Æthelwulf took Alfred with him on this journey to Rome. This fact is not mentioned in the Chronicle, and rests only on the authority of Asser[360], and those writers who have copied him. But on the whole the statements are too precise to be set aside, and we may accept Dr. Stubbs’ decision: ‘there is no possibility that a single visit has been broken into two[361].’ That the child returned to England after his visit in 853, and did not wait at Rome till his father came, is proved by the fact that his signature is affixed to the charter of 855, already cited, which Æthelwulf executed when setting out for Rome[362]: and this is better authority than that of the two recensions of Simeon of Durham; which however both state the fact very distinctly[363].
The continental authorities do not mention Alfred; but they tell how honourably the emperor Charles the Bald received Æthelwulf, and escorted him to the borders of his kingdom[364]; while the Roman historian gives lists of the offerings which the pious monarch made at the holy places[365]. Gregorovius indeed says that he came ‘to be anointed and crowned by the pope[366].’ But he gives no authority, and I do not believe that any exists. Some authorities transfer to this visit the royal unction of Alfred[367], while another places it at Æthelwulf’s death, January, 858[368]. But there is no reason to believe that Alfred remained at Rome after his father left. The object of both versions is to make the story of the unction rather more probable; but both alike are inconsistent with the fact that Leo IV, who is always represented as the anointing pontiff, died July 17, 855[369].
State of Rome at this time. The Saracens.
§ 56. According to the Chronicle and Asser, Æthelwulf remained a year in Rome, and according to William of Malmesbury he restored the ‘Schola Saxonum[370]’ or English hostelry there, which is probable enough, as early in Leo’s reign it had suffered much from fire[371]. It is worth while to take a glance at the state of Rome at this time. Only nine years before, under Sergius II, a Saracen fleet had entered the Tiber and sacked the papal suburb, though they probably did not capture Rome itself. St. Peter’s, the centre of Western Christendom, the archive, the museum, the treasury of five centuries of Christian devotion, became their prey. The church of his brother apostle St. Paul, scarcely less rich, shared a like fate[372]. The conquest of Sicily, 827-832, had thrown down the last barrier against Islam[373]. The Mediterranean was indeed fast becoming a Saracenic lake; and the Saracens were, as has been well said[374], to the dwellers on its coasts very much what the Danes and Northmen were to the dwellers on the coasts of Northern Europe, a haunting ever-present dread, which would not let men sleep. Some parts indeed suffered from both plagues alike[375]; and in Spain we find Saracen and Christian combining against the Dane[376], much as we have seen Celt and Saxon combining in England[377]. It was to prevent a repetition of the disaster of 846 that Leo IV, with the help of the emperor Lothair[378], built the fortifications which have ever since given to the papal suburb the name of ‘the Leonine city.’ These fortifications were solemnly consecrated by the pope just a year before Alfred’s former visit, viz. on June 27, 852[379].
Æthelwulf’s second marriage.
§ 57. It was on his way home in 856 that Æthelwulf and, presumably, Alfred also, stayed once more at the court of Charles the Bald; and here at Verberie on October 1 the elderly Æthelwulf was married to the emperor’s daughter Judith, a child of twelve or thirteen[380]. The motive of this ill-assorted match is thought to have been to cement an alliance between the two monarchs against the wikings, who were the common foes of both. If this was its object, it was a conspicuous failure. As far as I can read the history of the succeeding years, whenever the wikings were defeated on the Continent they threw themselves on England, and conversely[381]. So that the success of one kingdom was the disaster of the other. There is no trace of any joint action beneficial to both. And indeed Charles the Bald, a typical Frenchman in many respects, intellectually clever, but caring only for the outward pomp and circumstance of empire, without the strength of character to grasp and hold the reality of power[382], was hardly the man to carry out a consistent policy.
Æthelwulf’s return. Alleged conspiracy against him.
‘And afterwards he came home to his people, and they were fain thereof,’ says the Chronicle; using, in regard to Æthelwulf’s return, almost the same simple and expressive words which it uses afterwards to describe the joy of the people when Alfred emerged from his retreat at Athelney. This seems to me to give the lie direct to Asser’s story[383]—in itself most suspicious—that Æthelwulf on his arrival was greeted by a conspiracy of his eldest son Æthelbald, Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne, and Eanwulf, ealdorman of Somerset, to exclude him from the throne, and that Æthelwulf, sooner than allow a civil war, consented to accept the subordinate kingdom of Kent, &c., leaving Wessex to the rebellious son. We have seen that Æthelwulf, on his departure, had divided his kingdoms between his two eldest sons, and it is possible that Æthelbald was less willing than Æthelberht to resign the delegated power. The joy at Æthelwulf’s return may point to trouble in his absence; and the same may be hinted at where it is said of Æthelberht, that he reigned ‘in all good quietness and peace[384].’ This cannot refer to exemption from Danish attacks, for it was in his reign that Winchester, the capital of Wessex, was captured[385]. One is almost tempted to think that the writer, struck, as everyone must be struck[386], with the parallel between Æthelwulf and Louis the Pious, wished to create an English counterpart to the Lügenfeld, or Field of Lies, where Louis was betrayed into the hands of his rebellious sons[387] (June 30, 833). Asser’s quaint characterisation of an atrocious conspiracy as a ‘misfortune’ (infortunium), reminds one of Gibbon’s immortal description in the autobiography of the gentleman who ‘was always talking about his faults, which he called his misfortunes.’ Here, too, I seem to see traces of the conflation of two different traditions[388], which might point to the possibility of interpolation. But even if the story be all Asser’s own, we must remember that he was writing at least thirty-eight years after the event; and surely we in Oxford know that a legend may grow up in a shorter time than that.