The loaf was accordingly divided, the beggar was supplied, and, delighted with this unexpected relief, he went away. Alfred turned his attention again to his reading. After a time the book dropped from his hand. He had fallen asleep. He dreamed that a certain saint appeared to him, and made a revelation to him from heaven. God, he said, had heard his prayers, was satisfied with his penitence, and pitied his sorrows; and that his act of charity in relieving the poor beggar, even at the risk of leaving himself and his friends in utter destitution, was extremely acceptable in the sight of Heaven. The faith and trust which he thus manifested were about to be rewarded. The time for a change had come. He was to be restored to his kingdom, and raised to a new and higher state of prosperity and power than before. As a token that this prediction was true, and would be all fulfilled, the hunting party would return that night with an ample and abundant supply.

Alfred awoke from his sleep with his mind filled with new hopes and anticipations. The hunting party returned loaded with supplies, and in a state of the greatest exhilaration at their success. They had fish and game enough to have supplied a little army. The incident of relieving the beggar, the dream, and their unwonted success confirming it, inspired them all with confidence and hope. They began to form plans for commencing offensive operations. They would build fortifications to strengthen their position on the island. They would collect a force. They would make sallies to attack the smaller parties of the Danes. They would send agents and emissaries about the kingdom to arouse, and encourage, and assemble such Saxon forces as were yet to be found. In a word, they would commence a series of measures for recovering the country from the possession of its pestilent enemy, and for restoring the rightful sovereign to the throne. The development of these projects and plans, and the measures for carrying them into effect, were very much hastened by an event which suddenly occurred in the neighborhood of Ethelney, the account of which, however, must be postponed to the next chapter.

[Footnote 1: The name is spelled variously, Ethelney, AEthelney, Ethelingay, &c. It was in Somersetshire, between the rivers Thone and Parrot.]

[Footnote 2: As this incident has been so famous, it may amuse the reader to peruse the different accounts which are given of it in the most ancient records which now remain. They were written in Latin and in Saxon, and, of course, as given here, they are translations. The discrepancies which the reader will observe in the details illustrate well the uncertainty which pertains to all historical accounts that go back to so early an age.

"He led an unquiet life there, at his cow-herd's. It happened that, on a certain day, the rustic wife of the man prepared to bake her bread. The king, sitting then near the hearth, was making ready his bow and arrows, and other warlike implements, when the ill-tempered woman beheld the loaves burning at the fire. She ran hastily and removed them, scolding at the king, and exclaiming, 'You man! you will not turn the bread you see burning, but you will be very glad to eat it when it is done!' This unlucky woman little thought she was addressing the King Alfred."

In a certain Saxon history the story is told thus:

"He took shelter in a swain's house, and also him and his evil wife diligently served. It happened that, on one day, the swain's wife heated her oven, and the king sat by it warming himself by the fire. She knew not then that he was the king. Then the evil woman was excited, and spoke to the king with an angry mind. 'Turn thou these loaves, that they burn not, for I see daily that thou art a great eater!' He soon obeyed this evil woman because she would scold. He then, the good king, with great anxiety and sighing, called to his Lord, imploring his pity."

The following account is from a Latin life of St. Neot, which still exists in manuscript, and is of great antiquity:

"Alfred, a fugitive, and exiled from his people, came by chance and entered the house of a poor herdsman, and there remained some days concealed, poor and unknown.

"It happened that, on the Sabbath day, the herdsman, as usual, led his cattle to their accustomed pastures, and the king remained alone in the cottage 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 and her own, on his return.

"While she was necessarily busied, like peasants, on other offices, 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 your manners and sloth, what trust can be put in you hereafter? If you were even 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 thereafter as she wished."

There is one remaining account, which is as follows:

"It happened that the herdsman one day, as usual, led his swine to their accustomed pasture, and the king remained at home alone with the wife. She placed her bread under the ashes of the fire to bake, and was employed in other business when she saw the loaves burning, and said to the king in her rage, 'You will not turn the bread you see burning, though you will be very glad to eat it when done!' The king, with a submitting countenance, though vexed at her upbraidings not only turned the bread, but gave them to the woman well baked and unbroken."

It is obvious, from the character of these several accounts that each writer, taking the substantial fact as the groundwork of his story, has added such details and chosen such expressions for the housewife's reproaches as suited his own individual fancy. We find, unfortunately for the truth and trustworthiness of history, that this is almost always the case, when independent and original accounts of past transactions, whether great or small, are compared. The gravest historians, as well as the lightest story tellers, frame their narrations for effect, and the tendency in all ages to shape and fashion the narrative with a view to the particular effect designed by the individual narrator to be produced has been found entirely irresistible. It is necessary to compare, with great diligence and careful scrutiny, a great many different accounts, in order to learn how little there is to be exactly and confidently believed.]



CHAPTER IX.

REASSEMBLING OF THE ARMY.

Ethelney, though its precise locality can not now be certainly ascertained, was in the southwestern part of England, in Somersetshire, which county lies on the southern shore of the Bristol Channel. There is a region of marshes in that vicinity, which tradition assigns as the place of Alfred's retreat; and there was, about the middle of this century, a farmhouse there, which bore the name of Ethelney, though this name may have been given to it in modern times by those who imagined it to be the ancient locality. A jewel of gold, engraved as an amulet to be worn about the neck, and inscribed with the Saxon words which mean "Alfred had me made," was found in the vicinity, and is still carefully preserved in a museum in England. Some curious antiquarians profess to find the very hillock, rising out of the low grounds around, where the herdsman that entertained Alfred so long lived; but this, of course is all uncertain. The peculiarities of the spot derived their character from the morasses and the woods, and the courses of the sluggish streams in the neighborhood, and these are elements of landscape scenery which ten centuries of time and of cultivation would entirely change.

Whatever may have been the precise situation of the spot, instead of being, as at first, a mere hiding-place and retreat, it became, before many months, as was intimated in the last chapter, a military camp, secluded and concealed, it is true, but still possessing, in a considerable degree, the characteristics of a fastness and place of defense. Alfred's company erected something which might be called a wall. They built a bridge across the water where the herdsman's boat had been accustomed to ply. They raised two towers to watch and guard the bridge. All these defenses were indeed of a very rude and simple construction; still, they answered the purpose intended. They afforded a real protection; and, more than all, they produced a certain moral effect upon the minds of those whom they shielded, by enabling them to consider themselves as no longer lurking fugitives, dependent for safety on simple concealment, but as a garrison, weak, it is true, but still gathering strength, and advancing gradually toward a condition which would enable them to make positive aggressions upon the enemy.

The circumstance which occurred to hasten the development of Alfred's plans, and which was briefly alluded to at the close of the last chapter, was the following: It seems that quite a large party of Danes, under the command of a leader named Hubba, had been making a tour of conquest and plunder in Wales, which country was on the other side of the Bristol Channel, directly north of Ethelney, where Alfred was beginning to concentrate a force. He would be immediately exposed to an attack from this quarter as soon as it should be known that he was at Ethelney, as the distance across the Channel was not great, and the Danes were provided with shipping.

Ethelney was in the county called Somersetshire. To the southwest of Somersetshire, a little below it, on the shores of the Bristol Channel, was a castle, called Castle Kenwith, in Devonshire. The Duke of Devonshire, who held this castle, encouraged by Alfred's preparations for action, had assembled a considerable force here, to be ready to co-operate with Alfred in the active measures which he was about to adopt. Things being in this state, Hubba brought down his forces to the northern shores of the Channel, collected together all the boats and shipping that he could command, crossed the Channel, and landed on the Devonshire shore. Odun, the duke, not being strong enough to resist, fled, and shut himself up, with all his men, in the castle. Hubba advanced to the castle walls, and, sitting down before them, began to consider what to do.

Hubba was the last surviving son of Ragner Lodbrog, whose deeds and adventures were related in a former chapter. He was, like all other chieftains among the Danes, a man of great determination and energy, and he had made himself very celebrated all over the land by his exploits and conquests. His particular horde of marauders, too, was specially celebrated among all the others, on account of a mysterious and magical banner which they bore. The name of this banner was the Reafan, that is, the Raven. There was the figure of a raven woven or embroidered on the banner. Hubba's three sisters had woven it for their brothers, when they went forth across the German Ocean to avenge their father's death. It possessed, as both the Danes and Saxons believed, supernatural and magical powers. The raven on the banner could foresee the result of any battle into which it was borne. It remained lifeless and at rest whenever the result was to be adverse; and, on the other hand, it fluttered its wings with a mysterious and magical vitality when they who bore it were destined to victory. The Danes consequently looked up to this banner with a feeling of profound veneration and awe, and the Saxons feared and dreaded its mysterious power. The explanation of this pretended miracle is easy. The imagination of superstitious men, in such a state of society as that of these half-savage Danes, is capable of much greater triumphs over the reason and the senses than is implied in making them believe that the wings of a bird are either in motion or at rest, whichever it fancies, when the banner on which the image is embroidered is advancing to the field and fluttering in the breeze.

The Castle of Kenwith was situated on a rocky promontory, and was defended by a Saxon wall. Hubba saw that it would be difficult to carry it by a direct assault. On the other hand, it was not well supplied with water or provisions, and the numerous multitude which had crowded into it, would, as Hubba thought, be speedily compelled to surrender by thirst and famine, if he were simply to wait a short time, till their scanty stock of food was consumed. Perhaps the raven did not flutter her wings when Hubba approached the castle, but by her apparent lifelessness portended calamity if an attack were to be made. At all events, Hubba decided not to attack the castle, but to invest it closely on all sides, with his army on the land and with his vessels on the side of the sea, and thus reduce it by famine. He accordingly stationed his troops and his galleys at their posts and established himself in his tent, quietly to await the result.

He did not have to wait so long as he anticipated. Odun, finding that his danger was so imminent, nay, that his destruction was inevitable if he remained in his castle, thus shut in, determined, in the desperation to which the emergency reduced him, to make a sally. Accordingly, one night, as soon as it was dark, so that the indications of any movement within the castle might not be perceived by the sentinels and watchmen in Hubba's lines, he began to marshal and organize his army for a sudden and furious onset upon the camp of the Danes.

They waited, when all was ready, till the first break of day. To make the surprise most effectual, it was necessary that it should take place in the night; but then, on the other hand, the success, if they should be successful, would require, in order to be followed up with advantage, the light of day. Odun chose, therefore, the earliest dawn as the time for his attempt, as this was the only period which would give him at first darkness for his surprise, and afterward light for his victory. The time was well chosen, the arrangements were all well made, and the result corresponded with the character of the preparations. The sally was triumphantly successful.

The Danes, who were all, except their sentinels, sleeping quietly and secure, were suddenly aroused by the unearthly and terrific yells with which the Saxons burst into the lines of their encampment. They flew to arms, but the shock of the onset produced a panic and confusion which soon made their cause hopeless. Odun and his immediate followers pressed directly forward into Hubba's tent, where they surprised the commander, and massacred him on the spot. They seized, too, to their inexpressible joy, the sacred banner, which was in Hubba's tent, and bore it forth, rejoicing in it, not merely as a splendid trophy of their victory, but as a loss to their enemies which fixed and sealed their doom.

The Danes fled before their enemies in terror, and the consternation which they felt, when they learned that their banner had been captured and their leader slain, was soon changed into absolute despair. The Saxons slew them without mercy, cutting down some as they were running before them in their headlong flight, and transfixing others with their spears and arrows as they lay upon the ground, trampled down by the crowds and the confusion. There was no place of refuge to which they could fly except to their ships. Those, therefore, that escaped the weapons of their pursuers, fled in the direction of the water, where the strong and the fortunate gained the boats and the galleys, while the exhausted and the wounded were drowned. The fleet sailed away from the coast, and the Saxons, on surveying the scene of the terrible contest, estimated that there were twelve hundred dead bodies lying in the field.

This victory, and especially the capture of the Raven, produced vast effects on the minds both of the Saxons and of the Danes, animating and encouraging the one, and depressing the other with superstitious as well as natural and proper fears. The influence of the battle was sufficient, in fact, wholly to change Alfred's position and prospects. The news of the discovery of the place of his retreat, and of the measures which he was maturing for taking the field again to meet his enemies, spread throughout the country. The people were every where ready to take up arms and join him. There were large bodies of Danes in several parts of his dominions still, and they, alarmed somewhat at these indications of new efforts of resistance on the part of their enemies, began to concentrate their strength and prepare for another struggle.

The main body of the Danes were encamped at a place called Edendune, in Wiltshire. There is a hill near, which the army made their main position, and the marks of their fortifications have been traced there, either in imagination or reality, in modern times. Alfred wished to gain more precise and accurate information than he yet possessed of the numbers and situation of his foes; and, in order to do this, instead of employing a spy, he conceived the design of going himself in disguise to explore the camp of the Danes. The undertaking was full of danger, but yet not quite so desperate as at first it might seem. Alfred had had abundant opportunities during the months of his seclusion to become familiar with the modes of speech and the manners of peasant life. He had also, in his early years, stored his memory with Saxon poetry, as has already been stated. He was fond of music, too, and well skilled in it; so that he had every qualification for assuming the character of one of those roving harpers, who, in those days, followed armies, to sing songs and make amusement for the soldiers. He determined, consequently, to assume the disguise of a harper, and to wander into the camp of the Danes, that he might make his own observations on the nature and magnitude of the force with which he was about to contend.

He accordingly clothed himself in the garb of the character which he was to assume, and, taking his harp upon his shoulder, wandered away in the direction of the Northmen's camp. Such a strolling countryman, half musician, half beggar would enter without suspicion or hinderance into the camp, even though he belonged to the nation of the enemy. Alfred was readily admitted, and he wandered at will about the lines, to play and sing to the soldiers wherever he found groups to listen—intent, apparently, on nothing but his scanty pittance of pay, while he was really studying, with the utmost attention and care, the number, and disposition, and discipline of the troops, and all the arrangements of the army. He came very near discovering himself, however, by overacting his part. His music was so well executed and his ballads were so fine, that reports of the excellence of his performance reached the commander's ears. He ordered the pretended harper to be sent into his tent, that he might hear him play and sing. Alfred went, and thus he had the opportunity of completing his observations in the tent, and in the presence of the Danish king.

Alfred found that the Danish camp was in a very unguarded and careless condition. The name of the commander, or king, was Guthrum.[1] Alfred, while playing in his presence, studied his character, and it is (not) improbable that the very extraordinary course which he afterward pursued in respect to Guthrum may have been caused, in a great degree, by the opportunity he now enjoyed of domestic access to him and of obtaining a near and intimate view of his social and personal character. Guthrum treated the supposed harper with great kindness. He was much pleased both with his singing and his songs, being attracted, too, probably, in some degree, by a certain mysterious interest which the humble stranger must have inspired; for Alfred possessed personal and intellectual traits of character which could not but have given to his conversation and his manners a certain charm, notwithstanding all his efforts to disguise or conceal them.

However this may be, Guthrum gave Alfred a very friendly reception, and the hour of social intercourse and enjoyment which the general and the ballad-singer spent together was only a precursor of the more solid and honest friendship which afterward subsisted between them as allied sovereigns.

Alfred had one person with him, whom he had brought from Ethelney—a sort of attendant—to help him carry his harp, and to be a companion for him on the way. He would have needed such a companion even if he had been only what he seemed; but for a spy, going in disguise into the camp of such ferocious enemies as the Danes, it would seem absolutely indispensable that he should have the support and sympathy of a friend.

Alfred, after finishing his examination of the camp of Guthrum, and forming secretly, in his own mind, his plans for attacking it, moved leisurely away, taking his harp and his attendant with him, as if going on in search of some new place to practice his profession. As soon as he was out of the reach of observation, he made a circuit and returned in safety to Ethelney. The season was now spring, and every thing favored the commencement of his enterprise.

His first measure was to send out some trusty messengers into all the neighboring counties, to visit and confer with his friends at their various castles and strong-holds. These messengers were to announce to such Saxon leaders as they should find that Alfred was still alive, and that he was preparing to take the field against the Danes again; and were to invite them to assemble at a certain place appointed, in a forest, with as many followers as they could bring, that the king might there complete the organization of an army, and hold consultation with them to mature their plans.

The wood on the borders of which they were to meet was an extensive forest of willows, fifteen miles long and six broad. It was known by the name of Selwood Forest. There was a celebrated place called the Stone of Egbert, where the meeting was to be held. Each chieftain whom the messengers should visit was to be invited to come to the Stone of Egbert at the appointed day, with as many armed men, and yet in as secret and noiseless a manner as possible, so as thus, while concentrating all their forces in preparation for their intended attack, to avoid every thing which would tend to put Guthrum on his guard.

The messengers found the Saxon chieftains very ready to enter into Alfred's plans. They were rejoiced to hear, as some of them did now for the first time hear, that he was alive, and that the spirit and energy of his former character were about to be exhibited again. Every thing, in fact, conspired to favor the enterprise. The long and gloomy months of winter were past, and the opening spring brought with it, as usual, excitement and readiness for action. The tidings of Odun's victory over Hubba, and the capture of the sacred raven, which had spread every where, had awakened a general enthusiasm, and a desire on the part of all the Saxon chieftains and soldiers to try their strength once more with their ancient enemies.

Accordingly, those to whom the secret was intrusted eagerly accepted the invitation, or, perhaps, as it should rather be expressed, obeyed the summons which Alfred sent them. They marshaled their forces without any delay, and repaired to the appointed place in Selwood Forest. Alfred was ready to meet them there. Two days were occupied with the arrivals of the different parties, and in the mutual congratulations and rejoicings. Growing more bold as their sense of strength increased with their increasing numbers, and with the ardor and enthusiasm which their mutual influence on each other inspired, they spent the intervals of their consultations in festivities and rejoicings, celebrating the occasion with games and martial music. The forest resounded with the blasts of horns, the sound of the trumpets, the clash of arms, and the shouts of joy and congratulation, which all the efforts of the more prudent and cautious could not repress.

In the mean time, Guthrum remained in his encampment at Edendune. This seems to have been the principal concentration of the forces of the Danes which were marshaled for military service; and yet there were large numbers of the people, disbanded soldiers, or non-combatants, who had come over in the train of the armies, that had taken possession of the lands which they had conquered, and had settled upon them for cultivation, as if to make them their permanent home. These intruders were scattered in larger or smaller bodies in various parts of the kingdom, the Saxon inhabitants being prevented from driving them away by the influence and power of the armies, which still kept possession of the field, and preserved their military organization complete, ready for action at any time whenever any organized Saxon force should appear.

Guthrum, as we have said, headed the largest of these armies. He was aware of the increasing excitement that was spreading among the Saxon population, and he even heard rumors of the movements which the bodies of Saxons made, in going under their several chieftains to Selwood Forest. He expected that some important movement was about to occur, but he had no idea that preparations so extended, and for so decisive a demonstration, were so far advanced. He remained, therefore, at his camp at Edendune, gradually completing his arrangements for his summer campaign, but making no preparations for resisting any sudden or violent attack.

When all was ready, Alfred put himself at the head of the forces which had collected at the Egbert Stone, or, as it is quaintly spelled in some of the old accounts, Ecgbyrth-stan. There is a place called Brixstan in that vicinity now, which may possibly be the same name modified and abridged by the lapse of time. Alfred moved forward toward Guthrum's camp. He went only a part of the way the first day, intending to finish the march by getting into the immediate vicinity of the enemy on the morrow. He succeeded in accomplishing this object, and encamped the next night at a place called AEcglea,[2] on an eminence from which he could reconnoiter, from a great distance, the position of the army.

That night, as he was sleeping in his tent, he had a remarkable dream. He dreamed that his relative, St. Neot, who has been already mentioned as the chaplain or priest who reproved him so severely for his sins in the early part of his reign, appeared to him. The apparition bid him not fear the immense army of pagans whom he was going to encounter on the morrow. God, he said, had accepted his penitence, and was now about to take him under his special protection. The calamities which had befallen him were sent in judgment to punish the pride and arrogance which he had manifested in the early part of his reign; but his faults had been expiated by the sufferings he had endured, and by the penitence and the piety which they had been the means of awakening in his heart; and now he might go forward into the battle without fear, as God was about to give him the victory over all his enemies.

The king related his dream the next morning to his army. The enthusiasm and ardor which the chieftains and the men had felt before were very much increased by this assurance of success. They broke up their encampment, therefore, and commenced the march, which was to bring them, before many hours, into the presence of the enemy, with great alacrity and eager expectations of success.

[Footnote 1: Spelled sometimes Godrun, Gutrum, Gythram, and in various other ways.]

[Footnote 2: Some think that this place is the modern Leigh; others, that it was Highley; either of which names might have been deduced from AEcglea.]



CHAPTER X.

THE VICTORY OVER THE DANES.

Encouraged by his dream, and animated by the number and the elation of his followers, Alfred led his army onward toward the part of the country where the camp of the enemy lay. He intended to surprise them; and, although Guthrum had heard vague rumors that some great Saxon movement was in train, he viewed the sudden appearance of this large and well-organized army with amazement.

He had possession of the hill near Edendune, which has been already described. He had established his head-quarters here, and made his strongest fortifications on the summit of the eminence. The main body of his forces were, however, encamped upon the plain, over which they extended, in vast numbers, far and wide. Alfred halted his men to change the order of march into the order of battle. Here he made an address to his men. As no time was to be lost, he spoke but a few words. He reminded them that they were to contend, that day, to rescue themselves and their country from the intolerable oppression of a horde of pagan idolaters; that God was on their side, and had promised them the victory; and he urged them to act like men, so as to deserve the success and happiness which was in store for them.

The army then advanced to the attack, the Danes having been drawn out hastily, but with as much order as the suddenness of the call would allow, to meet them. When near enough for their arrows to take effect, the long line of Alfred's troops discharged their arrows. They then advanced to the attack with lances; but soon these and all other weapons which kept the combatants at a distance were thrown aside, and it became a terrible conflict with swords, man to man.

It was not long before the Danes began to yield. They were not sustained by the strong assurance of victory, nor by the desperate determination which animated the Saxons. The flight soon became general. They could not gain the fortification on the hill, for Alfred had forced his way in between the encampment on the plains and the approaches to the hill. The Danes, consequently, not being able to find refuge in either part of the position they had taken, fled altogether from the field, pursued by Alfred's victorious columns as fast as they could follow.

Guthrum succeeded, by great and vigorous exertions, in rallying his men, or, at least, in so far collecting and concentrating the separate bodies of the fugitives as to change the flight into a retreat, having some semblance of military order. Vast numbers had been left dead upon the field. Others had been taken prisoners. Others still had become hopelessly dispersed, having fled from the field of battle in diverse directions, and wandered so far, in their terror, that they had not been able to rejoin their leader in his retreat. Then, great numbers of those who pressed on under Guthrum's command, exhausted by fatigue, or spent and fainting from their wounds, sank down by the way-side to die, while their comrades, intent only upon their own safety, pressed incessantly on. The retreating army was thus, in a short time, reduced to a small fraction of its original force. This remaining body, with Guthrum at their head, continued their retreat until they reached a castle which promised them protection. They poured in over the drawbridges and through the gates of this fortress in extreme confusion; and feeling suddenly, and for the moment, entirely relieved at their escape from the imminence of the immediate danger, they shut themselves in.

The finding of such a retreat would have been great good fortune for these wretched fugitives if there had been any large force in the country to come soon to their deliverance; but, as they were without provisions and without water, they soon began to perceive that, unless they obtained some speedy help from without, they had only escaped the Saxon lances and swords to die a ten times more bitter death of thirst and famine; and there was no force to relieve them. The army which had been thus defeated was the great central force of the Danes upon the island. The other detachments and independent bands which were scattered about the land were thunderstruck at the news of this terrible defeat. The Saxons, too, were every where aroused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm at the reappearance of their king and the tidings of his victory. The whole country was in arms. Guthrum, however, shut up in his castle, and closely invested with Alfred's forces, had no means of knowing what was passing without. His numbers were so small in comparison with those besieging him that it would have been madness for him to have attempted a sally; and he would not surrender. He waited day after day, hoping against hope that some succor would come. His half-famished sentinels gazed from the watch-towers of the castle all around, looking for some cloud of distant dust, or weapon glancing in the sun, which might denote the approach of friends coming to their rescue. This lasted fourteen days. At the end of that time, the number within this wretched prison who were raving in the delirium of famine and thirst, or dying in agony, became too great for Guthrum to persist any longer. He surrendered. Alfred was once more in possession of his kingdom.

During the fourteen days that elapsed between the victory on the field of battle and the final surrender of Guthrum, Alfred, feeling that the power was now in his hands, had had ample time to reflect on the course which he should pursue with his subjugated enemies; and the result to which he came, and the measure which he adopted, evince, as much as any act of his life, the greatness, and originality, and nobleness of his character. Here were two distinct and independent races on the same island, that had been engaged for many years in a most fierce and sanguinary struggle, each gaining at times a temporary and partial victory, but neither able entirely to subdue or exterminate the other. The Danes, it is true, might be considered as the aggressors in this contest, and, as such, wholly in the wrong; but then, on the other hand, it was to be remembered that the ancestors of the Saxons had been guilty of precisely the same aggressions upon the Britons, who held the island before them; so that the Danes were, after all, only intruding upon intruders. It was, besides, the general maxim of the age, that the territories of the world were prizes open for competition, and that the right to possess and to govern vested naturally and justly in those who could show themselves the strongest. Then, moreover, the Danes had been now for many years in Britain. Vast numbers had quietly settled on agricultural lands. They had become peaceful inhabitants. They had established, in many cases, friendly relations with the Saxons. They had intermarried with them; and the two races, instead of appearing, as at first, simply as two hostile armies of combatants contending on the field, had been, for some years, acquiring the character of a mixed population, established and settled, though heterogeneous, and, in some sense, antagonistic still. To root out all these people, intruders though they were, and send them back again across the German Ocean, to regions where they no longer had friends or home, would have been a desperate—in fact, an impossible undertaking.

Alfred saw all these things. He took, in fact, a general, and comprehensive, and impartial view of the whole subject, instead of regarding it, as most conquerors in his situation would have done, in a partisan, that is, an exclusively Saxon point of view. He saw how impossible it was to undo what had been done, and wisely determined to take things as they were, and make the best of the present situation of affairs, leaving the past, and aiming only at accomplishing the best that was now attainable for the future. It would be well if all men who are engaged in quarrels which they vainly endeavor to settle by discussing and disputing about what is past and gone, and can now never be recalled, would follow his example. In all such cases we should say, let the past be forgotten, and, taking things as they now are, let us see what we can do to secure peace and happiness in future.

The policy which Alfred determined to adopt was, not to attempt the utter extirpation of the Danes from England, but only to expel the armed forces from his own dominions, allowing those peaceably disposed to remain in quiet possession of such lands in other parts of the island as they already occupied. Instead, therefore, of treating Guthrum with harshness and severity as a captive enemy, he told him that he was willing not only to give him his liberty, but to regard him, on certain conditions, as a friend and an ally, and allow him to reign as a king over that part of England which his countrymen possessed, and which was beyond Alfred's own frontiers. These conditions were, that Guthrum was to go away with all his forces and followers out of Alfred's kingdom, under solemn oaths never to return; that he was to confine himself thenceforth to the southeastern part of England, a territory from which the Saxon government had long disappeared; that he was to give hostages for the faithful fulfillment of these stipulations, without, however, receiving on his part any hostages from Alfred. There was one other stipulation, more extraordinary than all the rest, viz., that Guthrum should become a convert to Christianity, and publicly avow his adhesion to the Saxon faith by being baptized in the presence of the leaders of both armies, in the most open and solemn manner. In this proposed baptism, Alfred himself would stand his godfather.

This idea of winning over a pagan soldier to the Christian Church as the price of his ransom from famine and death in the castle to which his direst enemy had driven him—this enemy himself, the instrument thus of so rude a mode of conversion, to be the sponsor of the new communicant's religious profession—was one in keeping, it is true, with the spirit of the times, but still it is one which, under the circumstances of this case, only a mind of great originality and power would have conceived of or attempted to carry into effect. Guthrum might well be astonished at this unexpected turn in his affairs. A few days before, he saw himself on the brink of utter and absolute destruction. Shut up with his famished soldiers in a gloomy castle, with the enemy, bitter and implacable, as he supposed, thundering at the gates, the only alternatives before him seemed to be to die of starvation and phrensy within the walls which covered him, or by a cruel military execution in the event of surrender. He surrendered at last, as it would seem, only because the utmost that human cruelty can inflict is more tolerable than the horrid agonies of thirst and hunger.

We can not but hope that Alfred was led, in some degree, by a generous principle of Christian forgiveness in proposing the terms which he did to his fallen enemy, and also that Guthrum, in accepting them, was influenced, in part at least, by emotions of gratitude and by admiration of the high example of Christian virtue which Alfred thus exhibited. At any rate, he did accept them. The army of the Danes were liberated from their confinement, and commenced their march to the eastward; Guthrum himself, attended by thirty of his chiefs and many other followers, became Alfred's guest for some weeks, until the most pressing measures for the organization of Alfred's government could be attended to, and the necessary preparations for the baptism could be made. At length, some weeks after the surrender, the parties all repaired together, now firm friends and allies, to a place near Ethelney, where the ceremony of baptism was to be performed.

The admission of this pagan chieftain into the Christian Church did not probably mark any real change in his opinions on the question of paganism and Christianity, but it was not the less important in its consequences on that account. The moral effect of it upon the minds of his followers was of great value. It opened the way for their reception of the Christian faith, if any of them should be disposed to receive it. Then it changed wholly the feeling which prevailed among the Saxon soldiery, and also the Saxon chieftains, in respect to these enemies. A great deal of the bitterness of exasperation with which they had regarded them arose from the fact that they were pagans, the haters and despisers of the rites and institutions of religion. Guthrum's approaching baptism was to change all this; and Alfred, in leading him to the baptismal font, was achieving, in the estimation not only of all England, but of France and of Rome, a far greater and nobler victory than when he conquered his armies on the field of Edendune.

The various ceremonies connected with the baptism were protracted through several days. They were commenced at a place called Aulre, near Ethelney, where there was a religious establishment and priests to perform the necessary rites. The new convert was clothed in white garments—the symbol of purity, then customarily worn by candidates for baptism—and was covered with a mystic veil. They gave Guthrum a new name—a Christian, that is, a Saxon name. Converted pagans received always a new name, in those days, when baptized; and our common phrase, the Christian name, has arisen from the circumstance. Guthrum's Christian name was Ethelstan. Alfred was his godfather. After the baptism the whole party proceeded to a town a few miles distant, which Alfred had decided to make a royal residence, and there other ceremonies connected with the new convert's admission to the Church were performed, the whole ending with a series of great public festivities and rejoicings.

A very full and formal treaty of peace and amity was now concluded between the two sovereigns; for Guthrum was styled in the treaty a king, and was to hold, in the dominions assigned him to the eastward of Alfred's realm, an independent jurisdiction. He agreed, however, by this treaty, to confine himself, from that time forward, to the limits thus assigned. If the reader wishes to see what part of England it was which Guthrum was thus to hold, he can easily identify it by finding upon the map the following counties, which now occupy the same territory, viz., Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, and part of Herefordshire. The population of all this region consisted already, in a great measure, of Danes. It was the part most easily accessible from the German Ocean, by means of the Thames and the Medway, and it had, accordingly, become the chief seat of the Northmen's power.

Guthrum not only agreed to confine himself to the limits thus marked out, but also to consider himself henceforth as Alfred's friend and ally in the event of any new bands of adventurers arriving on the coast, and to join Alfred in his endeavors to resist them. In hoping that he would fulfill this obligation, Alfred did not rely altogether on Guthrum's oaths or promises, or even on the hostages that he held. He had made it for his interest to fulfill them. By giving him peaceable possession of this territory, after having, by his victories, impressed him with a very high idea of his own great military resources and power, he had placed his conquered enemy under very strong inducements to be satisfied with what he now possessed, and to make common cause with Alfred in resisting the encroachments of any new marauders.

Guthrum was therefore honestly resolved on keeping his faith with his new ally; and when all these stipulations were made, and the treaties were signed, and the ceremonies of the baptism all performed, Alfred dismissed his guest, with many presents and high honors.

There is some uncertainty whether Alfred did not, in addition to the other stipulations under which he bound Guthrum, reserve to himself the superior sovereignty over Guthrum's dominions, in such a manner that Guthrum, though complimented in the treaty with the title of king, was, after all, only a sort of viceroy, holding his throne under Alfred as his liege lord. One thing is certain, that Alfred took care, in his treaty with Guthrum, to settle all the fundamental laws of both kingdoms, making them the same for both, as if he foresaw the complete and entire union which was ultimately to take place, and wished to facilitate the accomplishment of this end by having the political and social constitution of the two states brought at once into harmony with each other.

It proved, in the end, that Guthrum was faithful to his obligations and promises. He settled himself quietly in the dominions which the treaty assigned to him, and made no more attempts to encroach upon Alfred's realm. Whenever other parties of Danes came upon the coast, as they sometimes did, they found no favor or countenance from him. They came, in some cases, expecting his co-operation and aid; but he always refused it, and by this discouragement, as well as by open resistance, he drove many bands away, turning the tide of invasion southward into France, and other regions on the Continent. Alfred, in the mean time, gave his whole time and attention to organizing the various departments of his government, to planning and building towns, repairing and fortifying castles, opening roads, establishing courts of justice, and arranging and setting in operation the complicated machinery necessary in the working of a well-conducted social state. The nature and operation of some of his plans will be described more fully in the next chapter.

In concluding this chapter, we will add, that notwithstanding his victory over Guthrum, and Guthrum's subsequent good faith, Alfred never enjoyed an absolute peace, but during the whole remainder of his reign was more or less molested with parties of Northmen, who came, from time to time, to land on English shores, and who met sometimes with partial and temporary success in their depredations. The most serious of these attempts occurred near the close of Alfred's life, and will be hereafter described.

* * * * *

The generosity and the nobleness of mind which Alfred manifested in his treatment of Guthrum made a great impression upon mankind at the time, and have done a great deal to elevate the character of our hero in every subsequent age. All admire such generosity in others, however slow they may be to practice it themselves. It seems a very easy virtue when we look upon an exhibition of it like this, where we feel no special resentments ourselves against the person thus nobly forgiven. We find it, however, a very hard virtue to practice, when a case occurs requiring the exercise of it toward a person who has done us an injury. Let those who think that in Alfred's situation they should have acted as he did, look around upon the circle of their acquaintance, and see whether it is easy for them to pursue a similar course toward their personal enemies—those who have thwarted and circumvented them in their plans, or slandered them, or treated them with insult and injury. By observing how hard it is to change our own resentments to feelings of forgiveness and good will, we can the better appreciate Alfred's treatment of Guthrum.

Alfred was famed during all his life for the kindness of his heart, and a thousand stories were told in his day of his interpositions to right the wronged, to relieve the distressed, to comfort the afflicted, and to befriend the unhappy. On one occasion, as it is said, when he was hunting in a wood, he heard the piteous cries of a child, which seemed to come from the air above his head. It was found, after much looking and listening, that the sounds proceeded from an eagle's nest upon the top of a lofty tree. On climbing to the nest, they found the child within, screaming with pain and terror. The eagle had carried it there in its talons for a prey. Alfred brought down the boy, and, after making fruitless inquiries to find its father and mother, adopted him for his own son, gave him a good education, and provided for him well in his future life. The story was all, very probably, a fabrication; but the characters of men are sometimes very strikingly indicated by the kind of stories that are invented concerning them.



CHAPTER XI.

CHARACTER OF ALFRED'S REIGN.

Perhaps the chief aspect in which King Alfred's character has attracted the attention of mankind, is in the spirit of humanity and benevolence which he manifested, and in the efforts which he made to cultivate the arts of peace, and to promote the intellectual and social welfare of his people, notwithstanding the warlike habits to which he was accustomed in his early years, and the warlike influences which surrounded him during all his life. Every thing in the outward circumstances in which he was placed tended to make him a mere military hero. He saw, however, the superior greatness and glory of the work of laying the foundations of an extended and permanent power, by arranging in the best possible manner the internal organization of the social state. He saw that intelligence, order, justice, and system, prevailing in and governing the institutions of a country, constitute the true elements of its greatness, and he acted accordingly.

It is true, he had good materials to work with. He had the Anglo-Saxon race to act upon at the time, a race capable of appreciating and entering into his plans; and he has had the same race to carry them on, for the ten centuries which have elapsed since he laid his foundations. As no other race of men but Anglo-Saxons could have produced an Alfred, so, probably, no other race could have carried out such plans as Alfred formed. It is a race which has always been distinguished, like Alfred their great prototype and model, for a certain cool and intrepid energy in war, combined with and surpassed by the industry, the system, the efficiency, and the perseverance with which they pursue and perfect all the arts of peace. They systematize every thing. They arrange—they organize. Every thing in their hands takes form, and advances to continual improvement. Even while the rest of the world remain inert, they are active. When the arts and improvements of life are stationary among other nations, they are always advancing with them. It is a people that is always making new discoveries, pressing forward to new enterprises, framing new laws, constituting new combinations and developing new powers; until now after the lapse of a thousand years, the little island feeds and clothes, directly or indirectly, a very large portion of the human race, and directs, in a great measure, the politics of the world.

Whether Alfred reasoned upon the capacities of the people whom he ruled, and foresaw their future power, or whether he only followed the simple impulses of his own nature in the plans which he formed and the measures which he adopted, we can not know; but we know that, in fact, he devoted his chief attention, during all the years of his reign, to perfecting in the highest degree the internal organization of his realm, considered as a great social community. His people were in a very rude, and, in fact, almost half-savage state when he commenced his career. He had every thing to do, and yet he seems to have had no favorable opportunities for doing any thing.

In the first place, his time and attention were distracted, during his whole reign, by continued difficulties and contentions with various hordes of Danes, even after his peace with Guthrum. These troubles, and the military preparations and movements to which they would naturally give rise, would seem to have been sufficient to have occupied fully all the powers of his mind, and to have prevented him from doing any thing effectual for the internal improvement of his kingdom.

Then, besides, there was another difficulty with which Alfred had to contend, which one might have supposed would have paralyzed all his energies. He suffered all his life from some mysterious and painful internal disease, the nature of which, precisely, is not known, as the allusions to it, though very frequent throughout his life, are very general, and the physicians of the day, who probably were not very skillful, could not determine what it was, or do any thing effectual to relieve it. The disease, whatever it may have been, was a source of continual uneasiness, and sometimes of extreme and terrible suffering. Alfred bore all the pain which it caused him with exemplary patience; and, though he could not always resist the tendency to discouragement and depression with which the perpetual presence of such a torment wears upon the soul, he did not allow it to diminish his exertions, or suspend, at any time, the ceaseless activity with which he labored for the welfare of the people of his realm.

Alfred attached great importance to the education of his people. It was not possible, in those days, to educate the mass, for there were no books, and no means of producing them in sufficient numbers to supply any general demand. Books, in those days, were extremely costly, as they had all to be written laboriously by hand. The great mass of the population, therefore, who were engaged in the daily toil of cultivating the land, were necessarily left in ignorance; but Alfred made every effort in his power to awaken a love for learning and the arts among the higher classes. He set them, in fact, an efficient example in his own case, by pressing forward diligently in his own studies, even in the busiest periods of his reign. The spirit and manner in which he did this are well illustrated by the plan he pursued in studying Latin. It was this:

He had a friend in his court, a man of great literary attainments and great piety, whose name was Asser. Asser was a bishop in Wales when Alfred first heard of his fame as a man of learning and abilities, and Alfred sent for him to come to his court and make him a visit. Alfred was very much pleased with what he saw of Asser at this interview, and proposed to him to leave his preferments in Wales, which were numerous and important, and come into his kingdom, and he would give him greater preferments there. Asser hesitated. Alfred then proposed to him to spend six months every year in England, and the remaining six in Wales. Asser said that he could not give an answer even to this proposal till he had returned home and consulted with the monks and other clergy under his charge there. He would, however, he said, at least come back and see Alfred again within the next six months, and give him his final answer. Then, after having spent four days in Alfred's court, he went away.

The six months passed away and he did not return. Alfred sent a messenger into Wales to ascertain the reason. The messenger found that Asser was sick. His friends, however, had advised that he should accede to Alfred's proposal to spend six months of the year in England, as they thought that by that means, through his influence with Alfred, he would be the better able to protect and advance the interests of their monasteries and establishments in Wales. So Asser went to England, and became during six months in the year Alfred's constant friend and teacher. In the course of time, Alfred placed him at the head of some of the most important establishments and ecclesiastical charges in England.

One day—it was eight or nine years after Alfred's victory over Guthrum and settlement of the kingdom—the king and Asser were engaged in conversation in the royal apartments, and Asser quoted some Latin phrase with which, on its being explained, Alfred was very much pleased, and he asked Asser to write it down for him in his book. So saying, he took from his pocket a little book of prayers and other pieces of devotion, which he was accustomed to carry with him for daily use. It was, of course, in manuscript. Asser looked over it to find a space where he could write the Latin quotation, but there was no convenient vacancy. He then proposed to Alfred that he should make for him another small book, expressly for Latin quotations, with explanations of their meaning, if Alfred chose to make them, in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. Alfred highly approved of this suggestion. The bishop prepared the little parchment volume, and it became gradually filled with passages of Scripture, in Latin, and striking sentiments, briefly and tersely expressed, extracted from the writings of the Roman poets or of the fathers of the Church. Alfred wrote opposite to each quotation its meaning, expressed in his own language; and as he made the book his constant companion, and studied it continually, taking great interest in adding to its stores, it was the means of communicating to him soon a very considerable knowledge of the language, and was the foundation of that extensive acquaintance with it which he subsequently acquired.

Alfred made great efforts to promote in every way the intellectual progress and improvement of his people. He wrote and translated books, which were published so far as it was possible to publish books in those days, that is, by having a moderate number of copies transcribed and circulated among those who could read them. Such copies were generally deposited at monasteries, and abbeys, and other such places, where learned men were accustomed to assemble. These writings of Alfred exerted a wide influence during his day. They remained in manuscript until the art of printing was invented, when many of them were printed; others remain in manuscript in the various museums of England, where visitors look at them as curiosities, all worn and corroded as they are, and almost illegible by time. These books, though they exerted great influence at the time when they were written, are of little interest or value now. They express ideas in morals and philosophy, some of which have become so universally diffused as to be commonplace at the present day, while others would now be discarded, as not in harmony with the ideas or the philosophy of the times.

One of the greatest and most important of the measures which Alfred adopted for the intellectual improvement of his people was the founding of the great University of Oxford. Oxford was Alfred's residence and capital during a considerable part of his reign. It is situated on the Thames, in the bosom of a delightful valley, where it calmly reposes in the midst of fields and meadows as verdant and beautiful as the imagination can conceive. There was a monastery at Oxford before Alfred's day, and for many centuries after his time acts of endowment were passed and charters granted, some of which were perhaps of greater importance than those which emanated from Alfred himself. Thus some carry back the history of this famous university beyond Alfred's time; others consider that the true origin of the present establishment should be assigned to a later date than his day. Alfred certainly adopted very important measures at Oxford for organizing and establishing schools of instruction and assembling learned men there from various parts of the world, so that he soon made it a great center and seat of learning, and mankind have been consequently inclined to award to him the honor of having laid the foundations of the vast superstructure which has since grown up on that consecrated spot. Oxford is now a city of ancient and venerable colleges. Its silent streets; its grand quadrangles; its churches, and chapels, and libraries; its secluded walks; its magnificent, though old and crumbling architecture, make it, even to the passing traveler, one of the wonders of England; and by the influence which it has exerted for the past ten centuries on the intellectual advancement of the human race, it is really one of the wonders of the world.

Alfred repaired the castles which had become dilapidated in the wars; he rebuilt the ruined cities, organized municipal governments for them, restored the monasteries, and took great pains to place men of learning and piety in charge of them. He revised the laws of the kingdom, and arranged and systematized them in the most perfect manner which was possible in times so rude.

Alfred's personal character gave him great influence among his people, and disposed them to acquiesce readily in the vast innovations and improvements which he introduced—changes which were so radical and affected so extensively the whole structure of society, and all the customs of social life, that any ordinary sovereign would have met with great opposition in his attempt to introduce them; but Alfred possessed such a character, and proceeded in such a way in introducing his improvements and reforms, that he seems to have awakened no jealousy and to have aroused no resistance.

He was of a very calm, quiet, and placid temper of mind. The crosses and vexations which disturb and irritate ordinary men seemed never to disturb his equanimity. He was patient and forbearing, never expecting too much of those whom he employed, or resenting angrily the occasional neglects or failures in duty on their part, which he well knew must frequently occur. He was never elated by prosperity, nor made moody and morose by the turning of the tide against him. In a word, he was a philosopher, of a calm, and quiet, and happy temperament. He knew well that every man in going through life, whatever his rank and station, must encounter the usual alternations of sunshine and storm. He determined that these alternations should not mar his happiness, nor disturb the repose of his soul; that he would, on the other hand, keeping all quiet within, press calmly and steadily forward in the accomplishment of the vast objects to which he felt that his life was to be given. He was, accordingly, never anxious or restless, never impatient or fretful, never excited or wild; but always calm, considerate, steady, and persevering, he infused his own spirit into all around him. They saw him governed by fixed and permanent principles of justice and of duty in all that he planned, and in every measure that he resorted to in the execution of his plans. It was plain that his great ruling motive was a true and honest desire to promote the welfare and prosperity of his people, and the internal peace, and order, and happiness of his realm, without any selfish or sinister aims of his own.

In fact, it seemed as if there were no selfish or sinister ends that possessed any charms for Alfred's mind. He had no fondness or taste for luxury or pleasure, or for aggrandizing himself in the eyes of others by pomp and parade. It is true that, as was stated in a former chapter, he was charged in early life with a tendency to some kinds of wrong indulgence; but these charges, obscure and doubtful as they were, pertained only to the earliest periods of his career, before the time of his seclusion. Through all the middle and latter portions of his life, the sole motive of his conduct seems to have been a desire to lay broad, and deep, and lasting foundations for the permanent welfare and prosperity of his realm.

It resulted from the nature of the measures which Alfred undertook to effect, that they brought upon him daily a vast amount of labor as such measures always involve a great deal of minute detail. Alfred could only accomplish this great mass of duty by means of the most unremitting industry, and the most systematic and exact division of time. There were no clocks or watches in those days, and yet it was very necessary to have some plan for keeping the time, in order that his business might go on regularly, and also that the movements and operations of his large household might proceed without confusion. Alfred invented a plan. It was as follows:

He observed that the wax candles which were used in his palace and in the churches burned very regularly, and with greater or less rapidity according to their size. He ordered some experiments to be made, and finally, by means of them, he determined on the size of a candle which should burn three inches in an hour. It is said that the weight of wax which he used for each candle was twelve pennyweights, that is, but little more than half an ounce, which would make, one would suppose, a taper rather than a candle. There is, however, great doubt about the value of the various denominations of weight and measure, and also of money used in those days. However this may be, the candles were each a foot long, and of such size that each would burn four hours. They were divided into inches, and marked, so that each inch corresponded with a third of an hour, or twenty minutes. A large quantity of these candles were prepared, and a person in one of the chapels was appointed to keep a succession of them burning, and to ring the bells, or give the other signals, whatever they might be, by which the household was regulated, at the successive periods of time denoted by their burning.

As each of these candles was one foot long, and burned three inches in an hour, it follows that it would last four hours; when this time was expired, the attendant who had the apparatus in charge lighted another. There were, of course, six required for the whole twenty-four hours. The system worked very well, though there was one difficulty that occasioned some trouble in the outset, which, however, was not much to be regretted after all, since the remedying of it awakened the royal ingenuity anew, and led, in the end, to adding to Alfred's other glories the honor of being the inventor of lanterns!

The difficulty was, that the wind, which came in very freely in those days, even in royal residences, through the open windows, blew the flames of these horological candles about, so as to interfere quite seriously with the regularity of their burning. There was no glass for windows in those days, or, at least, very little. It had been introduced, it is said, in one instance, and that was in a monastery in the north of England. The abbot, whose name was Benedict, brought over some workmen from the Continent, where the art of making glass windows had been invented, and caused them to glaze some windows in his monastery. It was many years after this before glass came into general use even in churches, and palaces, and other costly buildings of that kind. In the mean time, windows were mere openings in stone walls, which could be closed only by shutters; and inasmuch as when closed they excluded the light as well as the air, they could ordinarily be shut only on one side of the apartment at a time—the side most exposed to the winds and storms.

Alfred accordingly found that the flame of his candles was blown by the wind, which made the wax burn irregularly; and, to remedy the evil, he contrived the plan of protecting them by thin plates of horn. Horn, when softened by hot water, can easily be cut and fashioned into any shape, and, when very thin, is almost transparent. Alfred had these thin plates of horn prepared, and set into the sides of a box made open to receive them, thus forming a rude sort of lantern, within which the time-keeping candles could burn in peace. Mankind have consequently given to King Alfred the credit of having invented lanterns.

Having thus completed his apparatus for the correct measurement of time, Alfred was enabled to be more and more systematic in the division and employment of it. One of the historians of the day relates that his plan was to give one third of the twenty-four hours to sleep and refreshment, one third to business, and the remaining third to the duties of religion. Under this last head was probably included all those duties and pursuits which, by the customs of the day, were considered as pertaining to the Church, such as study, writing, and the consideration and management of ecclesiastical affairs. These duties were performed, in those days, almost always by clerical men, and in the retirement and seclusion of monasteries, and were thus regarded as in some sense religious duties. We must conclude that Alfred classed them thus, as he was a great student and writer all his days, and there is no other place than this third head to which the duties of this nature can be assigned. Thus understood, it was a very wise and sensible division; though eight hours daily for any long period of time, appropriated to services strictly devotional, would not seem to be a wise arrangement, especially for a man in the prime of life, and in a position demanding the constant exercise of his powers in the discharge of active duties.

Thus the years of Alfred's life passed away, his kingdom advancing steadily all the time in good government, wealth, and prosperity. The country was not, however, yet freed entirely from the calamities and troubles arising from the hostility of the Danes. Disorders continually broke out among those who had settled in the land, and, in some instances, new hordes of invaders came in. These were, however, in most instances, easily subdued, and Alfred went on with comparatively little interruption for many years, in prosecuting the arts and improvements of peace. At last, however, toward the close of his life, a famous Northman leader, named Hastings, landed in England at the head of a large force, and made, before he was expelled, a great deal of trouble. An account of this invasion will be given in the next chapter.



CHAPTER XII.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE.

It was twelve or fifteen years after Alfred's restoration to his kingdom, by means of the victory at Edendune, that the great invasion of Hastings occurred. That victory took place in the year 878. It was in the years 893-897 that Hastings and his horde of followers infested the island, and in 900 Alfred died, so that his reign ended, as it had commenced, with protracted and desperate conflicts with the Danes.

Hastings was an old and successful soldier before he came to England. He had led a wild life for many years as a sea king on the German Ocean, performing deeds which in our day entail upon the perpetrator of them the infamy of piracy and murder, but which then entitled the hero of them to a very wide-spread and honorable fame. Afterward Hastings landed upon the Continent, and pursued, for a long time, a glorious career of victory and plunder in France. In these enterprises, the tide, indeed, sometimes turned against him. On one occasion, for instance, he found himself obliged to give way before his enemies, and he retreated to a church, which he seized and fortified, making it his castle until a more favorable aspect of his affairs enabled him to issue forth from this retreat and take the field again. Still he was generally very successful in his enterprises; his terrible ferocity, and that of his savage followers, were dreaded in every part of the civilized world.

Hastings had made one previous invasion of England; but Guthrum, faithful to his covenants with Alfred, repulsed him. But Guthrum was now dead, and Alfred had to contend against his formidable enemy alone.

Hastings selected a point on the southern coast of England for his landing. Guthrum's Danes still continued to occupy the eastern part of England, and Hastings went round on the southern coast until he got beyond their boundaries, as if he wished to avoid doing any thing directly to awaken their hostility. Guthrum himself, while he lived, had evinced a determination to oppose Hastings's plans of invasion. Hastings did not know, now that Guthrum was dead, whether his successors would oppose him or not. He determined, at all events, to respect their territory, and so he passed along on the southern shore of England till he was beyond their limits, and then prepared to land.



He had assembled a large force of his own, and he was joined, in addition to them, by many adventurers who came out to attach themselves to his expedition from the bays, and islands, and harbors which he passed on his way. His fleet amounted at least to two hundred and fifty vessels. They arrived, at length, at a part of the coast where there extends a vast tract of low and swampy land, which was then a wild and dismal morass. This tract, which is known in modern times by the name of the Romney Marshes, is of enormous extent, containing, as it does, fifty thousand acres. It is now reclaimed, and is defended by a broad and well-constructed dike from the inroads of the sea. In Hastings's time it was a vast waste of bogs and mire, utterly impassable except by means of a river, which, meandering sluggishly through the tangled wilderness of weeds and bushes in a deep, black stream, found an outlet at last into the sea.

Hastings took his vessels into this river, and, following its turnings for some miles, he conducted them at last to a place where he found more solid ground to land upon. But this ground, though solid, was almost as wild and solitary as the morass. It was a forest of vast extent, which showed no signs of human occupancy, except that the peasants who lived in the surrounding regions had come down to the lowest point accessible, and were building a rude fortification there. Hastings attacked them and drove them away. Then, advancing a little further, until he found an advantageous position, he built a strong fortress himself and established his army within its lines.

His next measure was to land another force near the mouth of the Thames, and bring them into the country, until he found a strong position where he could intrench and fortify the second division as he had done the first. These two positions were but a short distance from each other. He made them the combined center of his operations, going from them in all directions in plundering excursions. Alfred soon raised an army and advanced to attack him; and these operations were the commencement of a long and tedious war.

A detailed description of the events of this war, the marches and countermarches, the battles and sieges, the various success, first of one party and then of the other, given historically in the order of time, would be as tedious to read as the war itself was to endure. Alfred was very cautious in all his operations, preferring rather to trust to the plan of wearing out the enemy by cutting off their resources and hemming them constantly in, than to incur the risk of great decisive battles. In fact, watchfulness, caution, and delay are generally the policy of the invaded when a powerful force has succeeded in establishing itself among them; while, on the other hand, the hope of invaders lies ordinarily in prompt and decided action. Alfred was well aware of this, and made all his arrangements with a view to cutting off Hastings's supplies, shutting him up into as narrow a compass as possible, heading him off in all his predatory excursions, intercepting all detachments, and thus reducing him at length to the necessity of surrender.

At one time, soon after the war began, Hastings, true to the character of his nation for treachery and stratagem, pretended that he was ready to surrender, and opened a negotiation for this purpose. He agreed to leave the kingdom if Alfred would allow him to depart peaceably, and also, which was a point of great importance in Alfred's estimation, to have his two sons baptized. While, however, these negotiations were going on between the two camps, Alfred suddenly found that the main body of Hastings's army had stolen away in the rear, and were marching off by stealth to another part of the country. The negotiations were, of course, immediately abandoned, and Alfred set off with all his forces in full pursuit. All hopes of peace were given up, and the usual series of sieges, maneuverings, battles, and retreats was resumed again.

On one occasion Alfred succeeded in taking possession of Hastings's camp, when he had left it in security, as he supposed, to go off for a time by sea on an expedition. Alfred's soldiers found Hastings's wife and children in the camp, and took them prisoners. They sent the terrified captives to Alfred, to suffer, as they supposed, the long and cruel confinement or the violent death to which the usages of those days consigned such unhappy prisoners. Alfred baptized the children, and then sent them, with their mother, loaded with presents and proofs of kindness, back to Hastings again.

This generosity made no impression upon the heart of Hastings, or, at least, it produced no effect upon his conduct. He continued the war as energetically as ever. Months passed away and new re-enforcements arrived, until at length he felt strong enough to undertake an excursion into the very heart of the country. He moved on for a time with triumphant success; but this very success was soon the means of turning the current against him again. It aroused the whole country through which he was passing. The inhabitants flocked to arms. They assembled at every rallying point, and, drawing up on all sides nearer and nearer to Hastings's army, they finally stopped his march, and forced him to call all his forces in, and intrench himself in the first place of retreat that he could find. Thus his very success was the means of turning his good fortune into disaster.

And then, in the same way, the success of Alfred and the Saxons soon brought disaster upon them too, in their turn; for, after succeeding in shutting Hastings closely in, and cutting off his supplies of food, they maintained their watch and ward over their imprisoned enemies so closely as to reduce them to extreme distress—a distress and suffering which they thought would end in their complete and absolute submission. Instead of ending thus, however, it aroused them to desperation. Under the influence of the phrensy which such hopeless sufferings produce in characters like theirs, they burst out one day from the place of their confinement, and, after a terrible conflict, which choked up a river which they had to pass with dead bodies and dyed its waters with blood, the great body of the starving desperadoes made their escape, and, in a wild and furious excitement, half a triumph and half a retreat, they went back to the eastern coast of the island, where they found secure places of refuge to receive them.

In the course of the subsequent campaigns, a party of the Danes came up the River Thames with a fleet of their vessels, and an account is given by some of the ancient historians of a measure which Alfred resorted to to entrap them, which would seem to be scarcely credible. The account is, that he altered the course of the river by digging new channels for it, so as to leave the vessels all aground, when, of course, they became helpless, and fell an easy prey to the attacks of their enemies. This is, at least, a very improbable statement, for a river like the Thames occupies always the lowest channel of the land through which it passes to the sea. Besides, such a river, in order that it should be possible for vessels to ascend it from the ocean, must have the surface of its water very near the level of the surface of the ocean. There can, therefore, be no place to which such waters could be drawn off, unless into a valley below the level of the sea. All such valleys, whenever they exist in the interior of a country, necessarily get filled with water from brooks and rains, and so become lakes or inland seas. It is probable, therefore, that it was some other operation which Alfred performed to imprison the hostile vessels in the river, more possible in its own nature than the drawing off of the waters of the Thames from their ancient bed.

Year after year passed on, and, though neither the Saxons nor the Danes gained any very permanent and decisive victories, the invaders were gradually losing ground, being driven from one intrenchment and one stronghold to another, until, at last, their only places of refuge were their ships, and the harbors along the margin of the sea. Alfred followed on and occupied the country as fast as the enemy was driven away; and when, at last, they began to seek refuge in their ships, he advanced to the shore, and began to form plans for building ships, and manning and equipping a fleet, to pursue his retiring enemies upon their own element. In this undertaking, he proceeded in the same calm, deliberate, and effectual manner, as in all his preceding measures. He built his vessels with great care. He made them twice as long as those of the Danes, and planned them so as to make them more steady, more safe, and capable of carrying a crew of rowers so numerous as to be more active and swift than the vessels of the enemy.

When these naval preparations were made, Alfred began to look out for an object of attack on which he could put their efficiency to the test. He soon heard of a fleet of the Northmen's vessels on the coast of the Isle of Wight, and he sent a fleet of his own ships to attack them. He charged the commander of this fleet to be sparing of life, but to capture the ships and take the men, bringing as many as possible to him unharmed.

There were nine of the English vessels, and when they reached the Isle of Wight they found six vessels of the Danes in a harbor there. Three of these Danish vessels were afloat, and came out boldly to attack Alfred's armament. The other three were upon the shore, where they had been left by the tide, and were, of course, disabled and defenseless until the water should rise and float them again. Under these circumstances, it would seem that the victory for Alfred's fleet would have been easy and sure; and at first the result was, in fact, in Alfred's favor. Of the three ships that came out to meet him, two were captured, and one escaped, with only five men left on board of it alive. The Saxon ships, after thus disposing of the three living and moving enemies, pushed boldly into the harbor to attack those which were lying lifeless on the sands. They found, however, that, though successful in the encounter with the active and the powerful, they were destined to disaster and defeat in approaching the defenseless and weak. They got aground themselves in approaching the shoals on which the vessels of their enemies were lying. The tide receded and left three of the vessels on the sands, and kept the rest so separated and so embarrassed by the difficulties and dangers of their situation as to expose the whole force to the most imminent danger. There was a fierce contest in boats and on the shore. Both parties suffered very severely; and, finally, the Danes, getting first released, made their escape and put to sea.

Notwithstanding this partial discomfiture, Alfred soon succeeded in driving the ships of the Danes off his coast, and in thus completing the deliverance of his country. Hastings himself went to France, where he spent the remainder of his days in some territories which he had previously conquered, enjoying, while he continued to live, and for many ages afterward, a very extended and very honorable fame. Such exploits as those which he had performed conferred, in those days, upon the hero who performed them, a very high distinction, the luster of which seems not to have been at all tarnished in the opinions of mankind by any ideas of the violence and wrong which the commission of such deeds involved.