggeration and legend which time gathered round it. The instinct of the people has clung to him with a singular affection. The love which he won a thousand years ago has lingered round his name from that day to this.

66

While every other name

of those earlier times has all but faded from the recollection of Englishmen, that of Ælfred remains familiar to every English child.

CHAPTER V.

THE HOUSE OF ELFRED.

901-937.

WITH the death of Elfred the work for which he had so long prepared passed into the hands of his Eadward seems only partially to have shared

son.1

1 For Eadward's reign the great authority is the English Chronicle. The portion of this work due to Ælfred's pen, or written under his supervision, probably ends in 891 [Earle, "Parallel Chron." Intr. xv.-xvii.], but from 891 to Eadward's death in 924 the annals are carried on by a writer of singular force. Of the years from 894 to 897 Earle says, "This is the most remarkable piece of writing in the whole series of Chronicles. It is a warm, vigorous, earnest narrative, free from the rigidity of the other annals, full of life and originality. Compared with that passage every other piece of prose, not in these Chronicles merely, but throughout the whole range of extant Saxon literature must assume a secondary rank." ["Parallel Chron." Intr. xvi.] But the years that follow, though told with less warmth and fulness, are told in the same spirit. From 901 to 910 indeed the narrative is scanty; but from 910 to 924 "we have a steady, regular, well-written narrative, homogeneous and unmixed in matter, like the head-piece of this section, and unlike all the rest of the Chronicle. It is all sieges and battles, and fortifications, and garrisons, and surrenders, and armed pacifications. It is a model of uniformity, both in matter and manner." [Earle, "Parallel Chron." Intr. xviii.]

Eadward the Elder.