List of Illustrations TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT (Photogravure) Frontispiece OUTLINE MAP OF ENGLAND BEFORE THE COMING OF THE DANES page 60 WHITE HORSE HILL (BERKS.) facing page 101 . 188 COUNT GLEICHEN'S STATUE, WANTAGE . (From a photograph by T. Reveley.) KING ALFRED'S JEWEL RUINS OF HYDE ABBEY, WINCHESTER facing page 254 (From a photograph by W. T. Green.) PAGE FROM THE SHEPHERD'S BOOK 264 338 RUINS OF WOLVESEY ABBEY (From a photograph by W. T. GREEN.) HYDE ABBEY CHURCH (From a photograph by W. T. Green.) SUPPOSED RESTING-PLACE OF ALFRED'S BONES (From a photograph by W. T. Green.) 355 366 OF THE UNIVERSITY OF Chapter 1 The Child and his Forbears “The first duty of every man who would be great is to choose good parents.”—The Note-Book. ALFRED 1 was the fifth son of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, and Osburh his first wife. He was born in the royal vill of Wantage in Berkshire, in the year 849 A.D. The town has now, in its wide market-place, broad streets, and small houses, the aspect of a well-bred country town of the last century. It has commemorated its chief title to fame by a fine but imaginative statue of Alfred in the market-place. The only other mark which Alfred's association with the place has left is the name of a field at the top of the town, known to local tradition as King Alfred's meadow. Of Alfred's father we know enough to see that some of the characteristics of the great king were hereditary. Æthelwulf had the reputation of leaning to the contemplative, rather than the active, 1 The modern form of the name is so general, that it would be pedantic to return to the older and more correct spelling, Ælfred. |
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