Page 29 of 155
[* A hide contained land sufficient to employ one plough. See
H. Hunting, lib. vi. in A. D. 1008. Annal. Waverl. in A. D.
1083. Gervase of Tilbury says, it commonly contained about
one hundred acres.]
But the most effectual expedient, employed by Alfred for the encouragement of learning, was his own example, and the constant assiduity with which, notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of his affairs, he employed himself in the pursuits of knowledge. He usually divided his time into three equal portions: one was employed in sleep, and the refection of his body by diet and exercise; another, in the despatch of business; a third, in study and devotion; and that he might more exactly measure the hours, he made use of burning tapers of equal length, which he fixed in lanterns,[*] an expedient suited to that rude age, when the geometry of dialling, and the mechanism of clocks and watches, were totally unknown. And by such a regular distribution of his time though he often labored under great bodily infirmities,[**] this martial hero, who fought in person fifty-six battles by sea and land,[***] was able, during a life of no extraordinary length, to acquire more knowledge, and even to compose more books, than most studious men, though blessed with the greatest leisure and application, have, in more fortunate ages, made the object of their uninterrupted industry.
[* Asser. p. 20. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4. Ingulph. p. 870.]
[** Asser. p.4, 12, 13, 17, J W. Malms, lib. iv. cap. 4.]
[*** Asser. p. 13.]
Sensible that the people, at all times, especially when their understandings are obstructed by ignorance and bad education, are not much susceptible of speculative instruction, Alfred endeavored to convey his morality by apologues, parables, stories, apothegms, couched in poetry; and besides propagating among his subjects former compositions of that kind, which he found in the Saxon tongue,[*] he exercised his genius in inventing works of a like nature,[**] as well as in translating from the Greek the elegant Fables of sop. He also gave Saxon translations of Orosius’s and Bede’s histories; and of Boethius concerning the consolation of philosophy.[***] And he deemed it nowise derogatory from his other great characters of sovereign, legislator, warrior, and politician, thus to lead the way to his people in the pursuits of literature.
[* Spelruan, p. 124.]
[** Abbas Rieval. p. 355.]
[*** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4, Brompton, p. 814.]
Meanwhile, this prince was not negligent in encouraging the vulgar and mechanical arts, which have a more sensible, though not a closer connection with the interests of society. He invited, from all quarters, industrious foreigners to re-people his country, which had been desolated by the ravages of the Danes.[*] He introduced and encouraged manufactures of all kinds, and no inventor or improver of any ingenious art did he suffer to go unrewarded.[**] He prompted men of activity to betake themselves to navigation, to push commerce into the most remote countries, and to acquire riches by propagating industry among their fellow-citizens. He set apart a seventh portion of his own revenue for maintaining a number of workmen, whom he constantly employed in rebuilding the ruined cities, castles, palaces, and monasteries.[***] Even the elegances of life were brought to him from the Mediterranean and the Indies;[****] and his subjects, by seeing those productions of the peaceful arts, were taught to respect the virtues of justice and industry, from which alone they could arise. Both living and dead, Alfred was regarded by foreigners, no less than by his own subjects, as the greatest prince, after Charlemagne, that had appeared in Europe during several ages, and as one of the wisest and best that had ever adorned the annals of any nation.
[* Asser. p. 13. Flor. Wigorn. p. 588.]
[** Asser. p. 20.]
[*** Asser. p. 20. W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]
[**** W. Malms, lib. ii. cap. 4.]
Alfred had, by his wife Ethelswitha, daughter of a Mercian earl, three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Edmund, died without issue, in his father’s lifetime. The third, Ethelward, inherited his father’s passion for letters, and lived a private life. The second, Edward, succeeded to his power, and passes by the appellation of Edward the Elder, being the first of that name who sat on the English throne.
This prince, who equalled his father in military talents, though inferior to him in knowledge and erudition,[*] found immediately on his accession, a specimen of that turbulent life to which all princes, and even all individuals, were exposed, in an age when men, less restrained by law or justice, and less occupied by industry, had no aliment for their inquietude out wars, insurrections, convulsions, rapine, and depredation.
[* W. Malms, lib. ii cap. 4, Hoveden, p. 421.]
Ethelwald, his cousin-german, son of King Ethelbert, the elder brother of Alfred, insisted on his preferable title;[*] and arming his partisans, took possession of Winburne, where he seemed determined to defend himself to the last extremity, and to await the issue of his pretensions.[**] But when the king approached the town with a great army, Ethelwald, having the prospect of certain destruction, made his escape, and fled first into Normandy, thence into Northumberland, where he hoped that the people, who had been recently subdued by Alfred, and who were impatient of peace, would, on the intelligence of that great prince’s death, seize the first pretence or opportunity of rebellion. The event did not disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him,[***] and Ethelwald, having thus connected his interests with the Danish tribes, went beyond sea, and collecting a body of these freebooters, he excited the hopes of all those who had been accustomed to subsist by rapine and violence.[****]
[* Chron. Sax. p. 99, 100.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
352.]
[*** Chron. Sax. p. 100. H. Hunting, lib. v. p.
352.]
[**** Chron. Sax. p. 100. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de
Burgo, p. 24.]
The East Anglian Danes joined his party; the Five-burgers, who were seated in the heart of Mercia, began to put themselves in motion; and the English found that they were again menaced with those convulsions from which the valor and policy of Alfred had so lately rescued them. The rebels, headed by Ethelwald, made an incursion into the counties of Glocester, Oxford, and Wilts; and having exercised their ravages in these places, they retired with their booty, before the king, who had assembled an army, was able to approach them. Edward, however, who was determined that his preparations should not be fruitless, conducted his forces into East Anglia, and retaliated the injuries which the inhabitants had committed, by spreading the like devastation among them. Satiated with revenge, and loaded with booty, he gave orders to retire; but the authority of those ancient kings, which was feeble in peace, was not much better established in the field; and the Kentish men, greedy of more spoil, ventured, contrary to repeated orders, to stay behind him, and to take up their quarters in Bury. This disobedience proved, in the issue, fortunate to Edward. The Danes assaulted the Kentish men, but met with so vigorous a resistance, that, though they gained the field of battle, they bought that advantage by the loss of their bravest leaders, and, among the rest, by that of Ethelwald, who perished in the action.[*] The king, freed from the fear of so dangerous a competitor, made peace on advantageous terms with the East Angles.[**]
