Coronation Chair.
Coronation Chair.
It was in Winchester that Alfred was crowned. As soon as the ceremony was performed, he took the field, collected his forces, and went to meet the Danes again. He found the country in a most deplorable condition. The Danes had extended and strengthened their positions. They had got possession of many of the towns, and, not content with plundering castles and abbeys, they had seized lands, and were beginning to settle upon them, as if they intended to make Alfred's new kingdom their permanent abode. The forces of the Saxons, on the other hand, were scattered and discouraged. There seemed no hope left to them of making head against their pestiferous invaders. If they were defeated, their cruel conquerors showed no moderation and no mercy in their victory; and if they conquered, it was only to suppress for a moment one horde, with a certainty of being attacked immediately by another, more recently [page 136] arrived, and more determined and relentless than those before them.
Alfred succeeded, however, by means of the influence of his personal character, and by the very active and efficient exertions that he made, in concentrating what forces remained, and in preparing for a renewal of the contest. The first great battle that was fought was at Wilton. This was within a month of his accession to the throne. The battle was very obstinately fought; at the first onset Alfred's troops carried all before them, and there was every prospect that he would win the day. In the end, however, the tide of victory turned in favor of the Danes, and Alfred and his troops were driven from the field. There was an immense loss on both sides. In fact, both armies were, for the time, pretty effectually disabled, and each seems to have shrunk from a renewal of the contest. Instead, therefore, of fighting again, the two commanders entered into negotiations. Hubba was the name of the Danish chieftain. In the end, he made a treaty with Alfred, by which he agreed to retire from Alfred's dominions, and leave him in peace, provided that Alfred would not interfere with him in his wars in any other part of England. Alfred's kingdom was Wessex. [page 137] Besides Wessex, there was Essex, Mercia, and Northumberland. Hubba and his Danes, finding that Alfred was likely to prove too formidable an antagonist for them easily to subdue, thought it would be most prudent to give up one kingdom out of the four, on condition of not having Alfred to contend against in their depredations upon the other three. They accordingly made the treaty, and the Danes withdrew. They evacuated their posts and strong-holds in Wessex, and went down the Thames to London, which was in Mercia, and there commenced a new course of conquest and plunder, where they had no such powerful foe to oppose them.
Buthred was the king of Mercia. He could not resist Hubba and his Danes alone, and he could not now have Alfred's assistance. Alfred was censured very much at the time, and has been condemned often since, for having thus made a separate peace for himself and his own immediate dominions, and abandoned his natural allies and friends, the people of the other Saxon kingdoms. To make a peace with savage and relentless pagans, on the express condition of leaving his fellow-Christian neighbors at their mercy, has been considered ungenerous, at least, if it was not unjust. On the other [page 138] hand, those who vindicate his conduct maintain that it was his duty to secure the peace and welfare of his own realm, leaving other sovereigns to take care of theirs; and that he would have done very wrong to sacrifice the property and lives of his own immediate subjects to a mere point of honor, when it was utterly out of his power to protect them and his neighbors too.
However this may be, Buthred, finding that he could not have Alfred's aid, and that he could not protect his kingdom by any force which he could himself bring into the field, tried negotiations too, and he succeeded in buying off the Danes with money. He paid them a large sum, on condition of their leaving his dominions finally and forever, and not coming to molest him any more. Such a measure as this is always a very desperate and hopeless one. Buying off robbers, or beggars, or false accusers, or oppressors of any kind, is only to encourage them to come again, after a brief interval, under some frivolous pretext, with fresh demands or new oppressions, that they may be bought off again with higher pay. At least Buthred found it so in this case. Hubba went northward for a time, into the kingdom of Northumberland, and, after various conquests and [page 139] plunderings there, he came back again into Mercia, on the plea that there was a scarcity of provisions in the northern kingdom, and he was obliged to come back. Buthred bought him off again with a larger sum of money. Hubba scarcely left the kingdom this time, but spent the money with his army, in carousings and excesses, and then went to robbing and plundering as before. Buthred, at last, reduced to despair, and seeing no hope of escape from the terrible pest with which his kingdom was infested, abandoned the country and escaped to Rome. They received him as an exiled monarch, in the Saxon school, where he soon after died a prey to grief and despair.
The Danes overturned what remained of Buthred's government. They destroyed a famous mausoleum, the ancient burial place of the Mercian kings. This devastation of the abodes of the dead was a sort of recreation—a savage amusement, to vary the more serious and dangerous excitements attending their contests with the living. They found an officer of Buthred's government named Ceolwulf, who, though a Saxon, was willing, through his love of place and power, to accept of the office of king in subordination to the Danes, and hold [page 140] it at their disposal, paying an annual tribute to them. Ceolwulf was execrated by his countrymen, who considered him a traitor. He, in his turn, oppressed and tyrannized over them.
In the mean time, a new leader, with a fresh horde of Danes, had landed in England. His name was Halfden. Halfden came with a considerable fleet of ships, and, after landing his men, and performing various exploits and encountering various adventures in other parts of England, he began to turn his thoughts toward Alfred's dominions. Alfred did not pay particular attention to Halfden's movements at first, as he supposed that his treaty with Hubba had bound the whole nation of the Danes not to encroach upon his realm, whatever they might do in respect to the other Saxon kingdoms. Alfred had a famous castle at Wareham, on the southern coast of the island. It was situated on a bay which lies in what is now Dorsetshire. This castle was the strongest place in his dominions. It was garrisoned and guarded, but not with any special vigilance, as no one expected an attack upon it. Halfden brought his fleet to the southern shore of the island, and, organizing an expedition there, he put to sea, and before any one suspected his design, [page 141] he entered the bay, surprised and attacked Wareham Castle, and took it. Alfred and the people of his realm were not only astonished and alarmed at the loss of the castle, but they were filled with indignation at the treachery of the Danes in violating their treaty by attacking it. Halfden said, however, that he was an independent chieftain, acting in his own name, and was not bound at all by any obligations entered into by Hubba!
There followed after this a series of contests and truces, during which treacherous wars alternated with still more treacherous and illusive periods of peace, neither party, on the whole, gaining any decided victory. The Danes, at one time, after agreeing upon a cessation of hostilities, suddenly fell upon a large squadron of Alfred's horse, who, relying on the truce, were moving across the country too much off their guard. The Danes dismounted and drove off the men, and seized the horses, and thus provided themselves with cavalry, a species of force which it is obvious they could not easily bring, in any ships which they could then construct, across the German Ocean. Without waiting for Alfred to recover from the surprise and consternation which this unexpected treachery [page 142] occasioned, the newly-mounted troop of Danes rode rapidly along the southern coast of England till they came to the town of Exeter. Its name was in those days Exancester. It was then, as it is now, a very important town. It has since acquired a mournful celebrity as the place of refuge, and the scene of suffering of Queen Henrietta Maria, the mother of Charles the Second.1 The loss of this place was a new and heavy cloud over Alfred's prospects. It placed the whole southern coast of his realm in the hands of his enemies, and seemed to portend for the whole interior of the country a period of hopeless and irremediable calamity.
It seems, too, from various unequivocal statements and allusions contained in the narratives of the times, that Alfred did not possess, during this period of his reign, the respect and affection of his subjects. He is accused, or, rather, not directly accused, but spoken of as generally known to be guilty of many faults which alienated the hearts of his countrymen from him, and prepared them to consider his calamities as the judgments of Heaven. He was young and ardent, full of youthful impetuosity and fire, and [page 143] was elated at his elevation to the throne; and, during the period while the Danes left him in peace, under the treaties he had made with Hubba, he gave himself up to pleasure, and not always to innocent pleasure. They charged him, too, with being tyrannical and oppressive in his government, being so devoted to gratifying his own ambition and love of personal indulgence that he neglected his government, sacrificed the interests and the welfare of his subjects, and exercised his regal powers in a very despotic and arbitrary manner.
It is very difficult to decide, at this late day how far this disposition to find fault with Alfred's early administration of his government arose from, or was aggravated by, the misfortunes and calamities which befell him. On the one hand, it would not be surprising if, young, and arduous, and impetuous as he was at this period of his life, he should have fallen into the errors and faults which youthful monarchs are very prone to commit on being suddenly raised to power. But then, on the other hand, men are prone, in all ages of the world, and most especially in such rude and uncultivated times as these were, to judge military and governmental action by the sole criterion of success. [page 144] Thus, when they found that Alfred's measures, one after another, failed in protecting his country, that the impending calamities burst successively upon them, notwithstanding all Alfred's efforts to avert them, it was natural that they should look at and exaggerate his faults, and charge all their national misfortunes to the influence of them.
There was a certain Saint Neot, a kinsman and religious counselor of Alfred, the history of whose life was afterward written by the Abbot of Crowland, the monastery whose destruction by the Danes was described in a former chapter. In this narrative it is said that Neot often rebuked Alfred in the severest terms for his sinful course of life, predicting the most fatal consequences if he did not reform, and using language which only a very culpable degree of remissness and irregularity could justify. "You glory," said he, one day, when addressing the king, "in your pride and power, and are determined and obdurate in your iniquity. But there is a terrible retribution in store for you. I entreat you to listen to my counsels, amend your life, and govern your people with moderation and justice, instead of tyranny and oppression, and thus avert if you can, before it is too late, the impending judgments of Heaven."
Such language as this it is obvious that only a very serious dereliction of duty on Alfred's part could call for or justify; but, whatever he may have done to deserve it, his offenses were so fully expiated by his subsequent sufferings, and he atoned for them so nobly, too, by the wisdom, the prudence, the faithful and devoted patriotism of his later career, that mankind have been disposed to pass by the faults of his early years without attempting to scrutinize them too closely. The noblest human spirits are always, in some periods of their existence, or in some aspects of their characters, strangely weakened by infirmities and frailties, and deformed by sin. This is human nature. We like to imagine that we find exceptions, and to see specimens of moral perfection in our friends or in the historical characters whose general course of action we admire; but there are no exceptions. To err and to sin, at some times and in some ways, is the common, universal, and inevitable lot of humanity.
At the time when Halfden and his followers seized Wareham Castle and Exeter, Alfred had been several years upon the throne, during which time these derelictions from duty took place, so far as they existed at all. But now, [page 146] alarmed at the imminence of the impending danger, which threatened not only the welfare of his people, but his own kingdom and even his life—for one Saxon monarch had been driven from his dominions, as we have seen, and had died a miserable exile at Rome—Alfred aroused himself in earnest to the work of regaining his lost influence among his people, and recovering their alienated affections.
He accordingly, as his first step, convened a great assembly of the leading chieftains and noblemen of the realm, and made addresses to them, in which he urged upon them the imminence of the danger which threatened their common country, and pressed them to unite vigorously and energetically with him to contend against their common foe. They must make great sacrifices, he said, both of their comfort and ease, as well as of their wealth, to resist successfully so imminent a danger. He summoned them to arms, and urged them to contribute the means necessary to pay the expense of a vigorous prosecution of the war. These harangues, and the ardor and determination which Alfred manifested himself at the time of making them, were successful. The nation aroused itself to new exertions, and for a time there was a prospect that the country would be saved.
The first British Fleet.
The first British Fleet.
Among the other measures to which Alfred resorted in this emergency was the attempt to encounter the Danes upon their own element by building and equipping a fleet of ships, with which to proceed to sea, in order to meet and attack upon the water certain new bodies of invaders, who were on the way to join the Danes already on the island—coming, as rumor said, along the southern shore. In attempting to build up a naval power, the greatest difficulty, always, is to provide seamen. It is much easier to build ships than to train sailors. To man his little fleet, Alfred had to enlist such half-savage foreigners as could be found in the ports, and even pirates, as was said, whom he induced to enter his service, promising them pay, and such plunder as they could take from the enemy. These attempts of Alfred to build and man a fleet are considered the first rude beginnings from which the present vast edifice of British naval power took its origin. When the fleet was ready to put to sea, the people thronged the shores, watching its movements with the utmost curiosity and interest, earnestly hoping that it might be successful in its contests with [page 150] the more tried and experienced armaments with which it would have to contend.
Alfred was, in fact, successful in the first enterprises which he undertook with his ships. He encountered a fleet of the Danish ships in the Channel, and defeated them. His fleet captured, moreover, one of the largest of the vessels of the enemy; and, with what would be thought in our day unpardonable cruelty, they threw the sailors and soldiers whom they found on board into the sea, and kept the vessel.
After all, however, Alfred gained no conclusive and decisive victory over his foes. They were too numerous, too scattered, and too firmly seated in the various districts of the island, of some of which they had been in possession for many years. Time passed on, battles were fought, treaties of peace were made, oaths were taken, hostages were exchanged, and then, after a very brief interval of repose, hostilities would break out again, each party bitterly accusing the other of treachery. Then the poor hostages would be slain, first by one party, and afterward, in retaliation, by the other.
In one of these temporary and illusive pacifications, Alfred attempted to bind the Danes by Christian oaths. Their customary mode of [page 151] binding themselves, in cases where they wished to impose a solemn religious obligation, was to swear by a certain ornament which they wore upon their arms, which is called in the chronicles of those times a bracelet. What its form and fashion was we can not now precisely know; but it is plain that they attached some superstitious, and perhaps idolatrous associations of sacredness to it. To swear by this bracelet was to place themselves under the most solemn obligation that they could assume. Alfred, however, not satisfied with this pagan sanction, made them, in confirming one treaty, swear by the Christian relics, which were certain supposed memorials of our Saviour's crucifixion, or portions of the bodies of dead saints miraculously preserved, and to which the credulous Christians of that day attached an idea of sacredness and awe, scarcely less superstitious than that which their pagan enemies felt for the bracelets on their arms. Alfred could not have supposed that these treacherous covenanters, since they would readily violate the faith plighted in the name of what they revered, could be held by what they hated and despised. Perhaps he thought that, though they would be no more likely to keep the new oath than the [page 152] old, still, that their violation of it, when it occurred, would be in itself a great crime—that his cause would be subsequently strengthened by their thus incurring the special and unmitigated displeasure of Heaven.
Among the Danish chieftains with whom Alfred had thus continually to contend in this early part of his reign, there was one very famous hero, whose name was Rollo. He invaded England with a wild horde which attended him for a short time, but he soon retired and went to France, where he afterward greatly distinguished himself by his prowess and his exploits. The Saxon historians say that he retreated from England because Alfred gave him such a reception that he saw that it would be impossible for him to maintain his footing there. His account of it was, that, one day, when he was perplexed with doubt and uncertainty about his plans, he fell asleep and dreamed that he saw a swarm of bees flying southward. This was an omen, as he regarded it, indicating the course which he ought to pursue. He accordingly embarked his men on board his ships again, and crossed the Channel, and sought successfully in Normandy, a province of France the kingdom and the home which, either on account [page 153] of Alfred or of the bees, he was not to enjoy in England.
The cases, however, in which the Danish chieftains were either entirely conquered or finally expelled from the kingdom were very few. As years passed on, Alfred found his army diminishing, and the strength of his kingdom wasting away. His resources were exhausted, his friends had disappeared, his towns and castles were taken, and, at last, about eight years after his coronation at Winchester as monarch of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, he found himself reduced to the very last extreme of destitution and distress.
Notwithstanding the tide of disaster and calamity which seemed to be gradually overwhelming Alfred's kingdom, he was not reduced to absolute despair, but continued for a long time the almost hopeless struggle. There is a certain desperation to which men are often aroused in the last extremity, which surpasses courage, and is even sometimes a very effectual substitute for strength; and Alfred might, perhaps, have succeeded, after all, in saving his affairs from utter ruin, had not a new circumstance intervened, which seemed at once to extinguish all remaining hope and to seal his doom.
This circumstance was the arrival of a new band of Danes, who were, it seems, more numerous, more ferocious, and more insatiable than any who had come before them. The other kingdoms of the Saxons had been already pretty effectually plundered. Alfred's kingdom of Wessex was now, therefore, the most inviting field, and, after various excursions of conquest [page 155] and plunder in other parts of the island, they came like an inundation over Alfred's frontiers, and all hope of resisting them seems to have been immediately abandoned. The Saxon armies were broken up. Alfred had lost, it appears, all influence and control over both leaders and men. The chieftains and nobles fled. Some left the country altogether; others hid themselves in the best retreats and fastnesses that they could find. Alfred himself was obliged to follow the general example. A few attendants, either more faithful than the rest, or else more distrustful of their own resources, and inclined, accordingly, to seek their own personal safety by adhering closely to their sovereign, followed him. These, however, one after another, gradually forsook him, and, finally, the fallen and deserted monarch was left alone.
In fact, it was a relief to him at last to be left alone; for they who remained around him became in the end a burden instead of affording him protection. They were too few to fight, and too many to be easily concealed. Alfred withdrew himself from them, thinking that, under the circumstances in which he was now placed, he was justified in seeking his own personal safety alone. He had a wife, whom he [page 156] married when he was about twenty years old; but she was not with him now, though she afterward joined him. She was in some other place of retreat. She could, in fact, be much more easily concealed than her husband; for the Danes, though they would undoubtedly have valued her very highly as a captive, would not search for her with the eager and persevering vigilance with which it was to be expected they would hunt for their most formidable, but now discomfited and fugitive foe.
Alfred, therefore, after disentangling himself from all but one or two trustworthy and faithful friends, wandered on toward the west, through forests, and solitudes, and wilds, to get as far away as possible from the enemies who were upon his track. He arrived at last on the remote western frontiers of his kingdom, at a place whose name has been immortalized by its having been for some time the place of his retreat. It was called Athelney.1 Athelney was, however, scarcely deserving of a name, for it was nothing but a small spot of dry land in the midst of a morass, which, as grass would [page 157] grow upon it in the openings among the trees, a simple cow-herd had taken possession of, and built his hut there.
The solid land which the cow-herd called his farm was only about two acres in extent. All around it was a black morass, of great extent, wooded with alders, among which green sedges grew, and sluggish streams meandered, and mossy tracts of verdure spread treacherously over deep bogs and sloughs. In the driest season of the summer the goats and the sheep penetrated into these recesses, but, excepting in the devious and tortuous path by which the cow-herd found his way to his island, it was almost impassable for man.
Alfred, however, attracted now by the impediments and obstacles which would have repelled a wanderer under any other circumstances, went on with the greater alacrity the more intricate and entangled the thickets of the morass were found, since these difficulties promised to impede or deter pursuit. He found his way in to the cow-herd's hut. He asked for shelter. People who live in solitudes are always hospitable. The cow-herd took the wayworn fugitive in, and gave him food and shelter. Alfred remained his guest for a considerable time.
The story is, that after a few days the cow-herd asked him who he was, and how he came to be wandering about in that distressed and destitute condition. Alfred told him that he was one of the king's thanes. A thane was a sort of chieftain in the Saxon state. He accounted for his condition by saying that Alfred's army had been beaten by the Danes, and that he, with the other generals, had been forced to fly. He begged the cow-herd to conceal him, and to keep the secret of his character until times should change, so that he could take the field again.
The story of Alfred's seclusion on the island, as it might almost be called, of Ethelney, is told very differently by the different narrators of it. Some of these narrations are inconsistent and contradictory. They all combine, however, though they differ in respect to many other incidents and details, in relating the far-famed story of Alfred's leaving the cakes to burn. It seems that, though the cow-herd himself was allowed to regard Alfred as a man of rank in disguise—though even he did not know that it was the king—his wife was not admitted, even in this partial way, into the secret. She was made to consider the stranger as some common strolling [page 159] countryman, and the better to sustain this idea, he was taken into the cow-herd's service, and employed in various ways, from time to time, in labors about the house and farm. Alfred's thoughts, however, were little interested in these occupations. His mind dwelt incessantly upon his misfortunes and the calamities which had befallen his kingdom. He was harassed by continual suspense and anxiety, not being able to gain any clear or certain intelligence about the condition and movements of either his friends or foes. He was revolving continually vague and half-formed plans for resuming the command of his army and attempting to regain his kingdom, and wearying himself with fruitless attempts to devise means to accomplish these ends. Whenever he engaged voluntarily in any occupation, it would always be something in harmony with these trains of thought and these plans. He would repair and put in order implements of hunting, or any thing else which might be deemed to have some relation to war. He would make bows and arrows in the chimney corner—lost, all the time, in melancholy reveries, or in wild and visionary schemes of future exploits.
One evening, while he was thus at work, the [page 160] cow-herd's wife left, for a few moments, some cakes under his charge, which she was baking upon the great stone hearth, in preparation for their common supper. Alfred, as might have been expected, let the cakes burn. The woman, when she came back and found them smoking, was very angry. She told him that he could eat the cakes fast enough when they were baked, though it seemed he was too lazy and good for nothing to do the least thing in helping to bake them. What wide-spread and lasting effects result sometimes from the most trifling and inadequate causes! The singularity of such an adventure befalling a monarch in disguise, and the terse antithesis of the reproaches with which the woman rebuked him, invest this incident with an interest which carries it every where spontaneously among mankind. Millions, within the last thousand years, have heard the name of Alfred, who have known no more of him than this story; and millions more, who never would have heard of him but for this story, have been led by it to study the whole history of his life; so that the unconscious cow-herd's wife, in scolding the disguised monarch for forgetting her cakes, was perhaps doing more than he ever did himself for the wide extension of his future fame.2
Alfred watching the Cakes.
Alfred watching the Cakes.
Alfred was, for a time, extremely depressed and disheartened by the sense of his misfortunes [page 165] and calamities; but the monkish writers who described his character and his life say that the influence of his sufferings was extremely salutary in softening his disposition and improving his character. He had been proud, and haughty, and domineering before. He became humble, docile, and considerate now. Faults of character that are superficial, resulting from the force of circumstances and peculiarities of temptation, rather than from innate depravity of heart, are easily and readily burned off in the fire of affliction, while the same severe ordeal seems only to indurate the more hopelessly those propensities which lie deeply seated in an inherent and radical perversity.
Alfred, though restless and wretched in his apparently hopeless seclusion, bore his privations with a great degree of patience and fortitude, planning, all the time, the best means of reorganizing his scattered forces, and of rescuing his country from the ruin into which it had fallen. Some of his former friends, roaming as he himself had done, as fugitives about the country, happened at length to come into the neighborhood of his retreat. He heard of them, and cautiously made himself known. They were rejoiced to find their old commander once more, and, as there was no force of the Danes in that neighborhood at the time, they lingered, timidly and fearlessly at first, in the vicinity, until, at length, growing more bold as they found themselves unmolested in their retreat, they began to make it their gathering place and head-quarters. Alfred threw off his disguise, and assumed his true character. Tidings of his having been thus discovered spread confidentially among the most tried and faithful of his Saxon followers, who had themselves been seeking safety in other places of refuge. They began, at first cautiously and by stealth, but afterward more openly, to repair to the spot. Alfred's family, too, from which he had now [page 167] been for many months entirely separated, contrived to rejoin him. The herdsman, who proved to be a man of intelligence and character superior to his station, entered heartily into all these movements. He kept the secret faithfully. He did all in his power to provide for the wants and to promote the comfort of his warlike guests, and, by his fidelity and devotion, laid Alfred under obligations of gratitude to him, which the king, when he was afterward restored to the throne, did not forget to repay.
Notwithstanding, however, all the efforts which the herdsman made to obtain supplies, the company now assembled at Ethelney were sometimes reduced to great straits. There were not only the wants of Alfred and his immediate family and attendants to be provided for, but many persons were continually coming and going, arriving often at unexpected times, and acting, as roving and disorganized bodies of soldiers are very apt to do at such times, in a very inconsiderate manner. The herdsman's farm produced very little food, and the inaccessibleness of its situation made it difficult to bring in supplies from without. In fact, it was necessary, in one part of the approach to it, to use a boat, so that the place is generally called, in history, [page 168] an island, though it was insulated mainly by swamps and morasses rather than by navigable waters. There were, however, sluggish streams all around it, where Alfred's men, when their stores were exhausted, went to fish, under the herdsman's guidance, returning sometimes with a moderate fare, and sometimes with none.
The monks who describe this portion of Alfred's life have recorded an incident as having occurred on the occasion of one of these fishing excursions, which, however, is certainly, in part, a fabrication, and may be wholly so. It was in the winter. The waters about the grounds were frozen up. The provisions in the house were nearly exhausted, there being scarcely anything remaining. The men went away with their fishing apparatus, and with their bows and arrows, in hopes of procuring some fish or fowl to replenish their stores. Alfred was left alone, with only a single lady of his family, who is called in the account "Mother," though it could not have been Alfred's own mother, as she had been dead many years. Alfred was sitting in the hut reading. A beggar, who had by some means or other found his way in over the frozen morasses, came to the door, and asked for food. Alfred, looking up from his book, asked the [page 169] mother, whoever she was, to go and see what there was to give him. She went to make examination, and presently returned, saying that there was nothing to give him. There was only a single loaf of bread remaining, and that would not be half enough for their own wants that very night when the hunting party should return, if they should come back unsuccessful from their expedition. Alfred hesitated a moment, and then ordered half the loaf to be given to the beggar. He said, in justification of the act, that his trust was now in God, and that the power which once, with five loaves and two small fishes, fed abundantly three thousand men, could easily make half a loaf suffice for them.
The loaf was accordingly divided, the beggar was supplied, and, delighted with this unexpected relief, he went away. Alfred turned his attention again to his reading. After a time the book dropped from his hand. He had fallen asleep. He dreamed that a certain saint appeared to him, and made a revelation to him from heaven. God, he said, had heard his prayers, was satisfied with his penitence, and pitied his sorrows; and that his act of charity in relieving the poor beggar, even at the risk of [page 170] leaving himself and his friends in utter destitution, was extremely acceptable in the sight of Heaven. The faith and trust which he thus manifested were about to be rewarded. The time for a change had come. He was to be restored to his kingdom, and raised to a new and higher state of prosperity and power than before. As a token that this prediction was true, and would be all fulfilled, the hunting party would return that night with an ample and abundant supply.
Alfred awoke from his sleep with his mind filled with new hopes and anticipations. The hunting party returned loaded with supplies, and in a state of the greatest exhilaration at their success. They had fish and game enough to have supplied a little army. The incident of relieving the beggar, the dream, and their unwonted success confirming it, inspired them all with confidence and hope. They began to form plans for commencing offensive operations. They would build fortifications to strengthen their position on the island. They would collect a force. They would make sallies to attack the smaller parties of the Danes. They would send agents and emissaries about the kingdom to arouse, and encourage, and assemble [page 171] such Saxon forces as were yet to be found. In a word, they would commence a series of measures for recovering the country from the possession of its pestilent enemy, and for restoring the rightful sovereign to the throne. The development of these projects and plans, and the measures for carrying them into effect, were very much hastened by an event which suddenly occurred in the neighborhood of Ethelney, the account of which, however, must be postponed to the next chapter.
Ethelney, though its precise locality can not now be certainly ascertained, was in the southwestern part of England, in Somersetshire, which county lies on the southern shore of the Bristol Channel. There is a region of marshes in that vicinity, which tradition assigns as the place of Alfred's retreat; and there was, about the middle of this century, a farmhouse there, which bore the name of Ethelney, though this name may have been given to it in modern times by those who imagined it to be the ancient locality. A jewel of gold, engraved as an amulet to be worn about the neck, and inscribed with the Saxon words which mean "Alfred had me made," was found in the vicinity, and is still carefully preserved in a museum in England. Some curious antiquarians profess to find the very hillock, rising out of the low grounds around, where the herdsman that entertained Alfred so long lived; but this, of course is all uncertain. The peculiarities of [page 173] the spot derived their character from the morasses and the woods, and the courses of the sluggish streams in the neighborhood, and these are elements of landscape scenery which ten centuries of time and of cultivation would entirely change.
Whatever may have been the precise situation of the spot, instead of being, as at first, a mere hiding-place and retreat, it became, before many months, as was intimated in the last chapter, a military camp, secluded and concealed, it is true, but still possessing, in a considerable degree, the characteristics of a fastness and place of defense. Alfred's company erected something which might be called a wall. They built a bridge across the water where the herdsman's boat had been accustomed to ply. They raised two towers to watch and guard the bridge. All these defenses were indeed of a very rude and simple construction; still, they answered the purpose intended. They afforded a real protection; and, more than all, they produced a certain moral effect upon the minds of those whom they shielded, by enabling them to consider themselves as no longer lurking fugitives, dependent for safety on simple concealment, but as a garrison, weak, it is true, but [page 174] still gathering strength, and advancing gradually toward a condition which would enable them to make positive aggressions upon the enemy.
The circumstance which occurred to hasten the development of Alfred's plans, and which was briefly alluded to at the close of the last chapter, was the following: It seems that quite a large party of Danes, under the command of a leader named Hubba, had been making a tour of conquest and plunder in Wales, which country was on the other side of the Bristol Channel, directly north of Ethelney, where Alfred was beginning to concentrate a force. He would be immediately exposed to an attack from this quarter as soon as it should be known that he was at Ethelney, as the distance across the Channel was not great, and the Danes were provided with shipping.
Ethelney was in the county called Somersetshire. To the southwest of Somersetshire, a little below it, on the shores of the Bristol Channel, was a castle, called Castle Kenwith, in Devonshire. The Duke of Devonshire, who held this castle, encouraged by Alfred's preparations for action, had assembled a considerable force here, to be ready to co-operate with Alfred [page 175] in the active measures which he was about to adopt. Things being in this state, Hubba brought down his forces to the northern shores of the Channel, collected together all the boats and shipping that he could command, crossed the Channel, and landed on the Devonshire shore. Odun, the duke, not being strong enough to resist, fled, and shut himself up, with all his men, in the castle. Hubba advanced to the castle walls, and, sitting down before them, began to consider what to do.
Hubba was the last surviving son of Ragner Lodbrog, whose deeds and adventures were related in a former chapter. He was, like all other chieftains among the Danes, a man of great determination and energy, and he had made himself very celebrated all over the land by his exploits and conquests. His particular horde of marauders, too, was specially celebrated among all the others, on account of a mysterious and magical banner which they bore. The name of this banner was the Reafan, that is, the Raven. There was the figure of a raven woven or embroidered on the banner. Hubba's three sisters had woven it for their brothers, when they went forth across the German Ocean to avenge their father's death. It possessed, as [page 176] both the Danes and Saxons believed, supernatural and magical powers. The raven on the banner could foresee the result of any battle into which it was borne. It remained lifeless and at rest whenever the result was to be adverse; and, on the other hand, it fluttered its wings with a mysterious and magical vitality when they who bore it were destined to victory. The Danes consequently looked up to this banner with a feeling of profound veneration and awe, and the Saxons feared and dreaded its mysterious power. The explanation of this pretended miracle is easy. The imagination of superstitious men, in such a state of society as that of these half-savage Danes, is capable of much greater triumphs over the reason and the senses than is implied in making them believe that the wings of a bird are either in motion or at rest, whichever it fancies, when the banner on which the image is embroidered is advancing to the field and fluttering in the breeze.
The Castle of Kenwith was situated on a rocky promontory, and was defended by a Saxon wall. Hubba saw that it would be difficult to carry it by a direct assault. On the other hand, it was not well supplied with water or provisions, and the numerous multitude which had [page 177] crowded into it, would, as Hubba thought, be speedily compelled to surrender by thirst and famine, if he were simply to wait a short time, till their scanty stock of food was consumed. Perhaps the raven did not flutter her wings when Hubba approached the castle, but by her apparent lifelessness portended calamity if an attack were to be made. At all events, Hubba decided not to attack the castle, but to invest it closely on all sides, with his army on the land and with his vessels on the side of the sea, and thus reduce it by famine. He accordingly stationed his troops and his galleys at their posts and established himself in his tent, quietly to await the result.
He did not have to wait so long as he anticipated. Odun, finding that his danger was so imminent, nay, that his destruction was inevitable if he remained in his castle, thus shut in, determined, in the desperation to which the emergency reduced him, to make a sally. Accordingly, one night, as soon as it was dark, so that the indications of any movement within the castle might not be perceived by the sentinels and watchmen in Hubba's lines, he began to marshal and organize his army for a sudden and furious onset upon the camp of the Danes.
They waited, when all was ready, till the first break of day. To make the surprise most effectual, it was necessary that it should take place in the night; but then, on the other hand, the success, if they should be successful, would require, in order to be followed up with advantage, the light of day. Odun chose, therefore, the earliest dawn as the time for his attempt, as this was the only period which would give him at first darkness for his surprise, and afterward light for his victory. The time was well chosen, the arrangements were all well made, and the result corresponded with the character of the preparations. The sally was triumphantly successful.
The Danes, who were all, except their sentinels, sleeping quietly and secure, were suddenly aroused by the unearthly and terrific yells with which the Saxons burst into the lines of their encampment. They flew to arms, but the shock of the onset produced a panic and confusion which soon made their cause hopeless. Odun and his immediate followers pressed directly forward into Hubba's tent, where they surprised the commander, and massacred him on the spot. They seized, too, to their inexpressible joy, the sacred banner, which was in [page 179] Hubba's tent, and bore it forth, rejoicing in it, not merely as a splendid trophy of their victory, but as a loss to their enemies which fixed and sealed their doom.
The Danes fled before their enemies in terror, and the consternation which they felt, when they learned that their banner had been captured and their leader slain, was soon changed into absolute despair. The Saxons slew them without mercy, cutting down some as they were running before them in their headlong flight, and transfixing others with their spears and arrows as they lay upon the ground, trampled down by the crowds and the confusion. There was no place of refuge to which they could fly except to their ships. Those, therefore, that escaped the weapons of their pursuers, fled in the direction of the water, where the strong and the fortunate gained the boats and the galleys, while the exhausted and the wounded were drowned. The fleet sailed away from the coast, and the Saxons, on surveying the scene of the terrible contest, estimated that there were twelve hundred dead bodies lying in the field.
This victory, and especially the capture of the Raven, produced vast effects on the minds both of the Saxons and of the Danes, animating [page 180] and encouraging the one, and depressing the other with superstitious as well as natural and proper fears. The influence of the battle was sufficient, in fact, wholly to change Alfred's position and prospects. The news of the discovery of the place of his retreat, and of the measures which he was maturing for taking the field again to meet his enemies, spread throughout the country. The people were every where ready to take up arms and join him. There were large bodies of Danes in several parts of his dominions still, and they, alarmed somewhat at these indications of new efforts of resistance on the part of their enemies, began to concentrate their strength and prepare for another struggle.
The main body of the Danes were encamped at a place called Edendune, in Wiltshire. There is a hill near, which the army made their main position, and the marks of their fortifications have been traced there, either in imagination or reality, in modern times. Alfred wished to gain more precise and accurate information than he yet possessed of the numbers and situation of his foes; and, in order to do this, instead of employing a spy, he conceived the design of going himself in disguise to explore the [page 181] camp of the Danes. The undertaking was full of danger, but yet not quite so desperate as at first it might seem. Alfred had had abundant opportunities during the months of his seclusion to become familiar with the modes of speech and the manners of peasant life. He had also, in his early years, stored his memory with Saxon poetry, as has already been stated. He was fond of music, too, and well skilled in it; so that he had every qualification for assuming the character of one of those roving harpers, who, in those days, followed armies, to sing songs and make amusement for the soldiers. He determined, consequently, to assume the disguise of a harper, and to wander into the camp of the Danes, that he might make his own observations on the nature and magnitude of the force with which he was about to contend.
He accordingly clothed himself in the garb of the character which he was to assume, and, taking his harp upon his shoulder, wandered away in the direction of the Northmen's camp. Such a strolling countryman, half musician, half beggar would enter without suspicion or hinderance into the camp, even though he belonged to the nation of the enemy. Alfred was readily admitted, and he wandered at will about [page 182] the lines, to play and sing to the soldiers wherever he found groups to listen—intent, apparently, on nothing but his scanty pittance of pay, while he was really studying, with the utmost attention and care, the number, and disposition, and discipline of the troops, and all the arrangements of the army. He came very near discovering himself, however, by overacting his part. His music was so well executed and his ballads were so fine, that reports of the excellence of his performance reached the commander's ears. He ordered the pretended harper to be sent into his tent, that he might hear him play and sing. Alfred went, and thus he had the opportunity of completing his observations in the tent, and in the presence of the Danish king.
Alfred found that the Danish camp was in a very unguarded and careless condition. The name of the commander, or king, was Guthrum.1 Alfred, while playing in his presence, studied his character, and it is (not) improbable that the very extraordinary course which he afterward pursued in respect to Guthrum may have been caused, in a great degree, by the opportunity [page 183] he now enjoyed of domestic access to him and of obtaining a near and intimate view of his social and personal character. Guthrum treated the supposed harper with great kindness. He was much pleased both with his singing and his songs, being attracted, too, probably, in some degree, by a certain mysterious interest which the humble stranger must have inspired; for Alfred possessed personal and intellectual traits of character which could not but have given to his conversation and his manners a certain charm, notwithstanding all his efforts to disguise or conceal them.
However this may be, Guthrum gave Alfred a very friendly reception, and the hour of social intercourse and enjoyment which the general and the ballad-singer spent together was only a precursor of the more solid and honest friendship which afterward subsisted between them as allied sovereigns.
Alfred had one person with him, whom he had brought from Ethelney—a sort of attendant—to help him carry his harp, and to be a companion for him on the way. He would have needed such a companion even if he had been only what he seemed; but for a spy, going in disguise into the camp of such ferocious enemies [page 184] as the Danes, it would seem absolutely indispensable that he should have the support and sympathy of a friend.
Alfred, after finishing his examination of the camp of Guthrum, and forming secretly, in his own mind, his plans for attacking it, moved leisurely away, taking his harp and his attendant with him, as if going on in search of some new place to practice his profession. As soon as he was out of the reach of observation, he made a circuit and returned in safety to Ethelney. The season was now spring, and every thing favored the commencement of his enterprise.
His first measure was to send out some trusty messengers into all the neighboring counties, to visit and confer with his friends at their various castles and strong-holds. These messengers were to announce to such Saxon leaders as they should find that Alfred was still alive, and that he was preparing to take the field against the Danes again; and were to invite them to assemble at a certain place appointed, in a forest, with as many followers as they could bring, that the king might there complete the organization of an army, and hold consultation with them to mature their plans.