Alfred was no longer a mirror for princes, but an exemplar for people at all levels of society and, above all, for children.
The noble king Whom misfortune could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose perseverance, nothing could shake. Who was hopeful in defeat, and generous in success. Who loved justice, freedom, truth and knowledge. So much had Alfred become the epitome of the ideal Victorian that Walter Besant, in a lecture on Alfred in , thought it entirely appropriate to apply to him verse that Alfred, Lord Tennyson had written to commemorate Prince Albert.
Alfred was no longer the totem of one political party. Problems with the calculation of Anglo-Saxon dates meant it was widely believed then that Alfred had died in , rather than , which is now recognised as the true date of his death, but at the time it seemed particularly apposite to many that the great Queen and her illustrious forebear had died a thousand years apart.
But in Britain was embroiled in the Boer War, and the priority was the reality of the present rather than an imagined past. The National Committee did not raise nearly as much money as it had expected and had to abandon many of its ambitious plans, including one for a Museum of Early English History. But there was also a more positive side to the celebrations when Alfred was used, as he had been in the past, as a cloak for the introduction of change in society. It was not by chance that the statue was unveiled by the Liberal leader Lord Rosebery, for the former Whig support for British Worthies had never completely died away, and Liberals were prominent in the many commemorations of the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Alfred, though no doubt gratified by his posthumous fame, would have trouble recognising himself in some of his later manifestations, and would find it difficult to comprehend, let alone approve, some of the constitutional developments he was supposed to have championed.
Now that Britain is relapsing into its regional components, who better than Alfred, the champion of the English language and Anglo Saxon hegemony, to be a figurehead of the new England? Alfred is often thought to have provided his own epitaph in this passage from his translation of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and to leave after my life, to the men who should come after me, the memory of me in good works.
Lord Rosebery commented that the statue he was to unveil in Winchester can only be an effigy of the imagination, and so the Alfred we reverence may well be an idealised figure They had two sons and three daughters, who survived to adulthood.
The middle daughter became abbess of Shaftesbury nunnery, one of two religious houses founded by Alfred. The other was at Athelney, perhaps in thanksgiving for his escape there from the Vikings.
Having survived by the skin of his teeth all-out Viking attacks in the s, when the other provinces fell, Alfred then enacted a series of military reforms to make Wessex less vulnerable in the future. Alfred also organised a rota of military service to make keeping forces in the field for any length of time more viable; the field army could respond quickly to a request for aid from a local garrison should the Vikings attack. The king also overhauled his naval forces, bringing in experienced Frisian sailors to help with his new designs for ships.
What else is Alfred famous for? There are many Anglo-Saxon kings who were great military commanders — what makes Alfred stand out is that he was also interested in learning, and in the promotion of English as a written language. Here we can see the impact of the great religious and cultural movement from across the Channel, known as the Carolingian Renaissance, which had also much influenced his father. Alfred recruited Carolingian scholars [from what is now France and western Germany], as well as others from within Britain to act as his advisers on improving educational and religious standards in Wessex.
He himself studied key works with them, and these seem to have had a profound effect on his own understanding and concept of duty, which he felt others at his court should share. Due to this, his reign is among the best recorded of the entire Anglo-Saxon period. Alfred seems to have taken a strong personal interest in the production of texts in the English language, something which marks him out from all of the other Anglo-Saxon warrior kings. He commissioned a series of translations into Old English of key Latin texts.
Topics covered are limited and seem to reflect his known interests: the accessions and deaths of kings, visits by West Saxons to Rome and, above all, battles.
Very unusually among contemporary writing, there is relatively little on ecclesiastical matters and nothing to associate the work with a particular religious community. Its brief and laconic entries are deceptively simple. This was a collection of material carefully chosen to show Alfred in a favourable light. The first stage of compilation was completed sometime between and , when Alfred was about 40 years of age and had been on the throne for some two decades.
It was probably circulated when it was apparent that another major round of Viking wars was starting. The entries for this second phase of war are considerably more detailed, perhaps made soon after they took place, and give us much information about ninth-century military manoeuvres.
The Life of Alfred , written in while the king was still alive, is the only biography that survives for an Anglo-Saxon king and provides types of information about the man and his reign that we do not have for other pre-Norman rulers. A translation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle forms the main structure of the narrative, together with some additional information which may have come from the recollections of the king himself or other war veterans at his court. On to this framework Asser pastes other information and vignettes in rough chronological sequence.
But caution is necessary. It is clearly framed in terms of contemporary ideals of kingship, based on classical, biblical and Frankish prototypes, to which his Alfred is made to conform. We have a relatively clear idea of what this coterie of churchmen considered to be the qualities of an ideal ruler. There is a strong influence from the land of Francia, across the Channel, from works produced at the courts of the great kings Charlemagne Charles the Great, d.
How far Alfred himself subscribed to their interpretation of kingship is a crucial matter on which it is possible to take divergent views. This could be an indication that Alfred did not fully condone its contents, that it was not how he wanted posterity to remember him. The work may never even have been completed. These were known as burhs and formed a well-designed fortified settlement system extending across the south.
Alfred also took tentative steps in establishing a navy to tackle the naval capacity of the Danes on the English coastline. As described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, this proved successful as the ships were larger, steadier and swifter in the water, using a design inspired by the Greek and Roman warships which were designed as fighting ships with high sides, instead of low sided vessels deemed fit only for navigation.
In order to maintain a defence system with long-lasting effects, Alfred introduced a tax and conscription system.
The services provided by the landowner would be judged accordingly. This kind of structure helped to ensure security for the future of the kingdom. The same principles of organisation and structure were applied to the judicial system pioneered by Alfred.
Seeking a new law and order approach, Alfred insisted on judges with certain desirable qualities, such as being literate, having a sharp mind, a good education and astute knowledge of the law.
Without such qualities, Alfred deemed them to be unworthy to serve in office. Another important step taken by Alfred was in his approach of unifying kingdoms that had previously operated separately.
Under his leadership, a more unified Anglo-Saxon culture was forming. He commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a vital document for the time which promoted the unification of England, but also a valuable document today allowing us to learn so much information about this period of English history.
He placed much importance on translations from Latin to English in order to establish a wider array of books accessible for learning and intellectual pursuits.
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