A king for all seasons: Alfred the Great.

The summer of 2004 saw yet another movie on King Arthur. This one, we were assured, was the genuine Arthur of history, a 5th century Romano-British warlord, defending his fiefdom against the Saxon invaders. Oh well ... perhaps we may some day rent the video and subject it to critical appraisal. Arthur never quite goes out of currency and the romantic tales of Camelot and the Round Table do not explain it all. Most legends link him with the old British pagan religion and this connects with the current fascination with myth, magic and the occult. Many people in the Western world have turned away from traditional religions which advocate such anti-individualistic ideas as self-discipline and respect for authority, towards feel-good, find-the-god-within-yourself cults of the New Age and, pushing the envelope beyond these, to white and black magic. The tales of Arthur, Merlin, Morgan le Fay et al fit right into this worldview. As G.K. Chesterton once said," When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." This may go some way towards explaining why the only English King ever accorded the title of "Great" gets little contemporary attention. Even in Alfred's own city of Winchester where he set up various religious foundations, such as the New Minster, and where he was buried, the prime tourist exhibit in the former castle, now a museum, is a 13th century facsimile of Arthur's Round Table.

Exactly what does one have to do to be awarded the epithet "great?" Our modern Canadian concept seems to zero in on physical prowess and the sports field, a fairly limited arena. Historically the title has gone to rulers of nations, and some major religious figures such as Pope St. Gregory the Great, but in some cases posterity is justified in looking askance at various nominees--the two Russian despots, Peter (1672-1725) and Catherine (1729-1796)--who spring swiftly to mind. England (later Great Britain) has had several competent and successful monarchs, but Alfred was the only one ever accorded the sobriquet "Great," and he was not even ruler of the whole country of England.

Even before Alfred's birth in 849 A.D., the original heptarchy of the Anglo-Saxon peoples had devolved into three dominant kingdoms. Of these, Wessex, the land of the West Saxons, had emerged on top in the reigns of his immediate predecessors. The premier achievement of Alfred, who was eventually styled "Rex Anglorum" (King of the English), was to lay the foundation of the English monarchy; his grandson Athelstan would unite the whole country. Had it not been for the reluctance (or perhaps, inability) of the extra-pious Edward the Confessor to consummate his marriage, the strong and efficient Alfredian dynasty might have continued and the Norman Conquest could have been avoided. One may well speculate whether sainthoods were awarded on political grounds in the tenth and eleventh centuries (not in any case the most exemplary era for the papacy). Celibacy definitely had big clout then. However, in the postlude of a pontificate which saw the canonization of several married saints, perhaps Alfred would have had a higher rating with John Paul II. There is also the matter of his career as a warrior but, as we shall see, he was certainly no Ghengis Khan.

The bare bones of Alfred's life are as follows. He was born around 848-849 A.D. in a royal Saxon residence near the modern town of Wantage in Oxfordshire, the youngest of five surviving children of remarkably pious parents, King Ethelwulf and his Jutish Queen, Osburh. Before adolescence, Alfred made two visits to Rome, the first in 853 to the court of Pope Leo IV. (This visit was suggested by Bishop--later Saint--Swithun of Winchester in order to patch up strained relations with the Holy See). The Pope was much taken with the young "atheling" adopting him as his spiritual son and conferring on him the insignia and title of Roman consul. A few years later, he revisited Rome, spending a year there in the company of his father.

On his return, Ethelwulf found himself not only challenged for rule over part of his kingdom by his oldest son, but also having to deal with the increasing menace of Danish raids on Saxon territory. The Norsemen's (Vikings') and Danes' incursions on English territory had been escalating since the first terrifying raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumberland in the year 793. The king, who was in failing health, died shortly after his return from Europe, to be succeeded in the space of thirteen years by his three elder sons and finally by Alfred.

Although Alfred was of a studious nature, he had no formal education beyond the regular training in martial arts necessary for a king's son, even one who was never expected to rule. We next find him, at age 19, as brother Ethelred's second-in-command coming to the assistance of the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia in an attempt to expel the Danes from that land. Despite one victory at Ashdown (in 871), the Saxons only gained a short respite from further inroads into Wessex while the Danes held on to East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. A swift conquering sweep through Wessex, and England was all theirs! (Alfred had a further connection with Mercia. Another duty of royalty was the production of heirs to the throne. In 867, Alfred married the Mercian princess Elswitha, a union which produced five children.) When Alfred came to the throne in 871, the big question was whether he could actually hold on to his inheritance. It was here that the qualities of his character which later led to him being called "the Great " were plainly shown. Prominent among these was his great steadfastness of purpose; Alfred knew why he was there and what he had to do for his people. For the first seven years of his reign, he continued his tussles with the Danes, interspersed with some inconclusive truces. Then, over the winter of 877-878 the Danes made an all-out effort to overwhelm Wessex, being so successful that Alfred was driven into hiding in the desolate marshes of the "isle" of Athelney in Somerset. The famous anecdote of the burnt cakes belongs to this period. It may well be true; the fugitive king's mind was probably on things other than the good wife's baking, and his humble acceptance of her scolding fits with how he saw himself as a responsible servant of his people. However, from this humble base, he was able to organize his subjects in the nearby counties into a unified fighting force, strong enough to rout the Danes in spring at the battle of Ethandune, near the village of Edington in Wiltshire.

Alfred had a vision of what his land could be, but he tempered it with a practical acceptance of the fact that the Danes were already permanent settlers in several parts of England. He therefore reinforced his victory, not by massacring or enslaving his surrendered opponents, but by insisting that their leaders accept baptism as part of the peace agreement, signed later at Wedmore. The king himself acted as sponsor for the Danish leader, Guthrum, afterwards entertaining him royally and bestowing gifts, including houses, on him. Guthrum eventually departed to settle in East Anglia (already recognized as Danish territory) sufficiently impressed, not only by Alfred's martial skills but by the magnanimity with which his Christian faith had imbued him, that he from then on kept peace with him. This eastern area of England came to be known as the Danelaw, but Guthrum and the other chiefs recognized Alfred as their overlord.

In later years other bands of raiders arrived from across the North Sea. Alfred was kept busy for the rest of his life repelling them. But never again was the existence of his kingdom in peril. He implemented some innovative defensive measures, such as a conscription system for alternative service in the military and in agriculture, a shipbuilding program with vessels of his own design to oppose the Danish longships (whence he was called "The father of the British Navy"), and a system of fortified towns (buhrs) for defence against land-invaders--this latter was never fully implemented by his officials.

Despite all this activity and the fact that national security was always a concern, Alfred cast his net more widely, firstly by introducing a legal code, based on a harmonized collection of the laws of previous rulers of Wessex and Mercia. In the intervals of peace after Wedmore, he set about restoring the Christian culture that had once flourished in England. The pagan raiders from the North had targeted monasteries and other ecclesiastical buildings, destroying those of their treasures, particularly the sacred books, that they did not carry off.

Alfred has been quoted as saying that, in order to run his kingdom properly, he required "men of prayer, men of war, and men of work." The men of prayer whom he recruited were also men of learning, monasteries being the centres of education of that era. He therefore cast around even in Europe for learned monks, not only to head ecclesiastical foundations, but also as advisors in his court. One of his local "finds" was the Welsh monk, Asser, to whom we owe most of the details of Alfred's life, as set down in his contribution to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (There has been some speculation that Alfred had a hand in the founding of Oxford University--one of his European recruits, Abbot Grimbald, lived and was buried there. However, records show that nothing that could be truly called a university was in operation there until the 12th century.)

Always conscious of the gaps in his own education, Alfred, with Asser's help, learned Latin, eventually becoming proficient enough to translate several books (including Gregory the Great's "Pastoral Care") into Anglo-Saxon. In an era when such skills were looked down on as within the purview only of clerics, and neglected by the majority of the nobility of the land, the king encouraged the pursuit of literacy within his court, particularly among the young.

Alfred's proudest title may well have been "Leader of the Christians." By the time he ascended the throne, his own people, Angles, Saxons and Jutes, had for the most part left behind their beliefs in heathen gods, but he worked for, and to some extent achieved Christian conversion of the Danes. He also maintained close bonds with Welsh chieftains who followed Celtic Christian traditions. Christianity thus became a unifying factor among the diverse peoples of the southern part of Britain. And to be a Christian then meant to be Catholic. Religion played a central role in Alfred's life. He readily accepted the spiritual leadership of the Roman pontiff and ungrudgingly took on the responsibility of supporting the Church with tithes, part of which went directly to Rome as "Peter's pence."

Alfred also made a point of being gainfully occupied at all times; personal prayer and formal devotions were part of his daily routine. He died at Winchester in 899, at the age of 50. As the new church in which he had interested himself was not yet complete, he was buried in the Old Minster. His remains, transferred to the New Minster after its completion in 903, were again moved when this foundation found a new name and premises as Hyde Abbey in 1110. In 1538, when the abbey was suppressed and despoiled by Henry VIII's commissioners, the tombs of Alfred, his wife, his son and successor, Edward the Elder, were not spared. Their bones are possibly among those picked up afterwards and placed in caskets above the chancel of Winchester Cathedral. Excavations as recent as 1999 have uncovered what may have been the royal Saxon gravesites, but the exact resting place of the great king still remains unknown.

Alfred's reign and achievements were subject to a major revival on the millenary anniversaries of his birth and death in Victorian times. The perception of his virtues fitted well into the ethos of that era and his Saxon lineage coincided happily with the Germanic connections of the British royal family. These Victorian WASPs did not however care to give too much attention to their hero's Catholic faith, particularly his fidelity to the Mass and the pope.

Since those heady days, Alfred has faded from public notice, dwelling in a kind of cold limbo, lacking the glamour of the legendary Arthur. Even the few legends with which his name is connected are quite pedestrian or, as in the case of the tale that he penetrated the Danish camp disguised as a minstrel, do not make sense in the light of his cautious nature--he was not the man to risk being captured and leave his troops leaderless.

No--Alfred is too dutiful, too virtuous (no records of any mistresses), too respectful, even of his enemies, to fit the template of the modern action hero. To this writer's knowledge, there has been but one cinematic rendering of his life--a nondescript epic of 40 years ago, now doubtless mouldering in some celluloid vault somewhere.

It is perhaps time, over 1000 years later, to re-evaluate this man of multi-faceted talent--war leader, scholar, lawgiver, family man, and devout Catholic Christian. In a time and place where people crave, and know they need, a leader of vision and virtue, Alfred, rather than Arthur, deserves to be hailed as the "once and future king."

N.B. I am indebted to Douglas Woodruff's excellent 1972 biography in the "Kings and queens of England" series for details of Alfred's life. For a more poetic slant, try G.K. Chesterton's wonderful "Ballad of the White Horse. "

Kate Daffern writes from Thornhill, Ontario. She is a volunteer proof-reader for this magazine