CHAPTER XVI.

TROUBLES FROM THE DANES.-EARLY FAULTS OF ALFRED: HIS ADVERSITY, HIS CONCEALMENT. - STORY OF THE NEATHERD.-ALFRED'S ENERGY.-DANES STILL RULE IN THE NORTH.-PEACE.-HASTING. ALFRED'S GOOD LAWS: HIS REVERENCE FOR SCRIPTURE. HASTING'S SECOND ATTACK.- ALFRED'S MILITARY SKILL: HIS SUCCESS BY LAND AND SEA: HIS MISSION TO INDIA. ALFRED'S FAMILY. THE "LADY OF MERCIA."- ALFRED'S DEATH AND BURIAL.

ALFRED had some sort of royal authority in the life-time of his brothers. When the last of them, Ethelred, died, he succeeded to the throne of Wessex: this was in A. D. 871. He could not then be called King of England, for over all the northern parts of the kingdom the Danes were doing what they would. "Sometimes they were defeated, but after every reverse they seemed more powerful than ever. If thirty thousand are slain in one day,' said the English, 'there will be double that number in the field tomorrow."

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They had killed many of the descendants of the Saxon kings of the north, and defeated Burhred the last King of Mercia, and driven him from his kingdom. He escaped to Rome, and there died and was buried.

England might now be said to be divided between two powers. The heathen invaders on the one hand, and Alfred with his kingdom of Wessex on the other, had to struggle for the inastery. For the first seven years of his reign Alfred's conduct with regard to the Danes is represented as unheroic and uncertain. Sometimes he was defeated in battle; sometimes he bought a short peace with the Danes (as many had done before him), and then found that they disregarded their promises and broke their oaths. On one occasion, after taking their most sacred oath upon the "holy ring or bracelet" consecrated to their revered Odin, that they would observe a certain time of peace, they stole by night to the king's army, slew all his horsemen, seized the horses, and rode away. In sea-fights Alfred had been suc

cessful more than once, but in this early part of his reign he appears to have followed no general plan of military operations, and to have sought for quiet when the whole state of England forbad it. At this early period of his reign he failed to attach his people to him; he was haughty and overbearing, and having great abilities himself, it is probable that he despised men who cared nothing for learning—but who might have greatly aided him in a warfare had their hearts been his.

It was well for King Alfred that he had candid and wise friends, who were not afraid to rebuke him, though he was a king. When he was brought into very great distress he considered their admonitions. He suffered for a time from deep despondency of mind, and then seems to have made a settled resolution, by the help of God, to act differently with regard to his subjects, and to amend his own habits, which had been in many respects evil. It was about seven years after he began his reign that this alteration took

place. At that period he was forsaken by his friends and beaten by the Danes. Many of his subjects were flying for fear of their lives to the Isle of Wight and to France. Some brave nobles were resisting the enemy as well as they could. Of these was Odun, Earl of Devon. He was besieged in his castle of Kynwith, which stood on a steep place in the north of Devon. It had but a common Saxon wall round it, but it was well placed for safety. The earl made a sally suddenly on the besiegers, and had great success; he took their standard,-the sacred raven,-killed Hubba, the only surviving son of Regnar Lodbrok, and made great havoc with his army. The survivors fled in dismay

King Alfred had, before this event, disguised himself, and it is supposed that he fled for safety to the little Island of Athelney, surrounded by marshes and river-streams, and only approached by one bridge. The rivers which defended it were the Perrot and the Thone, near Taunton, in Somerset

shire. One circumstance makes it very probable that this was really the spot where the king concealed himself. He lost an ornament made of gold and enamel, which he was always accustomed to wear about his neck. In the seventeenth century this ornament was found at Athelney on it was this inscription, in Anglo-Saxon, "Alfred het meh gewircan,"—" Alfred had me wrought."

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Alfred was taken in and lodged by some plain country people. A story is told of him, that one day the neatherd's wife left the king to watch some loaves that were baking upon the hearth, while she went on with other household matters. Alfred's thoughts were full of his own distressed condition; he forgot the bread, and when the good-wife came in and saw it burning, because the king had not turned it, she rated him soundly, and said, "You will be glad enough to eat this bread when it is done, and yet you are too lazy to turn it." Alfred bore her anger patiently, and was