A.D. 836-871.

ETHELBALD.

41

pretation of some ancient charters. Tithes were most probably earlier instituted in this country; but Ethelwolf appears to have established the first poor-law, by imposing on every ten hides of land the obligation of maintaining one indigent person.

§ 4. On his return from Rome Ethelwolf married Judith, daughter of the French king, Charles the Bald, though she was then only twelve years of age; but on his landing in England he met with an opposition which he little looked for. His eldest son, Athelstane, being dead, Ethelbald, his second son, who had assumed the government,

formed, in concert with many of the nobles, EELV

the project of excluding his father from a throne which his weakness and superstition

seem to have rendered him so ill qualified Golden Ring of Ethelwolf in the to fill. The people were divided between the two princes, and a bloody civil war, joined to all the other calamities under which the English labored, appeared inevitable; when Ethelwolf had the facility to yield to the greater part of his son's pretensions. He made with him a partition of the kingdom; and taking to himself the, eastern part, which was always at that time esteemed the least considerable, as well as the most exposed to invasion, he delivered over to Ethelbald the sovereignty of the western half.

§ 5. ETHELBALD, ETHELBERT, and ETHELRED, A.D. 858-871. -Ethelwolf died about 858. He was succeeded by his sons Ethelbald and Ethelbert, whose short reigns present nothing of importance. On the death of the latter, Ethelred, another son of Ethelwolf, ascended the throne in the year 866. Under these monarchs the Danes continued their ravages with renewed vigor, and penetrated into the very heart of the country. In the course of their devastations they defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the King of East Anglia (871), to whom they proposed that he should renounce the Christian faith and rule under their supremacy. But Edmund having rejected this proposal with scorn and horror, the Danes bound him naked to a tree, scourged and shot at him with arrows, and finally beheaded him. The constancy with which Edmund met his death caused him to be canonized as a saint and martyr: the place where his body was buried took the name of Bury St. Edmund's, and a splendid monastery was erected there in his honor.

§ 6. ALFRED, 871-901.-Ethelred died of a wound received in battle against the Danes (871), and was succeeded by his brother

Alfred. This monarch, who was born at Wantage in 849, and was now 22 years of age, gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining talents by which he saved his country from utter ruin and subversion. He distinguished himself, during the reign of his brother Ethelred, in several engagements against the Danes. His genius was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems: he soon learned to read those compositions, and proceeded thence to acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his generous views. Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than triumph; but, being called to the throne in preference to his brother's children, as well by the will of his father as by the vows of the whole nation and the urgency of public affairs, he exerted himself in the defense of his people.

The first seven years of his reign were spent in incessant struggles against the Danes, over whom he gained some victories; but fresh swarms of Northmen continually poured into the kingdom, and Alfred, overpowered by superior numbers, was at length obliged (878) to relinquish the ensigns of his dignity, to dismiss his servants, and to seek shelter in the meanest disguises from the pursuit and fury of his enemies. He concealed himself under a peasant's habit, and lived some time in the house of a neatherd, who had been intrusted with the care of some of his cows. The wife of the neatherd was ignorant of the condition of her royal guest; and observing him one day busy by the fireside in trimming his bow and arrows, she desired him to take care of some cakes which were toasting, while she was employed elsewhere in other domestic affairs. But Alfred, whose thoughts were otherwise engaged, neglected this injunction, and the good woman on her return, finding her cakes all burnt, rated the king very severely, and upbraided him that he always seemed very well pleased to eat her warm cakes, though he was thus negligent in toasting them.

$ 7. By degrees, Alfred, as he found the search of the enemy become more remiss, collected some of his retainers and retired into the centre of a bog formed by the stagnating waters of the Thone and Parret, in Somersetshire. He here found two acres of firm ground, and, building a habitation on them, rendered himself secure by its fortifications, and still more by the unknown and inaccessible roads which led to it, and by the forests and morasses with which it was every way environed. This place he called Æthelingay, or the Isle of Nobles; and it now bears the name of Athelney. He thence made frequent and unexpected sallies upon

* A beautiful gold enameled jewel found at this spot, and now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, has the inscription "Elfred mec heht gewur

A.D. 871-878.

ALFRED IN THE DANISH CAMP.

43

the Danes, who often felt the vigor of his arm, but knew not from what quarter the blow came. He subsisted himself and his followers by the plunder which he acquired; he procured them consolation by revenge; and from small successes he opened their minds to hope that, notwithstanding his present low condition, more important victories might at length attend his valor. But before he would assemble them in arms, or urge them to any attempt which, if unfortunate, might in their present despondency prove fatal, he resolved to inspect himself the situation of the enemy, and to judge of the probability of success. For this purpose

he entered their camp under the disguise of a harper, or glee-man, and passed unsuspected through every quarter. He so entertained them with his music and facetious humors, that he met with a welcome reception, and was even introduced to the tent of Guthrum, their prince, where he remained some days. He remarked the supine security of the Danes, their contempt of the English, their negligence in foraging and plundering, and their dissolute wasting of what they gained by rapine and violence. Encouraged by these favorable appearances, he secretly sent emissaries to the most considerable of his subjects, and summoned them to a rendezvous, attended by their warlike followers, at Brixton, on the borders of Selwood Forest. The English, who had hoped to put an end to their calamities by servile submission, now found the insolence and rapine of the conqueror more intolerable than all past fatigues and dangers; and at the appointed day they joyfully resorted to their prince. He instantly conducted them to Ethandûn (perhaps Eddington, near Westbury), where the Danes were encamped; and, taking advantage of his previous knowledge of the place, he directed his attack against the most unguarded quarter of the enemy. The Danes, surprised to see an army of English, whom they considered as totally subdued, and still more astonished to hear that Alfred was at their head, made but a faint resistance, notwithstanding their superiority of number, and were soon put to flight with great slaughter. The remainder of the routed army, with their prince, was besieged by Alfred in a fortified camp to which they fled; but, being reduced to extremity by want and hunger, they had recourse to the clemency of the victor, and offered to submit on any conditions. The king gave them their lives, and even formed a scheme for converting them from mortal enemies into faithful subjects and confederates. He knew that the kingdom of East Anglia was totally desolated by the frequent inroads of the Danes, and he now proposed to repeople it by settling there Guthrum and his followers, who might serve him as can" (Alfred ordered me to be wrought). According to the testimony of his biographer, Asser, Alfred encouraged goldsmiths.

a rampart against any future incursions of their countrymen. But, before he ratified these mild conditions with the Danes, he required that they should give him one pledge of their submission, and of their inclination to incorporate with the English, by declaring their conversion to Christianity. Guthrum and thirty of his officers had no aversion to the proposal, and, without much instruction, or argument, or conference, they were all admitted to baptism (A.D. 878). The king answered for Guthrum at the font, gave him the name of Athelstane, and received him as his adopted son. The success of this expedient seemed to correspond to Alfred's hopes, and the greater part of the Danes settled peaceably in their new quarters. The Danes had for some years occupied the towns of Derby, Leicester, Stamford, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and were thence called the Fif or Five Burghers. Alfred now ceded a considerable part of the kingdom of Mercia, retaining, however, the western portion, or country of the Hiwiccas. It would, however, be an error to suppose that the Danes became really the subjects of Alfred. On the contrary, they continued to form an independent state down to the latest times of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. The general boundary between the Danes and Saxons was the old Roman road called Watling Street, which ran from London across England to Chester and the Irish Channel, the province of the Danes lying to the north and east of that road, which was hence called Danelagh, the Danes' community. The Danes continually received fresh accessions of numbers from their own country, and were able to bid defiance to all the efforts of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs to reduce them to subjection.

§ 8. After the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred enjoyed tranquillity for some years. He employed this interval in restoring order to the state, which had been shaken by so many violent convulsions; in establishing civil and military institutions; in composing the minds of men to industry and justice; and in providing against the return of like calamities. After rebuilding the ruined cities, particularly London, which had been destroyed by the Danes in the reign of Ethelwolf, he established a regular militia for the defense of the kingdom. He increased his fleet both in number and strength, and trained his subjects in the practice as well of sailing as of naval action. He improved the construction of his vessels, which were higher, swifter, and steadier than those of the Danes, and nearly double the length, some of them having more than 60 rowers. A fleet of 120 ships of war was stationed upon the coast; and, being provided with warlike engines, as well as with expert seamen, both Frisians and English-for Alfred supplied the defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners in his servicemaintained a superiority over those smaller bands with which En

A.D. 878-901. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF ALFRED.

45

gland had so often been infested. But in the year 893 the northern provinces of France, into which Hasting, the famous Danish chief, had penetrated, being afflicted with a grievous famine, the Danes set sail from Boulogne with a powerful fleet under the command of Hasting, landed upon the coast of Kent, and began to commit the most destructive ravages. It would be tedious to narrate the events of this new Danish war, which occupied the attention of Alfred for the next few years. It is sufficient to relate that, after repeated defeats in different parts of the island, the small remains of the Danes either dispersed themselves among their countrymen in Northumberland and East Anglia, or had recourse again to the sea, where they exercised piracy under the command of Siegfrid, a Northumbrian; and that Alfred finally succeeded in restoring full tranquillity in England. He died (A.D. 901) in the vigor of his age and the full strength of his faculties, after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a half, in which he deservedly attained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the title of Founder of the English Monarchy.

§ 9. The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which the annals of any age or any nation can present us. His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among princes, as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him every bodily accomplishment, vigor of limbs, dignity of shape and air, with a pleasing, engaging, and open countenance. When Alfred came to the throne he found the nation sunk into the grossest ignorance and barbarism, proceeding from the continual disorders in the government, and from the ravages of the Danes. The monasteries were destroyed, the monks butchered or dispersed, their libraries burned; and thus the only seats of erudition in those ages were totally subverted. Alfred himself complains that on his accession he knew not one person south of the Thames who could so much as interpret the Latin service; and very few in the northern parts who had reached even that pitch of erudition. But this prince invited over the most celebrated scholars from all parts of Europe; he established schools every where for the instruction of his people; and he enjoined by law all freeholders possessing two hides of land, or more, to send their children to school for their instruction. The foundation, or, at least, the restoration, of the University of Oxford, has sometimes been ascribed to him, but for this pretension there seems to be no satisfactory evidence. But the most effectual ex