A history of England

by Charles Oman

The most noteworthy, however, of Alfred's doings, if we consider the troublous times in which he lived, were his long-sustained and successful endeavours to restore the civilization of England, at which the Danish wars had dealt such a deadly blow. He collected scholars of note from the Continent, from Wales and Ireland, and founded schools to restore the lost learning for which England had been famed in the last century. His interest in literature of all kinds was very keen. He collected the old heroic epics of the English, all of which, save the poem of "Beowulf," have now perished, or survive only in small fragments. He compiled the celebrated "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," and left it behind him as a legacy to be continued by succeeding ages—as indeed it was for nearly three hundred years. He also translated Baeda's Latin history of England into the vernacular tongue, as well as Orosius' general history of the world. Nor was history the only province in which he took interest; he also caused Pope Gregory the Great's "Pastoral Care," and other theological works, to be done into English.

The navy.

Alfred may also be reckoned the father of the English navy. In order to cope with the ships of the Vikings, he built new war-vessels of larger size than any that had yet been seen in Western Europe, and provided that they should be well manned. He encouraged sailors to go on long voyages, and sent out the captain Othere, who sailed into the Arctic seas and discovered the North Cape. He was a friend of merchants, and it was probably to him that we may attribute the law which allowed any trader who fared thrice over-sea in his own ship to take the rank and privileges of a thegn.

We have no space to tell of the many other spheres of Alfred's activity, such as his church-building, his mechanical inventions, and his zeal in almsgiving and missionary work, which was so great that he even sent contributions to the distant Christians of St. Thomas in India. What heightens our surprise at the many-sided activity of the man is, that he was of a weakly constitution, and was often prostrated by the attacks of a periodical illness which clung to him from his youth up.

Renewed prosperity.—Alfred's successors.

Alfred lived till 901 in great peace and prosperity. He had increased the bounds of Wessex, saved England from the Dane, and brought her back to the foremost place among the peoples of Western Europe, for his Frankish contemporaries were sinking lower and lower amid the attacks of the Vikings, while England, under his care, was so rapidly recovering her strength. Even the Welsh, hostile hitherto to all who bore the English name, had done homage to him in 885, because they saw in him their only possible protection against the Dane.

Alfred's son and his three grandsons followed him on the throne in succession between the years 901 and 955. They were all brave, able, hard-working princes, the worthy offspring of such a progenitor. They carried out to the full the work that he had begun; while Alfred had checked the Danes and made them his vassals, his descendants completely subdued and incorporated them with the main body of the realm, so that they were no longer vassals, but direct subjects of the crown. And while Alfred had been over-king of England, his successors became over-kings of the whole isle of Britain, the suzerains of the Scots and the Welsh of Strathclyde, as well as of all the more southern peoples within the four seas.

Edward the Elder, 901-925.—Incorporation of central England with Wessex.

Alfred's eldest son and successor was Edward, generally called Edward the Elder to distinguish him from two later kings of his line. He was a wise and powerful king, whose life-work was the incorporation of central England, south of the Humber, with his realm of Wessex, by the complete conquest of the Danes of East Anglia and the Five Boroughs. When Alfred was dead, his Danish vassals tried to stir up trouble by raising up against Edward his cousin Aethelwulf, son of Aethelred. This pretender the new king drove out, and then, turning on the eastern Danes, slew their king Euric, the son of Guthrum-Aethelstan, and made them swear homage to him again.

But a few years later the Danes broke out again into rebellion, and Edward then took in hand their complete subjection. His chief helper was the great ealdorman Aethelred of western or English Mercia, his brother-in-law. When this chief died, Edward found his widowed sister Aethelflaed, in whose hands he left the rule of the Mercian counties, no less zealous and able an assistant than her husband had been. It was with her co-operation that he started on his long series of campaigns against the Danes of central and eastern England. While Edward, starting forward from London, worked his way into Essex and East Anglia, Aethelflaed was at the same time urging on the Mercians against the Danes of the Five Boroughs. They moved forward systematically, erecting successive lines of "burghs," or moated and palisaded strongholds, opposite the centres of Danish resistance, and holding them with permanent garrisons.