HISTORICAL MEMOIRS

OF

ROYAL ANCESTORS.

Alfred the Great.

O name in English history is so popular, and so justly popular, as that of Alfred the Great. That he taught his people to defend themselves and defeat their enemies, is the least of his many claims to our grateful admiration; he did much more than this; he gave the first impulse to the spirit of civilization, and taught a horde of wild barbarians that there were other and worthier pursuits than war or the pleasures of the table. In fact, he was one of those highly-gifted men, that would seem to be raised up especially by Providence, to meet certain emergencies, or to advance the career of nations. Such was the hero, so beautifully recorded by the pen of Edmund Burke, and of whose history we now purpose to give a slight sketch, for the amusement of those who might turn in weariness from a more ample record.

Alfred the Great was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in the year 849, one of the most dreary and calamitous periods of English chronicle. He was the youngest son of Ethelwulph, a mild and virtuous prince, but full of a timid piety, which utterly disqualified him for the circumstances in which he was placed.

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According to the historian, Asser, young Alfred, being of a more comely person and sweeter disposition than his elder brothers, became the favourite of both his parents, and was sent by them to Rome, while yet a child, in order that he might be anointed king by the pope himself. But though the feeble piety of Ethelwulph showed this especial instance of regard for his son, he altogether neglected his education, and the young prince in his twelfth year had not yet learned to read or write. Fortunately for himself, and still more so for the kingdom he was afterwards to govern, he possessed a mind too active to be entirely subdued by the most unfavourable circumstances. If he could not read for himself, he nevertheless loved to listen to the rude but inspiring strains of Saxon poetry when recited by others, and had he not been a hero and a statesman, he might probably have been a poet. At length, as the old chronicler tells us,—“ on a certain day, his mother was shewing him and his brothers a Saxon book of poetry, which she held in her hand, and said, 'Whichever of you shall the soonest learn this volume, shall have it for his own."" Thus stimulated, Alfred bent himself to the task with all that steady ardour which so strongly characterized him in after-life, and easily won the prize from his tardy competitors. This gave a fresh impulse to his natural appetite for learning; even his passion for the chase could not divert him from earnest study; nor was he to be deterred by what might have been a better excuse for indolence, the incessant tortures of the secret malady which had attacked him while yet a child, and which never left him but with life. What this secret disease was, the old chroniclers have forgotten, or for some reasons omitted, to explain.

In 871, Alfred succeeded his brother in the sovereignty of Wessex, at a period when the whole country was suffering under the ravages of the Danes, who burnt, plundered, and destroyed, without the least distinction of age, sex, or profession. Being still pagans, the convent was no more sacred with them than the

palace or the cottage. They waged war upon all alike, and the general misery was yet farther increased by a raging pestilence, and the internal dissensions of the people.

Alfred now for the first time took the field against these brave, but ruthless, invaders. He was defeated; yet such was his skill and courage, that he was able to maintain the struggle till at length a peace, or rather a truce, was concluded between the combatants, for these intervals of calm seldom lasted beyond a year. Neither was this the worst of the evils that beset the Saxon prince. Any compact he might make with one party of the Danes was considered binding only upon that party, and had no influence whatever upon others of their countrymen, who had different leaders and different interests. Thus, upon the present occasion, Alfred had no sooner made terms with one piratical horde, than he was invaded by a fresh body of them under Rollo ; and when he had compelled these to abandon Wessex, and seek for an easier conquest on the shores of Normandy, he was attacked by fresh bodies of Danes already settled in the other parts of England. So long, however, as they ventured to meet him in the open field, his skill secured him the victory; till, taught by repeated defeats, they had recourse to another system of tactics.

They used," says Burke, "suddenly to land and ravage a part of the country; when a force opposed them, they retired to their ships, and passed to some other part, which in a like manner they ravaged, and then retired as before, until the country, entirely harassed, pillaged, and wasted by their incursions, was no longer able to resist them. Then they ventured safely to enter a desolated and disheartened country, and to establish themselves in it."

To meet this system of warfare, it was necessary to create a navy at a time when the Saxons knew not how to build ships, or to manage them when built. But the genius of Alfred triumphed over every obstacle. He brought shipwrights from the continent, himself assisted the workmen in their labours, and

engaged Frisian seamen, the neighbours of the Danes, and, like them, pirates.

The new armament being completed, Alfred fell upon a Danish fleet, which was bringing round a large force from Wareham, to the relief of their friends besieged in Exeter. These he defeated at all points, taking or destroying no less than a hundred and twenty, already damaged by a previous storm, and perhaps, on that account, less capable of defence. The Danes, whom he held cooped up in Exeter, found themselves in consequence compelled to surrender, and, giving hostages not to trouble Wessex any longer, they settled themselves in Mercia, after the example of so many of their countrymen, and became occupants of the land they had before ravaged. Thus Alfred, in the seventh year of his reign, had lost nothing by the war waged under so many difficulties and disadvantages, enough to have overwhelmed a man of less energy and genius; he still retained that portion of the kingdom which lies south of the Thames, the only part ever belonging to him in separate sovereignty, while the Danes. possessed all the country on the northern side of the river. The rest of the land was thus divided. Halfdane reigned in Northumberland; his brother, in East Anglia; and Guthrum, Osketel, and Amund, governed with their subordinate king, Ceowulph, in Mercia.

There now occurs a difficulty in the life of Alfred, unexplained by the most industrious of his historians from any satisfactory record. We have just seen him triumphant, and at peace with his defeated enemies. Suddenly, without the notice of any lost battle, we find him seeking refuge in the cottage of a herdsman in the Isle of Ethelingeye, or Island of Nobles, now called Athelney. This spot, scarcely comprising two acres of ground, was surrounded on all sides by marshes, so that it could be approached only in a boat, and in it flourished a considerable grove of alders, in which were stags, goats, and other animals. Here it is that the romantic incident of the burnt cake is sup

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posed to have occurred; a story told by many of the old writers, but nowhere so fully as in the Latin life of St. Neot. There we read that, "Alfred, a fugitive, and exiled from his people, came by chance and entered the house of a poor herdsman, and there remained some days in poverty, concealed and unknown.

"Now it happened that on the Sabbath day, the herdsman, as usual, led his cattle to their accustomed pastures, and the king remained alone with the man's wife. She, as necessity required, placed a few loaves, which some call loudas, on a pan, with fire underneath, to be baked for her husband's repast, on his return, as well as for her own.

"While she was of need busied, peasant-like, upon other affairs, she went anxious to the fire, and found the bread burning on the other side. She immediately assailed the king with reproaches. Why, man, do you sit thinking there, and are too proud to turn the bread? Whatever be your family, with such manners and sloth, what trust can be put in you hereafter? if you were a nobleman, you will be glad to eat the bread which you neglect to attend to.' The king, though stung by her upbraidings, yet heard her with patience and mildness, and roused by her scolding, took care to bake her bread as she wished."

This fable has been variously narrated; some accounts making the disguised prince busy in forming for himself a bow with arrows, and other instruments of war, while the woman gives vent to her indignation in rhyme :

"To turn the burning cakes you have forgot,

Prompt as you are to eat them when they're hot."

In a short time the king's retreat became known to his adherents, who flocking to him in numbers, he soon found himself enabled to carry on a sort of guerilla warfare upon the nearest Danes. Growing bolder from the general success of these sallies, he at length determined upon more decisive measures; but before making the attempt, it was expedient to learn the actual condition of his enemy. With this view he assumed the costume