The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027953854 Cornell University Library DA 153.H89 Alfred the Great, 3 1924 027 953 854 ^/ ^^Dt"^/?^^ THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. A uthor of ' ' Tom BrowrCs Sclwol Days. MACMII/IyAN &? Co CORhJEL UrsifVERSiTY \ LIBRARY CONTENTS. ffAGE PREFACE. . . . I CHAPTER I. OF KINGS AND KINGSHIP ... . . ... 7 CHAPTER II. A THOUSAND YEARS AGO ... . ... ... 1$ CHAPTER III. CHILDHOOD. . . . . . 32 CHAPTER IV. CNIHTHOOD ... ... . . 44 CHAPTER V. THE DANE .... . . . . ... -56 CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST WAVE .... ... 68 CHAPTER VII. ALFRED ON THE THRONE 86 b CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGJJ THE SECOND WAVE ... • • 9' CHAPTER IX. ATHELNEY ... . . .... lOO CHAPTER X. ETHANDUNE - • - • . . 1 14 CHAPTER XI. RETROSPECT . ...... 12? CHAPTER XII. THE king's board OF WORKS . 13^ CHAPTER XIII. THE king's WAR OFFICE AND ADMIRALTY . 147 CHAPTER XIV. THE king's laws . . ... . 159 CHAPTER XV. THE king's justice .... 1 73 CHAPTER XVI. THE king's EXCHEQUER . . . 1 89 CHAPTER XVII. THE king's CHURCH . . ... 200 CHAPTER XVIII. THE king's friends . 212 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. f'ACE THE king's neighbours 228 CHAPTER XX. THE king's foe ... . 24O CHAPTER XXI. THE THIRD WAVE . ... 250 CHAPTER XXn. THE king's home . . 267 CHAPTER XXIH. THE KING AS AUTHOR .... . 278 CHAPTER XXIV. THE king's DEATH AND WILL .... . . . 3OI CHAPTER XXV. THE king's successors . 311 CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF THE WHOLE MATTER. 317 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VACE MAP 11F F.i\(;l.A>"Il AHOUT A.]). lOOO AND AT THE PRESENT TIME frontispiece KING ALFRED AT THE BATTLE OF ASHDOWN . to face 76 SEDULOUSLY BENT ON ACQUIRING LEARMN'i; ,, 177 PREFACE. The early ages of our country's history have been studied, and written and re-written, with a care and ability which have left nothing to desire. Every source from which light could be drawn has been explored by eminent scholars, and probably all the facts which will ever be known have been now ascer- tained. Kemble, Palgrave, and Thorpe have been succeeded by Pearson and Freeman, whose great ability and industry every student of those times, however humble, must be able to recognise, and to whom the present writer is anxious to express his deep obligations. Thanks to their labours, whoever takes for his subject any portion of our early national history will find his task one of comparative ease. And of all that early history the life and times of Alfred are, beyond all question, the most absorbing in interest. The story has been written many times, from different points of view, by natives and foreigners ; from Sir John Spelman, the first edition of whose Life of Alfred was published in 1709, to Dr. Pauli, whose S.L. VIII. B 2 PREFACE. most admirable and exhaustive work is not yet eighteen years old. That book was written " by a German for Germans," as we learn from the preface. Its plan, Dr. Pauli tells us, was conceived at Oxford, in Novem- ber 1 848, " at a time when German hearts trembled, as they had seldom done before, for the preservation of their Fatherland, and especially for the continuance of those states which were destined by Heaven for the protection and support of Germany." Happily no German need now tremble for the preservation of his Fatherland, but the problems which 1848 started still await an answer. The revolutionary spur which was then given to the intellectual and political activity of Christendom has as yet done little beyond dooming certain conditions of political and social life, and awakening a very genuine and wide- spread longing for some better and higher life for nations than has ever yet been realized. The political earthquake of 1848, then, led Dr. Pauli to take so deep an interest in the struggles and life-work of King Alfred, that he could not rest until he had placed a picture of them before his German fellow-countrymen, for their study, warning, and en- couragement. The German student felt that some- how this story would prove of value to those in his Fatherland who were struggling for some solid ground upon which to plant their feet, in the midst of the throes of the last great European crisis. A like con- viction has led me to attempt the same work, an PREFACE. Englishman for Englishmen, in a crisis which seems likely to prove at least as serious as that of 1848. For the events of the last few years — one may perhaps say more particularly of the last few months — have forced on those who think on such subjects at all, the practical need of examining once more the principles upon which society, and the life of nations, rest. How are nations to be saved from the tyranny or domination of arbitrary will, whether of a Csesar or a mob ? is the problem before us, and one which is becoming daily more threatening, demanding an answer at the peril of national life. France for the moment is the country where the question presses most urgently. There the most democratic of Euro- pean peoples seemed to have given up her ideal commonwealth in despair, and Imperialism or Csesarism had come out most nakedly, in this generation, under our own eyes. The Emperor of the French has shown Christendom, both in practice by his government, and theoretically in his writings, what this Imperialism is, upon what it stands. The answer, maturing now these seventeen years, has come in a shout from a whole people, thoroughly roused at last, " Away with it ! It is undermining society, it is destroying morality. Brave, simple, honest life is becoming, if it has not already become, im- possible under its shadow. Away with this, at once, and for ever, let what will come in its place ! " But when we anxiously look for what is to come B 2 PREFACE. ill its place in France, we are baffled and depressed. We seem to be gazing only into the hurly-burly of driving cloud and heaving sea, in which as yet no trace of firm land is visible. The cry for " minis- terial responsibility,'' or "government by the majo- rity," seems for the moment to express the best mind of the nation. Alas ! has not Louis Napoleon shown us how little worth lies in such remedies 1 Responsibility to whom .' — To no person at all, I presume the answer would be, but to the majority of the nation, who are the source of all power, whose will is to be done whatever it may be. But the Emperor of the French would acknowledge such responsibility, would maintain that his own govern- ment is founded on it, that he is the very incar- nation of " government by the majority ; " and one cannot but own that he has at least proved how easily such phrases may be turned to the benefit of his own Imperialism. The problem has been showing itself, though not in so urgent a form, in England, in the late discus- sions as to the House of Lords. That part of our machinery for government has been so nearly in conflict with the national will as to rouse a host of questions. What principle worth preserving does this House of Lords represent .' Is it compatible with government by the majority } Does not its existence involve a constant protest against the idea that the people are the source of all power } Is PREFACE. such a protest endurable, if the machinery for govern- ing, in so complicated a state of society as ours, is to work smoothly ? Here, again, one has heard little beyond angry declamation ; but the discussion has shown that the time is come when we English can no longer stand by as interested spectators only, but in which every one of our own institutions will be sifted with rigour, and will have to show cause for its existence. In every other nation of Christendom the same restlessness exists, the same ferment is going on ; and under many different forms, and by many different roads, the same end is sought — the deliverance from the dominion of arbitrary will, the establishment of some order in which "righteousness shall be the girdle of the loins, and truth the girdle of the reins," of who- ever wields the sovereign power amongst the nations of the earth. As a help in this search, this life of the typical English King is here offered, not to historical stu- dents, but to ordinary English readers. The writer has not attempted, and is not competent to take part in, the discussion of any of the deeply interesting critical, antiquarian, and philological questions which cross the path of every student of Anglo-Saxon history, and which have been so ably handled by the authors already referred to, and many others. As a politician, both in and out of the House of Commons, he has had to examine for himself for many years PREFACE. the actual gi'ound upon which the political life of the English nation stands, that he might solve for his own individual guidance, according to the best light he could get, the most practical of all questions for a public man, — what leader he should support ? what reforms he should do his best to obtain ? Born in Alfred's own county, and having been from childhood familiar with the spots which history and tradition associate with some of the most critical events of the great King's life, he has reached the same conclusion as Dr. Pauli by a different process. He has learnt to look upon the Saxon King as the true representative of the nation in contrast to the great Csesar, so nearly his contemporary, whose aim was to weld together all nations and tribes in one lifeless empire under his own sceptre. That empire of Charlemagne has been exalted of late as the beginning of all true order for Europe and America. If this were so, it would be indeed a waste of time to dwell on the life and work of Alfred. If, however, precisely the contrary be true, it must be worth while to follow as faithfully as we can the simple honest life of the great Saxon King, endeavouring to ascertain upon what ground that life and work of the ninth century stood, and' whether the same ground abides in the nineteenth for all nations, alike for those who have visible kings and those who are without them. THE LIFE ALFRED THE GREAT. CHAPTER I. OF KINGS AND KINGSHIP. "We come now to the last form of heroism, that which we call ' Kingship,' — The Commander over men ; he to whose will our wills are to be sub- ordinated, and loyally surrender themselves and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of great men." " In all sections of English life the God-made king is needed, is pi'essingly de- manded in most, in some cannot longer without peril as of conflagration be dispensed with.'' So spoke, twenty years ago, the teacher, prophet, seer — call him what you will — who has in many ways moved more deeply than any other the hearts of this gene- ration. Has not the conscience of England responded to the words ? Have not most of us felt that in some shape — not perhaps in that which he preaches — what LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. Mr. Carlyle calls " kingship " is, in fact, our great need ; that without it our modern life, however full for the well-to-do amongst us of all that can interest, stimu- late, gratify our intellects, passions, appetites, is a poor and mean thing, ever getting poorer and meaner. Yes, this cry, to which Mr. Carlyle first gave voice in our day, has been going up from all sections of English society these many years, in sad, fierce, or plaintive accents. The poet most profoundly in sympathy with his time calls for ' ' A strong still man in a blatant land. Whatever you name him what care I, Aristocrat, autocrat, democrat, one Who can rule and dare not lie.'' The newest school of philosophy preaches an " organized religion," an hierarchy of the best and ablest. In an 'inarticulate way the confession rises from the masses of our people, that they too feel on every side of them the need of wise and strong government — of a will to which their will may loyally submit — before all other needs; have been groping blindly after it this long while ; begin to know that their daily life is in daily peril for want of it, in this country of limited land, air, and water, and practically unlimited wealth. But Democracy, — how about Democracy 1 We had thought a cry for it, and not for kings, God-made or of any other kind, was the characteristic of our time. Certainly kings such as we have seen them have not gained or deserved much reverence of late years, are not likely to be called for with any great earnest- OF KINGS AND KINGSHIP. ness, by those who feel most need of guidance, and deliverance, in the midst of the bewildering conditions and surroundings of our time and our life. Twenty years ago the framework of society went all to pieces over the greater part of Christendom, and the kings just ran away or abdicated, and the people, left pretty much to themselves, in some places made blind work of it. Solvent and well-regulated society caught a glimpse of that same " big black democracy," — the monster, the Frankenstein, as they hold him, at any rate the great undeniable fact of our time, — a glimpse of him moving his huge limbs about, uneasily and blindly. Then, mainly by the help of broken pledges and bayonets, the so-called kings managed to get the gyves put on him again, and to shut him down in his underground prison. That was the sum of their work in the last great European crisis ; not a thankworthy one from the people's point of view. However, society was supposed to be saved, and the " party of order " so called breathed freely. No ; for the 1 848 kind of king there is surely no audible demand anywhere. Here in England in that year we had our loth of April, and muster of half a million special constables of the comfortable classes, with much jubilation over such muster, and mutual congratulations that we were not as other men, or even as these Frenchmen, Germans, and the like. Taken for what it was worth, let us admit that the jubilations did not lack some sort of justification. The loth of April muster may be perhaps accepted as a sign that the reverence LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. for the constable's staff has not quite died out yet amongst us. But let no one think that for this reason Democracy is one whit less inevitable in England than on the Continent ; or that its sure and steady advance, and the longing for its coming, which all thoughtful men recognise, however little they may sympathise with them, is the least incompatible with the equally manifest longing for what our people intend by this much-worshipped and much-hated name. For what does Democracy mean to us English in these years .'' Simply an equal chance for all ; a fair field for the best men, let them start from where they will, to get to the front ; a clearance out of sham governors, and of unjust privilege, in every depart- ment of human affairs. It cannot be too often repeated, that they who suppose the bulk of our people want less government, or fear the man who "can rule and dare not lie," know little of them. Ask any representative of a popular constituency, or other man with the means of judging, what the people are ready for in this direction. He will tell you that, in spite perhaps of all he can say or do, they will go for compulsory education, the organization of labour (including therein the sharp extinction of able-bodied pauperism), the utilization of public lands, and other reforms of an equally decided character. That for these purposes they desire more government, not less ; will support with enthusiasm measures, the very thought of which takes away the breath and loosens the knees of ordinary politicians ; will rally with loyalty and trustfulness to OF KINGS AND KINGSHIP. men who will undertake these things with courage and singleness of purpose. But admit all this to be so, yet why talk of kings and kingship ? Why try to fix our attention on the last kind of persons who are likely to help ? Kings have become a caste, sacred or not, as you may happen to hold, but at any rate a markedly separate caste. Is not this a darkening of counsel, a using of terms which do not really express your meaning ? Democrats we know : Tribunes of the people we know. When these are true and single-minded, they are the men for the work you are talking of. To do it in any thorough way, in any way which will last, you must have men in real sympathy with the masses. True. But what if the special function of the king is precisely this of sympathy with the masses .'' Our biblical training surely would seem to teach that it is. When all people are to bow before the king, all nations to do him service, it is because "\\& shall deliver the poor when he crieth, the needy also, and him that hath no helper." When the king prays for the judgments and righteousness of God, it is in order that " he may judge Thy people according unto right, and defend the poor." When the king sits in judg- ment, the reason of his sentence, whether of approval or condemnation, turns upon this same point of sympathy with the poor and weak, — " Inasmuch as ye have done it, or not done it, to the least of these my brethren." From one end to the other of the Bible we are face to face with these words, "king" and " kingdom ; " from the first word to the last the same LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. idea of the king's work, the king's functions, runs through history, poem, parable, statute, and binds them together. The king fills at least as large a space in our sacred books as in Mr. Carlyle's ; the writers seem to think him, and his work, quite as necessary to the world as Mr. Carlyle does. To those who look on the Hebrew scriptures as mere ancient Asian records, which have been luckily pre- served, and are perhaps as valuable as the Talmud or the Vedas, this peculiarity in them will seem of little moment. To those who believe otherwise — who hold that these same scriptures contain the revelation of God to the family of mankind so far as words can reveal Him — the fact is one which deserves and must claim their most serious thought. If they desire to be honest with themselves, they will not play fast and loose with the words, or the ideas ; will rather face them, and grudge no effort to get at what real mean- ing or force lies for themselves in that which the Bible says as to kings and kingdoms, if indeed any be left for us in A.D. 1869. As a help in the study we may take this again from the author already quoted : — " The only title wherein I with confidence trace eternity, is that of king. He carries with him an authority from God, or man will never give it him. Can I choose my own king } I can choose my own King Popinjay and play what farce or tragedy I may with him : but he who is to be my ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, was chosen for me in heaven. Neither except in such obedience to the heaven- chosen is freedom so OF KINGS AND KINGSHIP. 13 much as conceivable." Words of very startling im- port these, no doubt ; but the longer we who accept the Hebrew scriptures as books of the revelation of God think on them, the more we shall find them sober and truthful words. At least that is the belief of the present writer, which belief he hopes to make clearer in the course of this work to those who care to go along with him. And now for the word " king," for it is well that we should try to understand it before we approach the life of the noblest Englishman who ever bore it. " Cyning, by contraction king," says Mr. Freeman, " is evidently closely connected with the word Cyn, or Kin. The connexion is not without an important meaning. The king is the representative of the race, the embodiment of its national being, the child of his people and not their father." Another eminent scholar. Sir F. Palgrave, derives king from " Cen," a Celtic word signifying the head. " The commander of men," says Mr. Carlyle, " is called Rex, Regulator, Roi : our own name is still better — King, Konning, which means Can-ning, able man." And so the ablest scholars are at issue over the word, which would seem to be too big to be tied down to either definition. Surely, whatever the true etymology may be, the ideas ■ — ■ " representative," "head," "ablest" — do not clash, but would rather seem necessary to one another to bring out the full mean- ing of the word. " The representative of the race, the embodiment of its national being," must be its "head," should be its "ablest, its best man." At any rate 14 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. they were gathered up in him whose life we must now try to follow: "England's herdman," "England's darling," " England's comfort," as he is styled by the old chroniclers. A thousand years have passed since Alfred was struggling with the mighty work appointed for him by God in this island. What that work was, how it was done, what portion of it remains to this day, it will be our task and our privilege to consider. CHAPTER II. A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. " For n thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing it is past as a watch in the night. " The England upon which the child Alfred first looked out must, however, detain us for a short time. And at the threshold we are met with the fact that the names of his birthplace, Wanating (Wantage) ; of the shire in which it lies, Berroc-shire (Berkshire) ; of the district stretching along the chalk hills above it, Ashdown ; of the neighbouring villages, such as Uffington, Ashbury, Kingston-Lisle, Compton, &c., remain unchanged. The England of a thousand years ago was divided throughout into shires, hundreds, tithings, as it remains to this day. Al- most as much might until lately have been said of the language. At least the writer, when a boy, has heard an able Anglo-Saxon scholar of that day maintain, that if one of the churls who fought at Ashdown with Alfred could have risen up from his breezy grave under a barrow, and walked down the hill into Uffington, he would have been understood without difficulty by the peasantry. That generation i6 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. has passed away, and with them much of the racy- vernacular which so charmed the Anglo-Saxon anti- quary thirty years ago. But let us hear one of the most dhiinent of contemporary English historians on the general question. " The main divisions of the country," writes Mr. Freeman, " the local names of the vast mass of its towns and villages, were fixed when the Norman came, and have survived with but little change to our own day. . . . He found the English nation occupying substantially the same territory, and already exhibiting in its laws, its language, its national character, the most essential of the features which it still retains. Into the English nation, which he thus found already formed, his own dynasty and his own followers were gradually absorbed. The conquered did not become Normans, but the con- querors did become Englishmen." Grand, tough, much-enduring old English stock, with all thy im- perviousness to ideas, thy Philistinism, afflicting to the children of light in these latter days, thy obdurate, nay pig-headed, reverence for old forms out of which the life has flown, adherence to old ways which have become little better than sloughs of despond, what man is there that can claim to be child of thine whose pulse does not quicken, and heart leap up, at the thought ? Who has not at the very bottom of his soul faith in thy future, in thy power to stand fast in this time of revolutions, which is upon and before thee and all nations, as thou hast stood through many a dark day of the Lord in the last thousand years ? But though the divisions of the country, and the A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 17 names, remain the same, or nearly so, we must not for- get the great superficial change which has taken place by the clearance of the forest tracts. These spread, a thousand years ago, over very large districts in all parts of England. In these forests the droves of swine, which formed a considerable portion of the wealth, and whose flesh furnished the staple food, of the people, wandered, feeding on acorns and beech-mast. Here, too, the outlaws, who abounded in those unsettled times, found shelter and safety ; and they were used alike by Saxon and Dane for ambush and stronghold. Christian monks, escaping from the sack of their abbeys and cathedrals, and carrying hardly-saved relics, fled to them, and often lived in them for years ; and heathen bands, beaten and hard pre.ssed by Alfred or his aldermen, could often foil their pursuers?-.. and lie hidden in their shade, until the Saxon soldiery had gone home to their harvest, or their sowing. The sudden blows which the Danes seem always to have been able to strike in the beginning of their cam- paigns were made possible by these great tracts of forest, through which they could steal without notice. There were a few great trunk roads, such as Watling Street, which ran from London to Chester, and the Ickenild Way, through Berks, Wilts, and Somerset- shire, and highways or tracks connecting villages and towns. These seem to have been numerous and populous; and in them and the monasteries, before Alfred's time, trades had begun to flourish. We even find that there must have been skilful jewellers and weavers in Wessex ; witness the vessels in gold and S.L. VHI. C 1 8 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. silver-gilt, and silk dresses and hangings, which his father and he carried to Rome as presents to the Pope, and Alfred's jewel, found in 1693 in Newton Park,' near Athelney, and now in the Ashmolean Museum. The lands immediately adjoining towns, monasteries, and the houses of aldermen and thegns were well cultivated, and produced cereals in abun- dance, and orchards and vineyards seem to have been much cared for. The state of the country, however, is best summed up by Kemble : — "On the natural clearings of the forest, or on spots prepared ^y man for his own uses ; in valleys bounded by gentle acclivities which poured down fertilizing streams ; or on plains which here and there rose clothed with verdure above surrounding marshes; slowly, and step by step, the warlike colonists adopted the habits and developed the character of peaceful agriculturists. The towns which had been spared in the first rush of war gradually became deserted and slowly crumbled to the soil, beneath which their ruins are yet found from time to' time, or upon which shapeless masses yet remain to mark the sites of a civilization whose bases were not laid deep enough. All over England there soon existed a network of communities, the principle of whose being was separation as regarded each other, the most intimate union as respected the individual members of each. Agricultural not com- mercial, dispersed not centralized, content within their own limits, and little given to wandering, they relinquished in a great degree the habits and feelings which had united them as military adventurers, and A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 19 the spirit which had achieved the conquest of an empire was now satisfied with the care of maintain- ing inviolate a little peaceful plot, sufficient for the cultivation of a few simple households." Bishop Wilfrid, a century before, had instructed the South Saxon^ in improved methods of fishing, and they were energetic hunters, so that their tables were well provided with lighter delicacies, though as a people they preferred heavy and strong meats and drinks. Their meals were frequent, at which the boiled and baked meats were handed round to the guests on spits, each helping himself as he had a mind. The heavy feeding was followed by heavy carousings of mead and ale ; and, for rich people, wine, and " pigment," a drink made of wine, honey, and spices, and " morat," a drink of mulberry -juice and honey. Harpers and minstrels played and sang while the drinking went on, providing such intellectual food as our fathers cared to take, and jugglers and jesters were ready, with their tumblings of one kind or another, when the guests wearied of the perform- ances of the higher artists. Song-craft was at this time less cultivated in Eng- land, except by professors, than it had been a hundred years before. Then every guest was expected to take his turn, and it would seem to have been somewhat of a disgrace for a man not to be able to sing, or recite some old Teutonic ballad to music. Thus we find in the celebrated story of Csedmon, told in Bede's " Ecclesiastical History," that though he had come to full age he had never learnt any poetry, " and C 2 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. therefore at entertainments, when it had been deemed for the sake of mirth that all in turn should sing to the harp, he would rise for shame from the table when the harp approached him, and go out." The rest of the story is so characteristic of the times that we may well allow Bede to finish ^t in this place. " One time when he had done this, and left the house of the entertainment, he went to a neat stall of which he had charge for the night, and there set his limbs to rest, and fell asleep. Then a man stood by him in a dream and hailed him byname, and said, 'Csedmon, sing me something.' Then answered he, 'I cannot sing anything, and therefore I went out from the entertainment and came hither for that I could not sing.' But the man said, ' However, thou canst sing to me.' Casdmon asked then, ' What shall I sing .? ' and the man answered, ' Sing me Creation.' When he had received this answer, then began he at once to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard. This was the beginning: — " ' Now let us praise The keeper of heaven's kingdom, The Creator's might. And the thought of His mind, The works of the World-Father — How of all wonders He was the beginning. The holy Creator First shaped heaven A roof for earth's children ; Then the Creator, Xhe keeper of mankind, .•; THOUSAND YEARS AGO. The Eternal Lord, The Almighty Father, Afterwards made the earth A fold for men.' Then arose he from sleep, and all that he sleeping had sung he held fast in his memory, and soon added to them many words as of a song worthy of God. Then came he on the morrow to the town-reeve who was his alderman, and told him of the gift he had gotten, and the town-reeve took him to the abbess (St. Hilda), and told her. Then she ordered to gather all the wise men, and bade him in their presence tell his dream and sing the song, that by the doom of them all it might be proved what it was, and whence it came. Then it seemed to all, as indeed it was, that a heavenly gift had been given him by the Lord him- self. Then they related to him a holy speech, and bade him try to turn that into sweet song. And when he had received it he went home to his house, and coming again on the morrow sang them what they had related to him in the sweetest voice.'' So Caedmon was taken by Abbess Hilda into one of her monasteries, and there sang " the outgoing of Israel's folk from the land of the Egyptians, and the ingoing of the Land of Promise, and of Christ's incarnation and sufferings and ascension, and many other spells of Holy Writ. But he never could compose anything of leasing or of idle song, but those only which belonged to religion, and became a pious tongue to sing." The cowherd getting his inspiration, and carrying 2 2 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. it at once to his town-reeve; the reference to the saintly abbess ; the conference of the wise men of the neighbourhood to pass their doom on the occurrence ; and the consequent retirement of Caedmon from the world, and devotion to the cultivation of his gift under the shadow of the Church, form a picture of one corner of England, a thousand years ago, which may help us to understand the conditions of life amongst our ancestors in several respects. For one thing it brings us directly into contact with the Church — in this ninth century the most obvious and important fact in England, as in every other country of Christendom. Churches have been divided into those that audibly preach and prophesy ; those that are struggling to preach and prophesy, but cannot yet ; and those that are gone dumb with old age, and only mumble de- lirium prior to dissolution. This would look like an exhaustive division at first sight, but yet the English Church, at the time of Alfred's birth, would scarcely fall under either category. Up to the beginning of the ninth century the history of the Church in England had been one of extraordinary activity and earnestness. She had not only completed her work of conversion within the island, and established centres from which the highest education and civilization then attainable flowed out on all the Teutonic kingdoms, from the English Channel to the Frith of Forth, but had also sent forth a number of such missionaries as St. Boniface, such scholars as Alcuin, to help in the establishment of their Master's kingdom on the Continent. A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 23 The sort of work which she was still doing in England, in the eighth century, may be gathered from the authentic accounts of the lives of such men as St. Cuthbert, who is said to have been Alfred's patron saint, which may easily be separated from the miraculous legends with which they are loaded. St. Cuthbert from his boyhood had devoted himself to monastic life, and had risen to be rector of his monastery, when some great epidemic passed over the northern counties. "Many then, in that time of great pestilence, profaned their profession by unrighteous doings, and — neglecting the mysteries of the holy faith in which they had been instructed — hastened and crowded to the erring cures of idolatry, as if they could ward off the chastisement sent ,by God their maker by magic or charms, or any secret. of devil- craft. To correct both these errors, the man of God often went out of his monastery, and sometimes on a horse, at other times on his feet, came to the places lying round, and preached and taught to the erring the way of steadfastness in the truth. It was at that time the custom with folk of the English kin that when a mass priest came into a town they should all come together to hear God's word, and would gladly hear the things taught and eagerly follow by deeds the words they could understand. Now the holy man of God, Cuthbert, had so much skill and learning, and so much love to the divine lore which he had begun to teach, and such a light of angelic looks shone from him, that none of those present 24 LIFE OF ALFRED THE ORE A T. durst hide the secrets of the heart from him, but all openly confessed their deeds, and their acknowledged sins bettered with true repentance, as he bade. He was wont chiefly to go through those places and to preach in those hamlets which were high up on rugged mountains, frightful to others to visit, and whose people by their poverty and ignorance hin- dered the approach of teachers. These hindrances he by pious labour and great zeal overcame, and went out from the monastery often a whole week, some- times two or three, and often, also, for a whole month would not return home, but abode in the wild places, and called and invited the unlearned folk to the heavenly life both by the word of his love and by the work of his virtue." Thus teaching the poor in the highest matters, and also showing them with his own hands how to till and sow — "it being the will of the Heavenly Giver that crops of grain should be up-growing " in waste places, — and how to find and husband water, Cuth- bert, and such priests as he, spent their lives. But a change had passed over the Church in the last fifty years. The Bedes and Alcuins had died out, and left no successors. Learning was grossly neglected, and the slothful clergy had allowed things to come to such a pass that Alfred in his youth could find no master south of the Thames to teach him Latin. Even the study of the Scriptures was very negligently performed, and the education of the people was no longer cared for at all. Bishop Ealstan, soldier and statesman, had succeeded the Alcuins; and St. A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 25 Swithin, bent on advancing the interests of Rome, the St. Bonifaces and St. Cuthberts. Still, however, the Church in Wessex, if not audibly preaching and prophesying, was very far from having gone dumb with old age. She had within her the seeds of strength and growth, for Rome had not laid her hand heavily on the western island. The advice given by Pope Gregory to St. Augustine, in answer to the questions of the latter as to the customs which should be insisted on in the new Church, had been on the whole faithfully followed. " It seems good and is more agreeable to me," writes the great statesman-pope, " that whatso- ever thou hast found, either in the Roman Church, or in Gaul, or in any other, that was more pleasing to Almighty God, thou shouldst carefully choose that, and set it to be held fast in the Church of the English nation, which now yet is new in faith. For the things are not to be loved for places, but the places for good things. Therefore, what things thou choosest as pious, good, and right from each of sundry Churches, these gather thou together, and settle into a custom in the mind of the English nation." And again as to uncanonical marriages, which are to be resisted but not punished with denial of the Communion, " for at this time the Holy Church corrects some things through zeal, bears with some through mildness, overlooks some through consideration ; and so bears and over- looks that often by bearing and overlooking she checks the opposing evil." And the policy had answered in many ways. 26 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. England had still the inestimable boon of services in her own tongue, and a clergy who were not celi- bate. So the Church had prospered, and the land was full of noble churches, abbeys, monasteries ; but the ecclesiastics had not emancipated themselves from the civil governor, and their persons and pro- perty were answerable to him for breach of the laws of the realm. Mortmain had not yet become the "dead hand;" and while Church lands were at least as well tilled and cared for as those of king or thegn, and sent their equal quota of fighting men to the field (often led by such bishops as Ealstan of Sherborne, whom Alfred must have known well in his youth). Church establishments were the refuge for thousands of men and women, the victims of the wild wars of those wild times, the seats of such little learning as was to be found in the land, and the chief places in which working in metals, and weaving, and other manual industries could be learned or successfully practised. Yet pagan traditions still to some extent held their own. For instance, the descent of the royal race of Cerdic, from which Alfred sprung, from the old Teuton gods, is as carefully traced by Bishop Asser and other chroniclers up to "Woden, who was the son of Frithewalde, who was the son of Trealaf, who was the son of .Frithawulf, who was the son of Geta, whom the Pagans worshipped as a god;" as the further steps which carry the line on up to " Sceaf the son of Noah, who was born in the Ark." Pagan rites and ceremonies, A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 27 modified in many ways, but clearly traceable to their origin, were common enough. Still the two centuries and upwards since St. Augustine's time had done their work. England was not only in name a Chris- tian country, but a living faith in Christ had entered into, and was practically the deepest and strongest force in, the national life. The conditions of faith and worship amongst the West Saxons, and generally the relations of his people with the Invisible, if not wholly satisfactory, were yet of a hopeful kind for a young prince of the royal race of Cerdic. In other departments of human life in Wessex the outlook had also much of hopefulness in it, as well as deep causes of anxiety, for Alfred, as he grew up in his father's court. That court was a migratory one. The King of the West Saxons had no fixed home. Wherever in the kingdom the need was sorest, there was his place ; and so from Kent to Devonshire, from the Welsh Marches to the Isle of Wight, we find him moving backwards and forwards, wherever a raid of Britons or Danes, the consecration of a church, a quarrel between two of his aldermen, the assembly of his Great Council, might call him. The government lies indeed heavily on his shoulders. He must be the first man in fight, in council, in worship, in the chase. True he can do no imperial act, cannot make a law, impose a tax, call out an army, or make a grant of folkland, without the sanc- tion of his witan ; but in all things the initiative is with him, and without him the witan is powerless. That famous Council, common to all the Teutonic 28 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. tribes, had by this time amongst the West Saxons lost its original character of a gathering of all freemen. Probably no one below the rank of thegn attended the meetings of the witan in the time of Ethelwulf. The thegn was, however, simply an owner of land, and so a seat in the Great Council was in fact open to any cheorl, even it would seem to any thrall who could earn or win as his own five hides of land, a church, a kitchen, a bell-house, and a burghate seat. The possession of land, then, was the first object with the Englishman of the ninth, as it is with the Englishman of the nineteenth century. At that time the greater part of the kingdom was still folkland, belonging to the nation, and only alienable by the king and his witan. When, however, any portion of the common inheritance was so alienated, the grantee held of no feudal lord, not even of the king. As a rule, the land became his in a sense in which, theoreti- cally at least, no man has owned an acre in England since the Norman Conquest. Subject only to march- ing to meet invasion, and the making and restoring of roads and bridges, the Saxon freeholder held his land straight from the Maker of it. But it is not only in the case of the common or folkland that a strong tinge of what would now be called socialism manifests itself in the life of our fore- fathers. Teutonic law, as Mr. Kemble has shown, bases itself on the family bond. The community in which he is born and lives, the guild to which he has bound himself, the master whom he serves, are responsible for the misdoings of the citizen crafts- A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 29 man, servant. The world-old question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" was answered with emphasis in the affirmative here in England a thousand years back. Indeed the responsibility was carried in some direc- tions to strange lengths, for it seems that if a man should "for three nights entertain in his house a mer- chant or stranger, and should supply him with food, and the guest so received should commit a crime, the host must bring him to justice or answer for it." On the other hand, so jealous were our fathers of vaga- bonds in the land, that " if a stranger or foreigner should wander from the highway, and then neither call out nor sound horn, he is to be taken for a thief and killed, or redeemed by fine," for in truth there are so many pagan Danes, and other disreputable persons, scattered up and down the land, that society must protect itself in a summary manner. This it did by laws which, up to Alfred's time, were administered under the king by aldermen. These great officers presided over shires, or smaller districts, and held an authority which, under weak kings, amounted almost to independence. The offices were hereditary, and no special training, or education of any kind, was required of the holders. Simple as the code of King Ina was, such judges were not competent to administer it ; and Alfred, when at length he had time for them, found the most searching reforms required in this department. This code of Ina, the one in force in Wessex, was mainly a list of penalties for murder, assaults, rob- LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. beries, injuries to forests and cattle. It contained also provisions as to the treatment of slaves, who formed a considerable portion of the population. They ' were for the most part Welsh, and other prisoners of war, or men who had been sentenced to servitude. The laws were enforced by fine or corporal punishment, imprisonment being unknown in the earlier codes. Such as they were, the laws of the Anglo-Saxons were at least in their own mother tongue, and could be understood by the people. In the king's and aldermen's courts, as well as in church and at the altar, the Englishman was able to plead and pray in his own language, a strong proof of the vigour of the national life, after making allowance for all the advantages of insular position, and fortunate accident. We may note also that these islanders are singu- larly just to their women, far more so than their de- scendants on either side of the Atlantic have come to be after the lapse of a thousand years. Married women could sue and be sued, and inherit and dispose of property of all kinds. Women could attend the shire- gemot, even the witena-gemot — could sit, that is, on vestries, or in parliament — and were protected by special laws in matters where their weakness of body would otherwise place them at a disadvantage. Our fathers acknowledged, and practically enforced, the equality of the "spindle half" and the "spear-half" of the human family. Above the servile class, or the thralls, the nation was divided broadly into " eorl" and "cheorl," all of A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. 31 whom were freemen, the former gently born, and pos- sessing privileges of precedence, which gather surely enough round certain families in races amongst whom birth is reverenced. Under such conditions of life then our West Saxon fathers were living in the middle of the ninth century. A stolid, somewhat heavy people, entirely divorced from their old wandering propensities, and settling down, too rapidly perhaps, into plodding, money- making habits, in country and town and cloister, but capable of blazing up into white battle heat, and of fighting with untameable stubbornness, when their churches, or homes, or flocks are threatened ; capable also, not unfrequently, of rare heroism and self- sacrifice when a call they can understand comes to them. A nation capable of great things under the hand of a true king. CHAPTER III. CHILDHOOD. In the year 849, when Alfred was born at the royal burgh of Wantage, the youngest child of ^thelwulf and Osberga, the King of the West Saxons had already established his authority as lord over the other Teutonic kingdoms in England. Until the time of Egbert, the father of .(Ethelwulf, this over- lordship had shifted from one strong hand to another amongst the reigning princes, each of whom, as occa- sion served, rose and strove for the dignity of bret- walda, as it was called. Now it would be held by a Mercian, then by a Northumbrian, and again by a king of East Anglian or Kentish men. But when, in the year 800, the same in which the Emperor Charle- magne was crowned by the Pope, the Great Council of Wessex elected the ^theling Egbert king of the West Saxons, all such contention came to an end. For Egbert, exiled from his own land by the bret- walda, Offa of Mercia, had spent thirteen years in the service of Charlemagne, and had learned in that school how to consolidate and govern kingdoms. He reigned thirty-seven years in England, and at his death all the land owned him as over-king, though the Northum- CHILDHOOD. 33 briaiis, Mercians, and East Anglians still kept their own kings and great councils, who governed within their own borders as Egbert's men. In Egbert's later char- ters he is called King of the English, and the name of Anglia was by him given to the whole kingdom. It is said that the last bretwalda and first king of all England felt uneasy forebodings as to the destiny of his kingdom when he was leaving it to his son and successor. Ethelwulf, from his youth up, had been of a strongly devotional turn, and was too much under the influence of the clergy to please his father. He would probably have followed his naturail bent, and entered holy orders, but that Egbert had no other son. So as early as 828 he had been made King of Kent, and soon afterwards married Osberga, the daughter of his cup-bearer Oslac. There in Kent, under the eye of Egbert, he reigned for ten years, not otherwise than creditably, making head against the Danish pirates, who were already appearing almost yearly on the coast, in a manner not unworthy of his great father and still greater son. Indeed, if he was swayed more than his father liked by churchmen, the influence of Ealstan, the soldier-bishop of Sherborne, would seem to have been as powerful with him as that of the learned and non-combatant Bishop Swithin of Winche.ster, afterwards saint. Nor did courage or energy fail him after he had succeeded to Egbert's throne, for we find him in the next few years com- manding in person in several pitched battles with the Danes, the most important of which was fought in 851 at a place in Sufrey which the chroniclers call 34 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. Aclea (the oak plain), and which is still named Ockley. The village lies a few miles south of Dork- ing, under Leith Hill, from which probably Ethel- wulf's scouts marked the long line of Pagans, and signalled to the King their whereabouts. They were marching south, along the old Roman road, the remains of which may still be seen near the battle- field, heavy with the spoils of London, it is said, part of which city they had succeeded in sacking. Ethel- wulf fell on them from the higher ground, and severely defeated them, recovering all the spoil. Again, a little later in the same year, at Sandwich in Kent, and after that Wessex was scarcely troubled with them for eight years. So now Ethelwulf had leisure to turn his thoughts to a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had had it in his mind to make ever since he had been on the throne. But two years passed and still he was not ready to start, and in 853 Buhred, king of Mercia, applied to him as his over-lord for help against the Welsh. Then Ethelwulf marched himself against the Welsh with Buhred, and pursued their king, Roderic Mawr, to Anglesey, where he acknowledged Ethelwulf as his over-lord, who returning in triumph to Wessex, there at the royal burgh of Chippenham gave his daughter Ethelswitha to Buhred as his wife. Being thus hindered himself from starting on his pilgrimage, Ethelwulf in that same year sent his young son Alfred, of whom he was already more fond than of his elder sons, to Rome, with an honourable escort. There the boy of five was received by Leo IV. as his son by adoption, and, it would seem, anointed CHILDHOOD. 35 him king of the West Saxons. The fact is recorded both in the Saxon Chronicle and in that of Asser, who upon such a point would probably have the King's own authority. Whether a step so contrary to all English custom was taken by Ethelwulf 's request, in order to found a claim to the succession for his favourite son, is unknown. In any case, no such special claim was ever urged by Alfred himself. Leo was no unworthy spiritual father to such a boy. He was busy at this time with the enclosure of the quarter of the Vatican, the restoration of the old walls and fortifications, and the arming and inspiriting of the Romans. Moorish pirates had been lately in the suburbs of the Eternal City, and had profaned the tombs of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. What with pagan Danes in the northern seas, and Moors in the Mediterranean, the coasts of Christendom had little rest a thousand years ago, and it behoved even the Holy Father to look to his fighting gear and appliances. How long Alfred stayed at Rome on this occasion is uncertain ; but if the opinion which would seem to be gaining ground amongst students is correct — that he did not return, but waited the arrival of Ethel- wulf two years later — we must give up the well- known story of his earning the book of Saxon poems from his mother. This is related by Asser as having happened when he was twelve years old or more, which is clearly impossible, as his mother Osberga must have been dead before 856, when his father married Judith, as D 2 36 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. we shall hear presently. However, the tale is thus told by the old chronicler, the personal friend of Alfred : " On a certain day, his mother was showing him and his brothers a book of Saxon poetry which she held in her hand, and said, ' Whichever of you shall first learn this book shall have it for his own.' Moved by these words, or rather by a divine inspira- tion, and allured by the illuminated letters, he spoke before his brothers, who though his seniors in years were not so in grace, and answered, ' Will you really give that book to the one of us who can first understand and repeat it to you .' ' Upon which his mother smiled and repeated what she had said. So Alfred took the book from her hand and went to his master to read it, and in due time brought it again to his mother and recited it.'' Now Alfred, one regrets to remark, before his first journey to Rome, could scarcely have been old enough to get by heart a book of poems, though he might have done so after his return, and before his second journey in his father's train. This happened in 855. Before starting, Ethelwulf, by charter signed in the presence of the bishops Swithin and Ealstan, gave one-tenth of his land throughout the kingdom for the glory of God and his own eternal salvation ; or, as some chroniclers say, released one-tenth of all lands from royal service and tribute, and gave it up to God. In that same year we may also note that an army of the Pagans first sat over winter in the Isle of Sheppey. / A bright brave boy, full of the folk-lore of his own H CHILDHOOD. 37 people, with a mind of rare power and sensitiveness and docile, loving, reverent soul, crossing France in the train of a king, and that king his own father — enter- tained now at the court of the grandson of Charle- magne, now at the castles of warrior nobles, now by prelates whose reputation as learned men is still alive — traversing the great Alps, and through the garden of the world approaching once again the Eternal City, renewing the memories of his childhood amongst its ruins and shrines and palaces, under the sky of Italy — one cannot but feel that such an episode in his young life must have been full of fruit for him upon whom were so soon to rest the burden of a life and death struggle with the most terrible of foes, and of raising a slothful and stolid nation out of the darkness and exhaustion in which that struggle had left them ? And what a year was this of A.D. 855 for a young prince with open mind and quick eye to spend in Rome ! His godfather, the brave old Pope Leo, on his deathbed, dead probably before the arrival of the Saxon pilgrims ; the election and inauguration of Bene- dict the Third, without appeal to or consultation with the Emperor Lothaire, swiftly following — as swiftly followed by protest of said Emperor, riots, and the flight and speedy return in triumph of Benedict to the chair of St. Peter; the illness and death of Lothaire himself, the whispered stories of the struggle for his corpse between the devils and the startled but undaunted monks of Pruim (circumstantibus corpus ejus trahi et detrahi vidctrtiir, sed monachis oratitibus 38 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. dmmones sunt fatigati) ; the entrance of young Impe- rator Lewis— all these things Alfred must have seen and heard with his own eyes and ears in that eventful year.^ Meantime whether Pope or Emperor, clerical or imperial party, were uppermost for the moment, we may be sure that the Englishmen were received and treated with all honour. For Ethelwulf, besides the homage and reverence of an enthusiastic pilgrim, brought with him costly gifts, a crown four pounds in weight, two dishes, two figures, all of pure gold, urns silver-gilt, stoles and robes of richest silk interwoven with gold. All these, with munificent sums of out- landish coin, this king with a name which no Roman can write or speak, brings for the holy father and St. Peter's shrine. Before his departure, too, he has rebuilt and re-endowed the Saxon schools, and promised 300 marks yearly from his royal revenues, 100 each for the filling of the Easter lamps on the shrines of St. Peter and St. Paul with finest oil, 100 . for the private purse of their successor. It was not till after Easter in the next year that the royal pilgrim took thought of his people in the far west, and turned his face homewards, arriving again at the court of Charles the Bald in the early summer of 856. Through the long vista of years we can still get a bright gleam or two of light upon that court in those same days. ^ Did he also see the elevation or attempted elevation of Pope Joan to the papacy ? It is a papal legend that an Englishwoman by descent, and Joan by name, was elected on the death of Leo IV. CHILDHOOD. 39 Notwithstanding the troubles which were pressing on his kingdom from the Danes and Northmen on his coasts ; from turbulent nephew Pepin, with infidel Saracens for aUies, on the south ; from disloyal nobles in Aquitaine itself, — the court of Charles the Bald was at once stately and magnificent, and the centre of all that could be called high culture outside of Rome. Charles himself, like Ethelwulf, was under the influence of priests, who in fact ruled for him. But the head of them, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, was before all things a statesman and a Frenchman, who would maintain jealously his sovereign's authority and the liberties of the national Church ; could even on occasion rebuke popes for attempted interference with the temporal affairs of distant kingdoms, which " kings constituted by God permit bishops to rule in accordance with their decrees." Both king and minister were glad to gather scholars and men of note and piety round them ; and at Compiegne, or Verberie, in these months, Alfred must have come to know at any rate Grim- bald, and John Erigena, the former (if not both) of whom, in after years, at his invitation, came over to live with him and teach the English. John, an Irish- man by adoption, if not by birth, was in fact at this time master of the school of the palace, or, as we should say, tutor to the royal family. In the school- room Alfred must have been welcomed by Judith, a beautiful and clever girl of fourteen years of age or thereabouts ; and Charles, the boy-king of Aqui- taine, scarcely older than himself, lately sent home 40 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. from those parts by the nobles. They there, we may fancy, reading and talking with John the Irishman on many subjects. He, for his part, for the moment, at the 'instigation of Hincmar, is engaged in discus- sion with Abbot Pascasius, who is troubling the minds of the orthodox with speculations as to the nature and manner of the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist; with the German monk Gotteschalk, who is inviting all persons to consider the doctrine of free-will with a view to its final settlement to the satisfaction of all good folk. John, the Irishman, is ready enough to do Hincmar's bidding, does in fact do battle with both Pascasius and Gotteschalk, but seems likely to finally settle nothing of con- sequence in relation to these controversies, as he (not, we should imagine, to the satisfaction of Archbishop Hincmar) proves to be a strenuous maintainer of the right of private judgment,- and human reason, instead of an orthodox defender of the faith. Alfred must have been roused unpleasantly from his studies in the school of the palace, by the news that his father is about to marry the young Judith, his fellow-pupil. This ill-starred betrothal takes place in July, and on October 1st, at the palace of Verberie, the marriage between the Saxon king of sixty and upwards, and the French girl of fourteen, is celebrated with great magnificence, Hincmar himself officiating. The ritual used on the occasion is said to be still extant. Judith was placed by her husband's side and crowned queen. CHILDHOOD. 41 The news of which crowning was like to have wrought sore trouble in England, for the Great Council of Wessex had made a law in the first year of King Egbert's reign, that no woman should be crowned queen of the West Saxons. This they did because of Eadburgha, the wife of Beorhtric, the last king. She being a woman of jealous and imperious temper had mixed poison in the cup of Warr, a young noble, her husband's friend, of which cup he died, and the king having partaken of it, died also. And Eadburgha fled, first to Charlemagne, who placed her over a convent. Expelled from thence she wandered away to Italy, and died begging her bread in the streets of Pavia. The West Saxons therefore settled that they would have no more queens. . So when Ethelbald, the eldest living son of the King, who had been ruling in England in his father's absence, heard of this crown- ing, he took counsel with Ealstan the bishop, and Eanwulf the great alderman of Somerset, and it is certain that they and other nobles met and bound themselves together by a secret oath in the forest of Selwood — the great wood, silva magna, or Coit mawr, as we learn from Asser, the British called it. Whether the object of their oath was the dethronement of King Ethelwulf is not known, but it may well be that it was so, for on his return he found his people in two parts, the one ready to fight for him, and the other for his son. But Ethelwulf with all his folly was a good man, and would not bring such evil on his kingdom. So he parted it with his son, he himself retaining Kent LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREA T. and the crown lands, and leaving Wessexto Ethel- bald. The men of Kent had made no such law as to women, and there Judith reigned as queen with her husband for two years. Then the old King died, and, to the horror and scandal of the whole realm, Judith his widow was in the same year married to Etbelbald, "contrary to God's prohibition and the dignity of a Christian, contrary also to the custom of all the Pagans." This Ethelbald, notwithstanding the scandal and horror, carries the matter with a high hand his own way. A bold, bad man, for whose speedy removal we may be thankful, in view of the times which are so soon coming on his country. Let us here finish the strange story of this princess, through whom all our sovereigns since William the Conqueror trace their descent from the Emperor Charlemagne. She lived in England for yet two years, till the death of Ethelbald, in 860, when, selling all her possessions here, she went back to her father's court. From thence she eloped, in defiance of her father, but with fhe connivance of her young brother Lewis, with Baldwin Bras-de-fer, pi Flemish noble. The young couple had to journey to Rome to get their marriage sanctioned, and make their peace with Pope Nicholas I., to whom the enraged Charles ha,d denounced her and her lover. Judith, however, seems to have had as little trouble with his Holiness as with all other men, and returned with his absolu- tion, and letters of commendation to her father. Charles thereupon made her husband Count of CHILDHOOD. 43 Flanders, and gave him all the country between the Scheld, the Sambre, and the sea, "that he might be the bulwark of the Frank kingdom against the Northmen." This trust Baldwin faithfully performed, building the fortress of Bruges, and ruling Flanders manfully for many years. And our Alfred, though, we may be sure, much shocked in early years at the doings of his young stepmother, must have shared the fate of the rest of his sex at last, for we find him giving his daughter Elfrida as wife to Baldwin, second Count of Flanders, the eldest son of Judith. From this Baldwin the Second, and Alfred's daughter Elfrida, the Conqueror's wife Matilda came, through whonr'our sovereigns trace their descent from Alfred the Great. And so the figure of fair, frail, fascinating Judith flits across English history in those old years, the woman who next to his own mother must have had most influence on our great king. CHAPTER IV. CNIHTHOOD. * ' IVhereivitJial shall a young vian cleanse his way ? JEven by ruling himself after Thy word" The question of questions this, at the most critical time in his life for every child of Adam who ever grew to manhood on the face of our planet ; and so far as human experience has yet gone, the answer of answers. Other answers have been, indeed, forth- coming at all times, and never surely in greater number or stranger guise than at the present time : "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way.'" Even by ruling himself in the faith "that human life will become more beautiful and more noble in the future than in the past." This will be found enough " to stimulate the forces of the will, and purify the soul from base passion," urge, with a zeal and ability of which every Christian must desire to speak with deep respect, more than one school of our nineteenth century moralists. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way.?" Even by ruling himself on the faith, "that it is probable that God exists, and that death is not the end of life;" or a;gain, "that this is the only CNIHTHOOD. 45 world of which we have any knowledge at all." Either of these creeds, says the philosopher of the clubs, if held distinctly as a dogma and consistently acted on, will be found " capable of producing prac- tical results on an astonishing scale." So one would think, but scarcely in the direction of personal holi- ness, or energy. Meantime, the answer of the Hebrew psalmist, 3,000 years old, or thereabouts, has gone straight to the heart of many generations, and I take it will scarcely care to make way for any solution likely to occur to modern science or philosophy. Yes, he who has the word of the living God to rule himself by — who can fall back on the strength of Him who has had the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil — may even in this strange disjointed time of ours carry his manhood pure and unsullied through the death-grips to which he must come with " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the ' eye, and the pride of life." He who will take the world, the flesh, and the devil by the throat in his own strength, will find them shrewd wrestlers. Well for him if he escape with the stain of the falls which he is too sure to get, and can rise up still a man, though beaten and shamed, to meet the same foes in new shapes in his later years. New shapes, and ever more vile, as the years run on. " Three sorts of men my soul hateth," says the son of Sirach, " a poor man that is proud, a rich man that is a liar, and an old adulterer that doateth." We may believe the Gospel history to be a fable, but who amongst us can deny the fact, that each son of 46 LIFE OF ALFRED THE GREAT. man has to go forth into the wilderness — for us, " the wilderness of the wide world in an atheistic century" — and there do battle with the tempter as soon as the whisper has come in his ear : " Thou too art a man ; eat freely. All these things will I give thee." Amongst the Anglo-Saxons the period between childhood and manhood was called " cnihthood," the word " cniht " signifying both a youth and a servant. The living connexion between cnihthood and service was never more faithfully illustrated than by the young Saxon prince, though he had already lost the father to whom alone on earth his service was due. The young nobles of Wessex of Alfred's time for the most part learnt to run, leap, wrestle, and hunt, and were much given to horse-racing and the use of arms ; but beyond this, we knaw from Alfred himself, that neither their fathers or they had much care to go. Doubtless, however, here and there were clerical men, like Bishop Wilfrid in the previous century, \