[Illustration: ALFRED THE GREAT A lofty bronze statue by H. Thorneycraft set up at Winchester Alfred's ancient capital. It was dedicated in 1901 A.D. on the thousandth anniversary of his death. The inscription reads:
"Alfred found learning dead,
And he restored it,
Education neglected
And he revived it,
The laws powerless
And he gave them force,
The Church debased,
And he raised it,
The land ravaged by a fearful enemy
From which he delivered it.">[
KING ALFRED AND THE DANES
Wessex before long experienced the full force of the Danish attack. The country at this time was ruled by Alfred, the grandson of Egbert. Alfred came to the throne in 871 A.D., when he was only about twenty-three years old. In spite of his youth, he showed himself the right sort of leader for the hard-pressed West Saxons. For several years fortune favored the Danes. Then the tide turned. Issuing from the marshes of Somersetshire, where he had rallied his dispirited troops, Alfred suddenly fell on the enemy and gained a signal success. The beaten Danes agreed to make peace and to accept the religion of their conquerors.
THE DANELAW
Alfred's victory did not end the war. Indeed, almost to the end of his reign, the heroic king had to face the Vikings, but he always drove them off and even recovered some of the territory north of the Thames. The English and Danes finally agreed to a treaty dividing the country between them. The eastern part of England, where the invaders were firmly established, came to be called the Danelaw, because here the Danish, and not the Anglo-Saxon, law prevailed. In the Danelaw the Danes have left memorials of themselves in local names [20] and in the bold, adventurous character of the inhabitants.
[Illustration: Map, ENGLAND UNDER ALFRED THE GREAT]
CIVILIZING ACTIVITIES OF ALFRED
It was a well-nigh ruined country which Alfred had now to rule over and build up again. His work of restoration invites comparison with that of Charlemagne. Alfred's first care was to organize a fighting force always ready at his call to repel invasion. He also created an efficient fleet, which patrolled the coast and engaged the Vikings on their own element. He had the laws of the Anglo-Saxons collected and reduced to writing, taking pains at the same time to see that justice was done between man and man. He did much to rebuild the ruined churches and monasteries. Alfred labored with especial diligence to revive education among the English folk. His court at Winchester became a literary center where learned men wrote and taught. The king himself mastered Latin, in order that he might translate Latin books into the English tongue. So great were Alfred's services in this direction that he has been called "the father of English prose."
[Illustration: ALFRED'S JEWEL (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) A jewel of blue enamel inclosed in a setting of gold, with the words around it "Alfred had me wrought." Found at Athelney in the seventeenth century.]