Page images
PDF
EPUB

summoned to meet them. For the enemy, a horde of fighters always under arms, living on their plunder, were under no necessity ever to lay aside their swords for ploughshares, or to rear flocks and herds for themselves; they preferred to carry off those of others.

§ 5. All this was grasped by Alfred as it had never been grasped before, and he created a way out of the difficulty which had all the originality and all the simplicity of true genius. During the fourteen years of almost continuous peace which the Treaty of Wedmore had given him, he had been diligently elaborating a workable scheme of national defence. He had organized the able-bodied men of every district in England into linked battalions, which in time of need were called out alternately, for some limited period, of probably two or three weeks' duration. When the summons came, every man in the country knew his place in this landwehr, and was ready to serve his time. Thus, the King was able to operate continuously against the foe, who, go where they would, found the English ready for them at every point. The result was triumphant: the hapless freebooters were allowed no rest, but were incessantly hustled from side to side of the land, like shuttles in a loom.

§ 6. Their first endeavour was to effect a junction between their two armies from Appledore and Milton, their common objective being London, now, since Alfred's restoration of the city, recognised as the key of England. Alfred, however, anticipated the design, and sent his son Edward, afterwards King, to occupy, at Farnham, a strategic position between the headquarters of the two pirate hosts. The Prince, thus acting on interior lines, was able, when they made their effort, to inflict decisive defeat, first on one and then the other, ere they could unite.

$ 7. Thus worsted in the East, their next attempt was to transfer the seat of war to the West. But those who went round by sea to Devon were there kept in check by Alfred himself; while those who, by a hasty dash up the Thames Valley, reached the Severn were rolled back again with heavy loss to seek a breathing-space in Essex. Finding none, they made a forced march right across England, 'at

one stretch day and night,' till they ensconced themselves in a waste chester in Wirrall, which hight Lege-ceaster.'

§ 8. This chester' was none other than Chester itself, the Roman Deva, which had lain waste ever since its destruction by Ethelfrith of Northumbria in 607, after the great battle in which he fulfilled Augustine's prophecy that if the Welsh would not help in converting the English, they would themselves suffer from their heathen ferocity. The city was then utterly depopulated, but, as was the case with most of the Romano-British towns, it was not occupied by the conquerors. To the genius of the early Teutonic mind, the idea of city life was alien. Like the great Earl of Douglas, they were 'fainer to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak,' and an existence within stone walls was repulsive to them. Thus, when they took a Roman town, they sacked and burnt it, but left the site unheld for generations, sometimes, as at Anderida, even to this day. And they called the spot by a Roman name, castrum, Anglicized into 'caster,' 'chester,' or 'cester,' adding, if it had been a military station of note, a reminiscence of the fact in the prefix Leg, i.e., legion.

§ 9. Here for a short space the hunted Danes were able to rest, behind the old Roman walls still in part standing. But their repose was brief, and next spring, after eating their horses for hunger, they retired again to Essex, withdrawing their fleet also from Devon, and thus giving up their whole western design. Further heavy loss attended an attempted landing at Chichester, and when they reached Essex the survivors were so rash as to take their whole fleet up the Lea to Ware, twenty miles above the newly-rebuilt London. The little river must have been filled from bank to bank for miles with the warcraft-long black, clinker-built galleys of beautiful lines, light enough in draught to float in such a stream as the Lea, yet seaworthy enough to face the stormy waves of the North Sea and the Channel.

§ 10. Alfred's eagle eye saw the opportunity at a glance. He seized in force on both banks of the stream below them, and they found themselves hopelessly barred from the sea. There was nothing for it but to abandon the entire fleet, which was carried in triumph to London, and make yet

another despairing rush westwards. Once again they were met and driven back, at Coatbridge on the Severn, and now they had had enough of it. Then did the host break up' into a disorganized medley of small predatory gangs. And some went to East Anglia, and some to Northumbria, and Hasting and they with him crossed again the sea, without spoil and without honour, and so put in to Seine-mouth.'

[ocr errors]

§ II. 'Thanked be God,' writes the Anglo-Saxon chronicler -and we may well believe that Alfred's own voice dictated the words 'this host brought not England to utter ruin';1 a contemporary murrain among cattle and mortality among leading men being held much more serious calamities than the invasion. Nor did the Danes ever gather head again. A few pirate 'esks' tried to ravage the south coast next year (897), but they were easily overcome by the 'long ships' built by Alfred against them. They were full nigh twice as long as the esks; some had sixty oars, some more; they were both swifter and steadier, and eke higher than the others. They were shapen neither after the Frisian fashion, nor yet the Danish, but so as it seemed to the King they would best profit.' The pirate crews were justly hanged; and after this no serious Viking invasion troubled the land for nearly a century. When next the Danes returned in force, it was in the miserable reign of Ethelred the Unready.

1 Noesde se here (Godes Jances) Angel-cyn calles sor swide gebrocod.

:

CHAPTER IX.

Many-sided greatness of Alfred-His educational reforms-Status of clergy-Asser-Alfred's handbook.

[ocr errors]

T

HE short remainder of Alfred's life was thus passed in peace, peace well earned by his true greatness in war. Few Kings of England have shown more heroism and ability in the field of battle. Yet his distinction in the field of battle is by far the least of the glories of Alfred. Great as a warrior, he was yet greater as a statesman, greater still as a saint, greatest of all as a man of letters. It is this wondrous many-sidedness which makes the name of Alfred shine with a lustre beyond that of any other monarch before or since. In him we are reminded of Julius Cæsar, the master of statecraft and warcraft, the engineer, the law-giver, and the writer; and yet more, perhaps, of David, the conqueror of the Philistines, the organizer of the Hebrew monarchy, the deviser of the Temple, the sweet singer of Israel. But neither Cæsar nor David can show a record so fair as that of Alfred.

2. We have seen how from the first beginning of his reign he set himself to the instruction of his people, materially, spiritually, and intellectually; and though his work must have been interrupted almost at its commencement by the great Danish inroad of 876, it was resumed after the Peace of Wedmore with fresh energy. For that great deliverance had made the King 'England's darling" indeed ; and henceforward he shone out before every eye as the ideal hero and pattern.

1 See the Proverbs of Alfred.

Whatever line of life any one of his subjects might take up, it was to Alfred that he looked as the supreme example of success in that line. In literature, in poetry, in art, in scientific attainments, in bodily exercises, in military skill, in statesmanship, and, above all, in religion, it was Alfred, and Alfred, and yet again Alfred, who was acclaimed by every tongue to be the best man in the kingdom, the holder of every record in the land. And when all this was joined with a courtesy and affability royal indeed, we can imagine the enthusiasm which such a monarch would kindle in every class of his subjects, with what loyalty and what love he would be regarded.

§ 3. And one and all were made to feel themselves special objects of the interest and affection of their King. 'His Bishops, his Aldermen, his Thanes, his counsellors, yea, and all under him, did he love with exceeding love. And their sons, brought up with his own royal family, regarded he as his own -never tired, night and day, in teaching them virtue and profitable learning.' His own children were 'committed to the care of masters at schools of learning, as also be all the high-born youth in the land, and many low-born. Here is there diligent reading both in the Latin tongue and no less in the Saxon. Writing also do they learn, so that ere they come to strength for hunting and such-like exercises as beseem their birth, they are already studious and skilled in liberal arts.' And when old enough for a life in their father's Court,' while taking part in the wonted pursuits befitting their rank, they are not suffered to pass their time in listless idleness. For they have carefully learned the Psalms, also Saxon works, and, beyond all, Saxon poetry, and are for ever reading books.' 'Yea, they abide even until now, worshipping their father, enjoying the love of all about them, showing deference, courtesy, and gentleness to all, both inland folk and outland.' It is a pleasing comment on this passage of Asser to read in the chronicles of Edward, Alfred's son, that he never failed to visit his old nurse whenever his progresses brought him into the neighbourhood where she dwelt. He had thought it shame not to do so.'

[ocr errors]

§ 4. Nor was it only the higher classes over whose education

« PreviousContinue »