King Alfred.
A half century after the death of Beda began the Danish invasions, under which, monasteries churches schools went down in a flood of blood and fire. As we read of that devastation—the record covering only a half-page of the old Saxon Chronicle (begun after Beda’s time)—it seems an incident; yet the piratic storm, with intermittent fury, stretches over a century and more of ruin. It was stayed effectively for a time when the great Alfred came to full power.
I do not deal much in dates: but you should have a positive date for this great English king: a thousand years ago (889) fairly marks the period when he was in the prime of life—superintending, very likely, the building of a British fleet upon the Pool, below London. He was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, a little to the south of the Great Western Railway; and in a glade near to the site of the old Saxon palace, is still shown what is called Alfred’s Well. In the year 1849 his birthday was celebrated, after the lapse of a thousand years—so keen are these British cousins of ours to keep alive all their great memories. And Alfred’s is a memory worth keeping. He had advantages—as we should say—of foreign travel; as a boy he went to Rome, traversing Italy and the Continent. If we could only get a good story of that cross-country trip of his!
We know little more than that he came to high honor at Rome, was anointed king there, before yet he had come to royalty at home. He makes also a second visit in company with his father Ethelwolf: and on their return Ethelwolf relieves the tedium of travel by marrying the twelve-year old daughter of Charles the Bald of France. Those were times of extraordinary daring.
The great king had throughout a most picturesque and adventurous life: he is hard pushed by the Danes—by rivals—by his own family; one while a wanderer on the moors—another time disguised as minstrel in the enemy’s camp; but always high-hearted, always hopeful, always working. He is oppressed by the pall of ignorance that overlays the lordly reach of his kingdom: “Scarce a priest have I found,” says he, “south of the Thames who can render Latin into English.” He is not an apt scholar himself, but he toils at learning; his abbots help him; he revises old chronicles, and makes people to know of Beda; he has boys taught to write in English; gives himself with love to the rendering of Boëthius’ “Consolation of Philosophy.” He adopts its reasoning, and plants his hope on the creed—
1st. That a wise God governs.
2d. That all suffering may be made helpful.
3d. That God is chiefest good.
4th. That only the good are happy.
5th. That the foreknowledge of God does not conflict with Free-will.
These would seem to carry even now the pith and germ of the broadest theologic teachings.
It is a noble and a picturesque figure—that of King Alfred—which we see, looking back over the vista of a thousand years; better it would seem than that of King Arthur to weave tales around, and illumine with the heat and the flame of poesy. Yet poets of those times and of all succeeding times have strangely neglected this august and royal type of manhood.
After him came again weary Danish wars and wild blood-letting and ignorance surging over the land, save where a little light played fitfully around such great religious houses as those of York and Canterbury. It was the dreary Tenth Century, on the threshold of which he had died—the very core and kernel of the Dark Ages, when the wisest thought the end of things was drawing nigh, and strong men quaked with dread at sight of an eclipse, or comet, or at sound of the rumble of an earthquake. It was a time and a condition of gloom which made people pardon, and even relish such a dismal poem as that of “The Grave,” which—though bearing thirteenth century form—may well in its germ have been a fungal outgrowth of the wide-spread hopelessness of this epoch:—
For thee was a house built
Ere thou wert born;
For thee was a mold meant
Ere thou of mother cam’st.
But it is not made ready
Nor its depth measured,
Nor is it seen
How long it shall be.
Now I bring thee
Where thou shalt be
And I shall measure thee
And the mold afterward.
Doorless is that house
And dark is it within;
There thou art fast detained
And death hath the key
Loathsome is that earth-house
And grim within to dwell,
And worms shall divide thee.
From the death of Alfred (901) to the Norman Conquest (1066) there was monkish work done in shape of Homilies, Chronicles, grammars of Latin and English—the language settling more and more into something like a determined form of what is now called Anglo-Saxon. But in that lapse of years I note only three historic incidents, which by reason of the traditions thrown about them, carry a piquant literary flavor.