One day when he was alone, the door of his apartment opened, and Paulinus entering softly placed his hand upon his head. "Dost thou remember?" he asked, and the Saxon, falling on his knees, promised to do whatever he should desire. Still thoughtful and prudent, however, while accepting baptism for himself, he reserved the right of his subjects to act as might seem well to them. The Council of Wise Men or Aldermen was called together, and the king having informed them of his change of faith, as the basis of a new doctrine, asked them what they thought of it. The chief of the priests was there, and spoke first. "Our gods are powerless," he said; "I have served them with more zeal and fidelity than all the people, yet I am neither richer nor more honored. I am weary of the gods."

An ancient warrior near the king rose at this speech. "O king," he said, "thou rememberest perhaps in the winter days when thou art seated with thy captain near a good fire, lighted in a warm apartment, while it is raining and snowing out of doors, that a little bird has entered by one door and gone out by another with fluttering wings. He has passed a moment of happiness, sheltered from the rain and the storm; but the bird vanishes with the quickness of a glance, and from winter he returns again to winter. Such it appears to me is the life of man upon this earth. The unknown time is irksome to us. It perplexes us because we know nothing of it. If thy new faith teaches us something, it is worthy of our adherence."

The whole assembly took the side of the two chiefs; but when Paulinus proposed, as a token of renunciation to false gods, that their idols should be cast down, all hesitated except the high priest. He demanded a horse and a javelin in place of the mare and the white rod which pertained to his old office, and galloping towards the temple he struck the image with his weapon. The people trembling awaited some token of the wrath of the gods; but the heavens and the earth remained silent, and the king was baptized with all the most distinguished of his people, who were accompanied by a crowd of warriors. Edwin soon became Bretwalda, and his reign was an epoch of repose and happiness for his subjects.

During the struggles which recommenced after the death of Edwin, three kingdoms fortified themselves, and took the lead over the others. These were Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. These three divisions of the Heptarchy were predominant in the year 800, when Egbert, prince of Wessex, returned to his country after a long exile. He had passed a considerable portion of the time at the court of Charlemagne, and had thus acquired a development of intellect and of knowledge rare at that time among the Saxon princes. The first part of his reign was peaceful; but from the year 809 forward, the sword of Egbert was drawn from the scabbard, and for many years he pursued his conquests from kingdom to kingdom. He had already extended his dominion over the British people of Cornwall, who had consented to pay him tribute, when he subjugated Mercia and the kingdom of Kent, Essex, and East Anglia. He had carried his victorious arms up to the frontiers of Northumbria. The chiefs, anxious and already beaten in anticipation, came to meet him, recognizing him for their sovereign, and promising him obedience. Egbert accepted their homage, and retired without fighting a battle. Nearly the whole Heptarchy had accepted his laws, and the title of Bretwalda had conferred upon him an authority more considerable than in the case of any of his predecessors. He continued, however, to assume the simple title of king of Wessex. He reigned until the year 836, happy and powerful; but the last years of his reign were troubled by the first invasions of the Danes. Egbert repulsed them with glory; but if he had possessed a spark of the almost prophetic foresight of Charlemagne, he would have wept, like the Frankish hero, over the infinite woes with which these men from the North menaced his country.

Chapter III.
The Danes.
Alfred The Great (836-901.)

For nearly four centuries the Saxons had been established in Britain; they had become the sole masters of the country, and had there forgotten the original source of their wealth. But the nation from which they had sprung was still prolific in warriors, vigorous, enterprising, and possessed of nothing in the world but their arms and their ships, for all the property of the family belonged by right to the eldest son: warriors too ardent in conquering and in obtaining wealth at the point of the sword. The peninsula of Jutland and the provinces still further north of Scandinavia sent year by year to the French and English coasts a great number of ships, manned by the "Sea-kings," as they styled themselves: "The tempest is our friend," they would say; "it takes us wherever we wish to go." Repulsed three times from the coast of England by Egbert, these pirates soon reappeared under the reign of his son Ethelwulf; the whole island became surrounded by their light skiffs. The Saxons had been compelled to organize along the shores a continual resistance, and to appoint officers whose duty it was to call out the people in a body to repulse the enemy. Three serious contests took place in 839—at Rochester, at Canterbury, and at London. King Ethelwulf himself was wounded in battle. But shortly after, the internal dissensions which were agitating the whole of France, attracted the pirates as the dead body attracts the vulture. During twelve years the Danish fleets altered their course, and repaired to the French coasts. When they reappeared, in 831, in England, their successes were at first alarming; three hundred and fifty of their vessels ascended the Thames as far as London, and the town was sacked. But the king awaited the enemy at Oakley: they were defeated, and suffered great losses. After having met with severe reverses at several other parts of the Saxon territory, the Danes withdrew from there, and respected the English coasts during the remainder of the reign of Ethelwulf.

It is at this period that there appears in the pages of history the name of the fourth son of Ethelwulf, him whom England was one day to call Alfred the Great, Alfred the Well-beloved. He had first seen the light of day at Wantage, in the heart of the forests of Berkshire, in 849, two years before the departure of the Danes. His mother Osberga, a noble and pious woman, gave herself up entirely to the task of rearing her little son, who soon began to excite the hope and admiration of all who saw him. Doubtless the predilection which his father had for this little child, induced him to give a startling proof of his affection, for Alfred was scarcely four years of age when he was sent to Rome with a numerous suite of nobles and servants, to ask for himself, of Pope Leo IV., the title of king, and the holy unction. The Pope was aware of the piety of the Saxon monarch, and he consecrated with his own hands the little king, and even administered to him the sacrament of confirmation. Alfred returned to England, and it was no doubt the recollection of what he had seen at Rome, which began thenceforward to instil into his soul the desire to gain knowledge, the pursuit of which was probably very rare among the young Saxons. His mother, one day, was holding a pretty manuscript in her hand, a collection of ancient Saxon poems, and was showing it to her four sons, who were playing beside her. "I will give this pretty book," she said, "to whichever of you shall learn it the soonest by heart." Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred eyed the book with indifference, and went on with their game; but little Alfred approached his mother: "Really," said he, "will you give this beautiful manuscript to whoever shall learn it by heart the quickest and who shall come and repeat it all to you?" The large, round eyes of the child were fixed upon his mother: she repeated her promise, and even gave up the manuscript into the keeping of the little prince. He quickly hurried away with it to his master, who was able to read aloud to him the verses which it contained, for, alas! Alfred could not read until he was twelve years of age. He soon returned, triumphant, repeated the lines, received the book from his mother, and preserved thenceforth throughout his life a taste for the old Saxon ballads of which he had thus first made the acquaintance.

Alfred was six years old and had lost his mother, when his father, wishing to make the pilgrimage to Rome in his turn, took his youngest son with him: the Saxon king spent a year with the Pope, carrying from church to church his sumptuous devotion. On his return journey, he stopped at the court of Charles the Bold, a court elegant and polite in comparison with the still rude customs of the Saxons; and, attracted by the beauty as well as the arts of Princess Judith, daughter of Charles, Ethelwulf married her, notwithstanding the disparity in their ages, and brought her in triumph into his kingdom. But the two persons whom the old king loved best, his young wife and his youngest son, were distrusted by the rest of his family, as well as by his people; Judith claimed a share of the sovereign power, according to the old custom in Britain and Germany, which had become odious to the Saxons by reason of the crimes of several queens; the elder sons of Ethelwulf feared that their young brother, so dear to their father, might be raised above themselves; the eldest, Ethelbald, revolted, and his father found a general rising against him when he returned to England. The old king did not resist: he ceded to his son the greater portion of his states and died at the end of two years, having shared equally between his sons his kingdom of Wessex, previously enlarged by the addition of Kent and Sussex. The tributary states of Northumbria and Mercia had shaken off the feeble authority of Ethelwulf and had recommenced their internal wars. The Danes profited by these disputes, and had taken up with renewed ardor their terrible incursions upon the English coasts.

In this alarming situation of affairs the sons of Ethelwulf foresaw that the division of Wessex would be their ruin; instead, therefore, of sharing it among themselves they agreed that each should reign over the whole in turn, according to their ages. The reigns of the three eldest were short. Supported successively by their brothers, they fought against the Danes, and all died in the flower of their youth; the last, Ethelred, was still on the throne, when an invasion of the Danes, who penetrated as far as Reading, called all the men of Wessex to arms. The war had a short time before assumed a new aspect; the Danes did not content themselves with descending upon the most fertile portions of the coast with their long ships, or with taking possession of all the horses. Overrunning the country, they ravaged and sacked everything in their passage, and re-embarked in their vessels before the frightened inhabitants had had time to rise up to resist them. From pirates, the Danes had become conquerors, and desired to establish themselves in that England which their predecessors, the Saxons, had formerly snatched from the Britons. Already possessed of East Anglia and a portion of Northumbria, they were threatening Wessex, and had intrenched themselves at Reading. Alfred had recently been married to a princess of Mercia, but his new relations did not give him any support against the Danes, when, having beaten several detached corps of the pirates, Ethelred and Alfred attacked the citadel. The greater number of the Danes sprang outside the walls, "like veritable wolves," says Asser, the historian of Alfred, and the struggle recommenced.