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[* Padre Paolo, sopra beneficii ecclesiastici, p.
51, 52, edit. Colon. 1675.]
[** Spell. Concil. vol. i. p. 268.]
[*** Padre Paolo, p. 132.]
[**** Parker, p. 77.]
c. 8.]
[****** Asser. p. 2. Chron. Sax. p. 76. W. Malms,
lib. ii. cap. 2. Ethelwerd, lib. iii. cap. 3. M. West. p.
158. Ingulph. p. 17. Alured. Beverl. p. 95.]
Ethelwolf lived only two years after making this grant; and by his will he shared England between his two eldest sons, Ethelbald and Ethelbert; the west being assigned to the former, the east to the latter. Ethelbald was a profligate prince; and marrying Judith, his mother-in-law, gave great offence to the people; but moved by the remonstrances of Swithun, bishop of Winchester, he was at last prevailed on to divorce her. His reign was short; and Ethelbert, his brother, succeeding to the government, behaved himself, during a reign of five years, in a manner more worthy of his birth and station. The kingdom, however, was still infested by the Danes, who made an inroad and sacked Winchester, but were there defeated. A body also of these pirates, who were quartered in the Isle of Thanet, having deceived the English by a treaty, unexpectedly broke into Kent, and committed great outrages.
Ethelbert was succeeded by his brother Ethered, who, though he defended himself with bravery, enjoyed, during his whole reign, no tranquillity from those Danish irruptions. His younger brother, Alfred, seconded him in all his enterprises, and generously sacrificed to the public good all resentment, which he might entertain on account of his being excluded by Ethered from a large patrimony which had been left him by his father.
The first landing of the Danes, in the reign of Ethered, was among the East Angles, who, more anxious for their present safety than for the common interest, entered into a separate treaty with the enemy, and furnished them with horses, which enabled them to make an irruption by land into the kingdom of Northumberland. They there seized the city of York, and defended it against Osbricht and lia, two Northumbrian princes, who perished in the assault.[*] Encouraged by these successes, and by the superiority which they had acquired in arms, they now ventured, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, to leave the sea-coast, and penetrating into Mercia, they took up their winter quarters at Nottingham, where they threatened the kingdom with a final subjection.
[* Asser, p. 6. Chron. Sax. p. 79.]
The Mercians, in this extremity, applied to Ethered for succor; and that prince, with his brother Alfred, conducting a great army to Nottingham, obliged the enemy to dislodge, and to retreat into Northumberland.
870.
Their restless disposition, and their avidity for plunder, allowed them not to remain long in those quarters; they broke into East Anglia, defeated and took prisoner Edmund, the king of that country, whom they afterwards murdered in cool blood; and, committing the most barbarous ravages on the people, particularly on the monasteries, they gave the East Angles cause to regret the temporary relief which they had obtained, by assisting the common enemy.
The next station of the Danes was at Reading; whence they infested the neighboring country by their incursions. The Mercians, desirous of shaking off their dependence on Ethered, refused to join him with their forces; and that prince, attended by Alfred, was obliged to march against the enemy with the West Saxons alone, his hereditary subjects. The Danes, being defeated in an action, shut themselves up in their garrison; but quickly making thence an irruption, they routed the West Saxons, and obliged them to raise the siege. An action soon after ensued at Aston, in Berkshire, where the English, in the beginning of the day, were in danger of a total defeat. Alfred, advancing with one division of the army, was surrounded by the enemy in disadvantageous ground; and Ethered, who was at that time hearing mass, refused to march to his assistance till prayers should be finished;[*] but, as he afterwards obtained the victory, this success, not the danger of Alfred, was ascribed by the monks to the piety of that monarch.
[* Asser. p. 7. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 3 Sim.
Dunelm. p. 125. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 205.]
This battle of Aston did not terminate the war; another battle was a little after fought at Basing, where the Danes were more successful; and being renforced by a new army from their own country, they became every day more terrible to the English. Amidst these confusions, Ethered died of a wound which he had received in an action with the Danes; and left the inheritance of his cares and misfortunes, rather than of his grandeur, to his brother Alfred, who was now twenty-two years of age.
This prince gave very early marks of those great virtues and shining talents, by which, during the most difficult times, he saved his country from utter ruin and subversion. Ethelwolf, his father, the year after his return with Alfred from Rome, had again sent the young prince thither with a numerous retinue; and a report being spread of the king’s death, the Pope, Leo III., gave Alfred the royal unction;[*] whether prognosticating his future greatness from the appearances of his pregnant genius, or willing to pretend, even in that age, to the right of conferring kingdoms. Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his father’s affections; but being indulged in all youthful pleasures, he was much neglected in his education; and he had already reached his twelfth year, when he was yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature. His genius was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the queen took delight; and this species of erudition, which is sometimes able to make a considerable progress even among barbarians, expanded those noble and elevated sentiments which he had received from nature.[**] Encouraged by the queen, and stimulated by his own ardent inclination, he soon learned to read those compositions; and proceeded thence to acquire the knowledge of the Latin tongue, in which he met with authors that better prompted his heroic spirit, and directed his generous views. Absorbed in these elegant pursuits, he regarded his accession to royalty rather as an object of regret than of triumph;[***] but being called to the throne, in preference to his brother’s children, as well by the will of his father,—a circumstance which had great authority with the Anglo-Saxons[****]—as by the vows of the whole nation, and the urgency of public affairs, he shook off his literary indolence, and exerted himself in the defence of his people. He had scarcely buried his brother, when he was obliged to take the field, in order to oppose the Danes, who had seized Wilton, and were exercising their usual ravages on the countries around.
