Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll’d away!
Blow thro’ the living world—“Let the King reign.”
‘Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May!
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day!
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.
‘The King will follow Christ; and we the King
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign.’
Loss and gain. The gain outweighs the loss.
‘The long night has rolled away.’—‘Yea, even like as a dream when one awaketh, so shalt Thou make their image to vanish.’—Every historian is agreed that this is the turning-point in the history, not only of England, but of Western Europe. ‘Wessex was saved; and in saving Wessex, Alfred saved England; and in saving England, he saved Western Europe from becoming a heathen Scandinavian power[499].’ In recognising the Danish occupation of East Anglia, Eastern Mercia, and Northumbria, Alfred was hardly making a cession, for they had never been his to cede; he was at most giving up a shadowy overlordship which neither he, nor his brothers, nor, probably, even his father had ever exercised. The only district which was in strictness ceded was Essex; and it was a heavy loss that London remained for some years longer a Danish city. But the gains far outweighed the losses; and we can but ask in wonder what were the causes of so great a change. Some light is gained when we have realised that Alfred at Athelney was not burning cakes, but organising victory. Then, too, he had good helpers. We have seen what Odda did in Devonshire; and Ethelwerd lays stress on the co-operation of Æthelnoth, the ealdorman of Somerset, in the dark days of Athelney[500]. There is nothing like work in common for a great cause, in face of great difficulties, for cementing friendship[501], and perhaps it is to these days that Werferth of Worcester looks back when in one of his charters he speaks of Æthelnoth as ‘the friend of us all[502].’