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was to commit to memory in like manner 'certain psalms and prayers, written out together in a little book which he bare day and night in his bosom to aid his devotions amid the stress and strain of his life.”

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§ 8. And from the first he set himself to 'keep under his body and bring it into subjection.' To this end, in the fervour of enthusiastic boyhood, 'oft would he rise in the morn at cock-crow, and go to pray in the churches and before the relics of the saints. There would he prostrate himself on the ground, and pray that God in His mercy would stablish his heart yet more in His service by some infirmity, such as he might bear, but not such as would render him imbecile and unequal to his work in this world.' His prayers 'after long time' were heard, and he became subject from his childhood onwards' to a painful and mysterious ailment, which aided him to keep in check the temptations of youth, and to counteract whatever there might be of evil in the influence of Judith.

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§ 9. And when he was yet but seventeen that influence disappeared from his life, and was succeeded by one very different. Judith, after six years' widowhood, was, in 867, married for the third time, while yet only twenty-five, to Baldwin Bras-de-fer, Count of Flanders. And simultaneously with her departure from England we first find mention of Alfred's devotion to St. Neot.

§ 10. The individuality of this saint has been a matter of some controversy; but the most probable conclusion is that he was none other than Alfred's own eldest brother, Athelstane, who in 851 renounced the Crown of Kent (then the usual appanage of the heir-apparent of Wessex), and betook himself to religion at Glastonbury. After seven years there, he went on to Rome, and on his return presided over an abbey of his own in Cornwall, and seems, until his death in 876, to have been the most special friend and counsellor of Alfred. And he remained the object of unforgotten reverence, not only to Alfred himself, but to his heroic son and

1 Asser, § 28.

In the A.S. Chronicle we find him King of Kent in the earlier entries for 851, but his brother Ethelbald in the later.

daughter. When the latter delivered Mercia from the yoke of the Danes, she called by his name one of the fortress towns which she founded on the Ouse to keep them in check, St. Neot's; and the former christened after this sainted uncle his own eldest son, Athelstane, afterwards Athelstane 'the Magnificent,' the mighty King of the English and Emperor of Britain.

§ 11. By his counsel, presumably, Alfred, on his betrothal (at nineteen) to a Mercian lady of high degree, prayed that the Lord would change his 'thorn in the flesh' for some other malady, as effectual, but less grievously incapacitating. His prayer was heard-his early complaint vexed him no more; but on the very day of his wedding he was seized by an access of ghastly pain, so that all the wedding-guests were filled with wonder and pity. Many thought that this came through the malice of the devil, who ever grudgeth at the good;' but the general opinion held it to be due to the evil influence ['favore et fascinatione'] of the admiring looks bent from all sides upon the bridegroom; in accordance with the primitive popular superstition (found in every part of the world, and still surviving even amongst English rustics), that overadmiration is 'unlucky' for a young person. None, save Alfred and his sainted brother, dreamt that it was indeed a sign of God's favour-His answer to the victim's own prayer. The attack soon passed; but from that hour forward until the day of his death Alfred was never secure from its recurrence, and a constant prey to the depression it left behind. Again and again it tormented him, 'and if ever, by God's mercy, he was relieved for a single day or night, yet the fear and dread of that horrible pain never left him, but made him almost useless, in his own thought, for every duty either to God or man.'

§ 12. Such was Alfred when, at twenty-two, he found himself called to the throne in the most desperate case that ever King knew. We may well believe, with Asser, that it was with the greatest reluctance that he accepted the place to which he had so long before been anointed, and which was now his 'by the grant of God and the goodwill of the landfolk, one and all.' He might have had it, adds the biographer,

before this,' and that by the assent of all men,' for all that he was the youngest of his family; 'seeing that both in wisdom, and eke in all good ways, was he better than all his brethren put together.' But with characteristic meekness he waited his turn, and even now took up the regal duties in humble diffidence. 'For it seemed unto him that never might he, all alone, without one brother to aid, endure so grievous a stress and strain.' But with indomitable courage he set himself to overcome at once his own physical infirmity and the overwhelming onset of the heathen hosts. How nobly, how miraculously, he succeeded in achieving both conquests his subsequent annals relate.

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Outset of Alfred's reign-The nine battles of 871-Wessex cleared of Danes-Their settlements elsewhere-Alfred's early reforms-His wondrous versatility.

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HE first and extremest need was to clear Wessex of the Danes. The kingdom was all but at the last gasp. The heathen 'host' had entered the land with the vernal equinox, and entrenched themselves at Reading. Within a week they had fought one battle at Englefield with the English levies, and crushed them in another before Reading itself. The second week saw their own overwhelming defeat by Ethelred and Alfred at Ashdown, so dramatically told by the chroniclers, in whose pages we see the royal brothers assisting at Mass when the alarm of the Danish approach reached them. We see Alfred spring to his feet on the news and rush out to array his army, 'with such skill as the warrior Judas [Maccabæus] going forth to battle'; while Ethelred, refusing 'for any man on earth, to turn his back on Divine Service," remained in church till the Mass was over. We see the dense phalanx 3 of the English under Alfred charge, sword in hand, 'with the rush of a wild boar,' up the hill against the foe; the shock of the two hosts with loud shouts " around the low lone thorn-tree '5 upon the slope; the warriors falling on either side by fifties, by hundreds, and by thousands';" the mortal struggle turned at last by the decisive onset of the

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English reserves under Ethelred, 'sheathed in armour and in prayer,"1 cutting down two Danish leaders with his own hand," and putting the whole horde to a panic flight, in which most of their other chieftains fell, 'with many thousand heathen ' more, covering with their corpses the field far and wide.'

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§ 2. Yet within a fortnight they had rallied, and could win in another desperate fight at Basing, and now it became a harder task to raise forces to resist them. The best and bravest of Wessex had fallen, and two months passed before the brothers could face the invaders again-to be again beaten at Merton, in Surrey, and Ethelred mortally wounded. While he was dying at Wimborne, in Dorset-so far westwards had the English been driven-came a new and exceptionally strong Danish 'summer - lead' to join their comrades at Reading. And now the fortunes of England seemed desperate indeed. It was but 'a small band' that Alfred could bring to follow him in the forlorn hope with which he dashed against the united hosts of the heathen at Wilton, in the first month of his reign.

§ 3. The odds were too great, and the Danes won yet again. But so desperate had been Alfred's onset, ' so rough the English hand-play,' and so doubtful the fight, that they were fain to enter into negotiations, and to make peace with the young King, on the sole condition of withdrawing from his own immediate realm of Wessex. This, of course, meant that they were left free to work their will in the dependent kingdoms-Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. It was a sad necessity, but there was no help for it. London itself had to be given up to the enemy, and Alfred had to look on at the dethronement of his brother-in-law, Burghred, the last King of Mercia (who died in exile at Rome), and the establishment of Danish settlements all over England north of the Thames. The termination 'by' (the Scandinavian equivalent for 'burgh') in Derby, Whitby, and many another town and village, marks to this day the districts where the new invaders set themselves down most thickly and most permanently on the land.

§ 4. Thus passed four miserable years, during which we

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