Alfred as a
Lawgiver and

a Teacher.

He desired that

Alfred deserves to be remembered for what he did to keep his realm safe; yet no less honour is due for what he did to make it well-governed. He set in order the laws, and took such good care that they should be kept, that in later days, when troubles came again, men longed for the "laws of King Alfred ". He was a scholar, and wished to teach his people. every freeborn youth "should abide at his book till he can well understand English writing". In order that they should have books to read, he himself translated books for them-books on religion, on geography, on history; and he caused to be written, and perhaps himself helped to write, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Thus, as Caedmon is the father of English poetry, Alfred is the father of English prose.

and Grand

In 901 Alfred died, but his work did not die with him. His son, Edward the Elder, reconquered the Alfred's Sons Danelagh as far as the Humber. His grandsons restored the Saxon power over sons, 901-955. Northumbria, and even induced the Scots to accept the Saxon king as father and lord. Thus England was again united under a Saxon king. The Danes had been beaten; they had settled down quietly under Saxon rule; they had intermarried with the Saxons, had grown like them in speech, and were hardly to be told as a separate race. All seemed well. It was hardly possible to imagine a better sign for the future than this, that Edred, the youngest of Alfred's three grandsons, was chosen king by a Witan in which Saxons, Welshmen, and Danes all sat peaceably side by side as members of one realm. But the Danish invasions were not yet over. Fresh troubles were not very far off.

IV. — THE FALL OF THE SAXONS.
LAND UNDER FOREIGN
DANES AND NORMANS.

ENG

RULE.

Alfred himself stands out as the towering landmark of the period we have followed. But his greatness is apt to mislead us. He does not stand The Great

alone. He is only one of a race of kings, Saxon Kings. all most capable rulers, who, were Alfred out of sight, might each deserve to be called a hero. It is not too much to say, that for nearly a hundred and eighty years (800-978) every king save one that sat on the throne of Wessex deserved to be called a great man; and, in addition, during the last forty years these kings had the advice of the greatest Saxon statesman -Dunstan. This is the Golden Age of Saxon England; but the period which follows offers a sad con

trast.

It opens ominously with murder. The young king Edward, riding past his stepmother's castle at Corfe, halted at the door and asked for a cup of wine. The treacherous queen brought it herself, and while the king was drinking it, made one of her men stab him in the back, that her own son Ethelred might get the throne. For eight-and-thirty years England was to regret that deed, for Ethelred's reign proved one of the worst in her history.

Ethelred's name of the Unready or Redeless-that is to say, "The Man of Ill-Counsel "-aptly describes him. He was selfish, idle, weak. He allowed Ethelred, his nobles to quarrel among themselves. The 978-1016. Danes saw the weakness of the realm and began their raids afresh. Ethelred was foolish enough to reverse the plan which Alfred had followed with such success.

Instead of hard blows he gave them shillings, and tried to buy them off with the Danegeld, a tax which he made his luckless subjects pay. This of course only attracted fresh swarms of Danes. One band followed another, all clamouring for Danegeld. Then Ethelred, having by his first act brought the Danes into England, made them lasting foes by his second. He had recourse to treachery. Suddenly, in a time of truce, he caused all the Danes on whom he could lay hands to be murdered. This "Massacre of St. Brice's Day" drew down on him the whole might of the Danish kingdom, for among the victims so foully slain were the sister of the Danish king, Sweyn, and her husband.

1002.

Ethelred, like all weak kings, was a prey to bad favourites. The man he chose as his friend was a prince of traitors-Edric. Almost the first act Edric. of this friend was to betray his master by persuading the Witan to offer the throne of England to the Danish king. London alone stoutly held out for Ethelred, till it heard that the miserable man had deserted his post and had fled to Normandy. The nation then made Edmund, his son, king. He was young and brave, as his name "Ironsides" tells us, and might have driven out Canute, who led the Danes. Five battles he fought, and was successful in them all; but in the sixth, Edric, who had come over to his side, deserted him again on the battle-field, and caused his defeat. Not content with that, a year later the traitor Edric got Edmund murdered, and in despair the nation chose the Dane Canute as their king.

Thus all Alfred's work was overthrown. Yet Canute, though a foreign conqueror, was a good king. He ruled sternly, but fairly; he gave England the peace which was sadly needed. He married

Ethelred's widow, and so joined himself to the old royal family; he employed English and Danes Canute alike; and he slew the treacherous Edric. He the Dane, 1016-1035. felt so certain of the loyalty of his new subjects that he was able to send home all his Danish army, save a small body-guard. This shows us that he was loved, just as the old story of his rebuke to the flattering courtiers who urged him to forbid the tide to come any farther, shows us that he was wise.

Neither of Canute's sons lived long, so that in 1042 the Witan had to choose a fresh king. The choice fell on Edward, second son of Ethelred the Unready.

1042-1066.

Edward, the Confessor, as he was called, though a pious, well-meaning man, was destined to bring England under another foreign power. He Edward, the had been brought up in Normandy, and Confessor, he was much fonder of Normans than of his own subjects. He made a Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and promoted others to be bishops and earls; worse than this, he had even given some sort of promise to William, the Duke of Normandy, that he would leave him the crown of England at his death. All this favouring of foreigners made Englishmen very angry.

When Edward died, leaving only a great-nephew of ten years old to follow him, the Witan, anxious for a strong ruler, and for one who would hate Harold, the Normans instead of favouring them, put 1066. Harold, son of the Saxon Earl Godwin, on the throne. But William of Normandy, as we have seen, had already been aiming at the crown. And further, unluckily for Harold, it had happened that he had once been wrecked on the coast of Normandy and thrown into prison. Before the duke would let him go, he had made him swear that he would do his best