Probably they were great, considering the extent and population of the
little kingdom over which he ruled, but inconsiderable in comparison
with the revenues of England at the present day. To build fortresses,
construct a navy, and keep in pay a considerable military force,--to say
nothing of his own private expenditure and the expense of his court,
his public improvements, the endowment of churches, the support of
schools, the relief of the poor, and keeping the highways and bridges in
repair,--required a large income. This was derived from the public
revenues, crown lands, and private property. The public revenue was
raised chiefly by customs, tolls, and fines. The crown lands were very
extensive, as well as the private property of the sovereign, as he had
large estates in every county of his kingdom.
But whatever his income, he set apart one quarter of it for religious
purposes, one-sixth for architecture, and one-eighth for the poor,
besides a considerable sum for foreigners, whom he liberally patronized.
He richly endowed schools and monasteries. He was devoted to the Church,
and his relations with the Pope were pleasant and intimate, although
more independent than those of many of his successors.
All the biographers of Alfred speak of his zealous efforts in behalf of
education. He established a school for the young nobles of his court,
and taught them himself. His teachers were chiefly learned men drawn
from the continent, especially from the Franks, and were well paid by
the king. He made the scholarly Asser--a Welsh monk, afterwards bishop
of Sherborne, from whose biography of Alfred our best information is
derived--his counsellor and friend, and from his instructions acquired
much knowledge. To Asser he gave the general superintendence of
education, not merely for laymen, but for priests. In his own words, he
declared that his wish was that all free-born youth should persevere in
learning until they could read the English Scriptures. For those who
desired to devote themselves to the Church, he provided the means for
the study of Latin. He gave all his children a good education. His own
thirst for knowledge was remarkable, considering his cares and public
duties. He copied the prayer-book with his own hands, and always carried
it in his bosom, Asser read to him all the books which were then
accessible. From an humble scholar the king soon became an author. He
translated "Consolations of Philosophy" from the Latin of Boethius, a
Roman senator of the sixth century,--the most remarkable literary effort
of the declining days of the Roman Empire, and highly prized in the
Middle Ages. He also translated the "Chronicle of the World," by
Orosius, a Spanish priest, who lived in the early part of the fifth
century,--a work suggested by Saint Augustine's "City of God." The
"Ecclesiastical History" of Bede was also translated by Alfred. He is
said to have translated the Proverbs of Solomon and the Fables of Aesop.
His greatest literary work, however, was the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the
principal authority of the reign of Alfred. No man of his day wrote the
Saxon language so purely as did Alfred himself; and he was
distinguished not only for his knowledge of Latin, but for profound
philosophical reflections interspersed through his writings, which would
do honor to a Father of the Church. He was also a poet, inferior only to
Caedmon. Nor was his knowledge confined to literature alone; it was
extended to the arts, especially architecture, ship-building, and
silver-workmanship. He built more beautiful edifices than any of his
predecessors. He also had a knowledge of geography beyond his
contemporaries, and sent a Norwegian ship-master to explore the White
Sea. He enriched his translation of Orosius by a sketch of the new
geographical discoveries in the North. In fact, there was scarcely any
branch of knowledge then known in which Alfred was not well
instructed,--being a remarkably learned man for his age, and as
enlightened as he was learned.
But in the midst of his reforms and wise efforts to civilize his people,
the war-clouds gathered once more, and he was obliged to put forth all
his energies to defend his realm from the incursions of his old enemies.
The death of Charles the Bald in the year 877 left France in a very
disordered state, and the Northmen under Hasting, one of the greatest of
their vikings, recommenced their ravages. In 893 they crossed the
Channel in two hundred and fifty vessels, and invaded England, followed
soon after by Hasting with another large detachment, and strongly
intrenched themselves near Winchester. Alfred at the same time strongly
fortified his own position, about thirty miles distant, and kept so
close a watch over the movements of his enemies that they rarely
ventured beyond their own intrenchments. A sort of desultory warfare
succeeded, and continued for a year without any decisive results. At
last the Danes, getting weary, broke up their camps, and resolved to
pass into East Anglia. They were met by Alfred at Farnham and forced to
fight, which resulted in their defeat and the loss of all the spoils
they had taken and all the horses they had brought from France. The
discomfited Danes retreated, by means of their ships, to an island in
the Thames, at its junction with the Colne, where they were invested by
Alfred. They would soon have been at the mercy of the Saxon king, had it
not unfortunately happened that the Danes on the east coast, from Essex
to Northumbria, joined the invaders, which unlooked-for event compelled
Alfred to raise the blockade, and send Ethelred his son to the west,
where the Danes were again strongly intrenched at Banfleet, near London.
Their camp was successfully stormed, and much booty was taken, together
with the wife and sons of Hasting. The Danish fleet was also captured,
and some of the vessels were sent to London. But Hasting still held out,
in spite of his disaster, and succeeded in intrenching himself with the
remnants of his army at Shoebury, ten miles from Banfleet, from which
he issued on a marauding expedition along the northern banks of the
Thames, carrying fire and sword wherever he went, thence turned
northward, making no halt until he reached the banks of the Severn,
where he again intrenched himself, but was again beaten. Hasting saved
himself by falling back on a part of East Anglia removed from Alfred's
influence, and appeared near Chester. Alfred himself had undertaken the
task of guarding Exeter and the coasts of Devonshire and South Wales,
where he wintered, leaving Ethelred to pursue Hasting.
Thus a year passed in the successful defence of the kingdom, the Danes
having gained no important advantage. At the end of the second campaign
Hasting still maintained his ground and fortified himself on the Thames,
within twenty miles of London. At the close of the third year, Hasting,
being driven from his position on the Thames, established himself in
Shropshire. "In the spring of 897 Hasting broke up his last camp on the
English soil, being foiled at every point, and crossed the sea with the
remnant of his followers to the banks of the Seine." The war was now
virtually at an end, and the Danes utterly defeated.
The work for which Alfred was raised up was at last accomplished. He had
stayed the inundations of the Northmen, defended his kingdom of Wessex,
and planted the seeds of a higher civilization in England, winning the
love and admiration of his subjects. The greatness of Alfred should not
be measured by the size of his kingdom. It is not the bigness of a
country that gives fame to its illustrious men. The immortal heroes of
Palestine and Greece ruled over territories smaller and of less
importance than the kingdom of Wessex. It is the greatness of their
characters that preserves their name and memory.
Alfred died in the year 901, at the age of fifty-two, worn out with
disease and labors, leaving his kingdom in a prosperous state; and it
had rest under his son Edward for nine years. Then the contest was
renewed with the Danes, and it was under the reign of Edward that Mercia
was once more annexed to Wessex, as well as Northumbria. Edward died in
925, and under the reign of his son Aethelstan the Saxon kingdom reached
still greater prosperity. The completion of the West Saxon realm was
reserved for Edmund, son of Aethelstan, who ascended the throne in 940,
being a mere boy. He was ruled by the greatest statesman of that age,
the celebrated Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury and Archbishop of
Canterbury,--a great statesman and a great Churchman, like Hincmar
of Rheims.
Thus the heroism and patience of Alfred were rewarded by the restoration
of the Saxon power, and the absorption of what Mr. Green calls
"Danelagh," after a long and bitter contest, of which Alfred was the
greatest hero. In surveying his conquests we are reminded of the long
contest which Charlemagne had with the Saxons. Next to Charlemagne,
Alfred was the greatest prince who reigned in Europe after the
dissolution of the Roman Empire, until the Norman Conquest. He fought
not for the desire of bequeathing a great empire to his descendants, but
to rescue his country from ruin, in the midst of overwhelming
calamities. It was a struggle for national existence, not military
glory. In the successful defence of his kingdom against the ravages of
Pagan invaders he may be likened to William the Silent in preserving the
nationality of Holland. No European monarch from the time of Alfred can
be compared to him in the service he rendered to his country. The
memorableness of a war is to be gauged not by the number of the
combatants, but by the sacredness of a cause. It was the devotion of
Washington to a great cause which embalms his memory in the heart of the
world. And no English king has left so hallowed a name as Alfred: it was
because he was a benefactor, and infused his energy of purpose into a
discouraged and afflicted people. How far his saint-like virtues were
imitated it is difficult to tell. Religion was the groundwork of his
character,--faith in God and devotion to duty. His piety was also more
enlightened than the piety of his age, since it was practical and not
ascetic. His temper was open, frank, and genial. He loved books and
strangers and travellers. There was nothing cynical about him, in spite
of his perplexities and discouragements. He had a beautifully balanced
character and a many-sided nature. He had the power of inspiring
confidence in defeat and danger. His judgment and good sense seemed to
fit him for any emergency. He had the same control over himself that he
had over others. His patriotism and singleness of purpose inspired
devotion. He felt his burdens, but did not seek to throw them off.
"Hardship and sorrow," said he, "not a king but would wish to be without
these if he could; but I know he cannot." "So long as I have lived I
have striven to live worthily." "I desire to leave to the men that come
after me a remembrance of me in good works." These were some of his
precious utterances, so that the love which he won a thousand years ago
has lingered around his name from that day to this.
It was a strong sense of duty, quickened by a Christian life, which gave
to the character of Alfred its peculiar radiance. He felt his
responsibilities as a Christian ruler. He was affable, courteous,
accessible. His body was frail and delicate, but his energies were never
relaxed. Pride and haughtiness were unknown in his intercourse with
bishops or nobles. He had no striking defects. He was the model of a man
and a king; and he left the impress of his genius on all the subsequent
institutions of his country. "The tree," says Dr. Pauli, one of his
ablest biographers, "which now casts its shadow far and near over the
world, when menaced with destruction in its bud, was carefully guarded
by Alfred; but at the period when it was ready to burst forth into a
plant, he was forced to leave it to the influence of time. Many great
men have occupied themselves with the care of this tree, and each in his
own way has advanced its growth. William the Conqueror, with his iron
hand, bent the tender branches to his will; Henry the Second ruled the
Saxons with true Roman pride, but in _Magna Charta_ the old German
nature became aroused and worked powerfully, even among the barons. It
became free under Edward the Third,--that prince so ambitious of
conquest: the old language and the old law, the one somewhat altered,
the other much softened, opened the path to a new era. The nation stood
like an oak in the full strength of its leafy maturity; and to this
strength the Reformation is indebted for its accomplishment. Elizabeth,
the greatest woman who ever sat upon a throne, occupied a central
position in a golden age of power and literature. Then came the Stuarts,
who with their despotic ideas outraged the deeply-rooted Saxon
individuality of the English, and by their fall contributed to the sure
development of that freedom which was founded so long before. The stern
Cromwell and the astute William the Third aided in preparing for the now
advanced nation that path in which it has ever since moved. The
Anglo-Saxon race has already attained maturity in the New World, and,
founded on these pillars, it will triumph in all places and in every
age. Alfred's name will always be placed among those of the great
spirits of this earth; and so long as men regard their past history with
reverence they will not venture to bring forward any other in comparison
with him who saved the West Saxon nation from complete destruction, and
in whose heart all the virtues dwelt in such harmonious concord."
AUTHORITIES.
Asser's Life of Alfred; the Saxon Chronicle; Alfred's own writings;
Bede's Ecclesiastical History; Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of
England; Kemble's Saxons in England; Sir F. Palgrave's History of the
English Commonwealth; Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons;
Green's History of the English People; Dr. Pauli's Life of Alfred;
Alfred the Great, by Thomas Hughes. Freeman, Pearson, Hume, Spelman,
Knight, and other English historians may be consulted.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
A.D. 1533-1603.
WOMAN AS A SOVEREIGN.
I do not present Queen Elizabeth either as a very interesting or as a
faultless woman. As a woman she is not a popular favorite. But it is my
object to present her as a queen; to show with what dignity and ability
a woman may fill one of the most difficult and responsible stations of
the world. It is certain that we associate with her a very prosperous
and successful reign; and if she was lacking in those feminine qualities
which make woman interesting to man, we are constrained to admire her
for those talents and virtues which shed lustre around a throne. She is
unquestionably one of the links in the history of England and of modern
civilization; and her reign is so remarkable, considering the
difficulties with which she had to contend, that she may justly be
regarded as one of the benefactors of her age and country. It is a
pleasant task to point out the greatness, rather than the defects, of so
illustrious a woman.
It is my main object to describe her services to her country, for it is
by services that all monarchs are to be judged; and all sovereigns,
especially those armed with great power, are exposed to unusual
temptations, which must ever qualify our judgments. Even bad men--like
Caesar, Richelieu, and Napoleon--have obtained favorable verdicts in
view of their services. And when sovereigns whose characters have been
sullied by weaknesses and defects, yet who have escaped great crimes and
scandals and devoted themselves to the good of their country, have
proved themselves to be wise, enlightened, and patriotic, great praise
has been awarded to them. Thus, Henry IV. of France, and William III. of
England have been admired in spite of their defects.
Queen Elizabeth is the first among the great female sovereigns of the
world with whose reign we associate a decided progress in national
wealth, power, and prosperity; so that she ranks with the great men who
have administered kingdoms. If I can prove this fact, the sex should be
proud of so illustrious a woman, and should be charitable to those
foibles which sullied the beauty of her character, since they were in
part faults of the age, and developed by the circumstances which
surrounded her.
She was born in the year 1533, the rough age of Luther, when Charles V.
was dreaming of establishing a united continental military empire, and
when the princes of the House of Valois were battling with the ideas of
the Reformation,--an earnest, revolutionary, and progressive age. She
was educated as the second daughter of Henry VIII. naturally would be,
having the celebrated Ascham as her tutor in Greek, Latin, French, and
Italian. She was precocious as well as studious, and astonished her
teachers by her attainments. She was probably the best-educated woman in
England next to Lady Jane Grey, and she excelled in those departments of
knowledge for which novels have given such distaste in these more
enlightened times.
Elizabeth was a mere girl when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed for
infidelities and levities to which her husband could not be blind, had
he been less suspicious,--a cruel execution, which nothing short of
high-treason could have justified even in that rough age. Though her
birth was declared to be illegitimate by her cruel and unscrupulous
father, yet she was treated as a princess. She was seventeen when her
hateful old father died; and during the six years when the government
was in the hands of Somerset, Edward VI. being a minor, Elizabeth was
exposed to no peculiar perils except those of the heart. It is said that
Sir Thomas Seymour, brother to the Protector, made a strong impression
on her, and that she would have married him had the Council consented.
By nature, Elizabeth was affectionate, though prudent. Her love for
Seymour was uncalculating and unselfish, though he was unworthy of it.
Indeed, it was her misfortune always to misplace her affections,--which
is so often the case in the marriages of superior women, as if they
loved the image merely which their own minds created, as Dante did when
he bowed down to Beatrice. When we see intellectual men choosing weak
and silly women for wives, and women of exalted character selecting
unworthy and wicked husbands, it does seem as if Providence determines
all matrimonial unions independently of our own wills and settled
purposes. How often is wealth wedded to poverty, beauty to ugliness, and
amiability to ill-temper! The hard, cold, unsocial, unsympathetic,
wooden, scheming, selfish man is the only one who seems to attain his
end, since he can bide his time,--wait for somebody to fancy him.
Elizabeth had that mixed character which made her life a perpetual
conflict between her inclinations and her interests. Her generous
impulses and affectionate nature made her peculiarly susceptible, while
her prudence and her pride kept her from a foolish marriage. She may
have loved unwisely, but she had sufficient self-control to prevent a
mésalliance. While she may have resigned herself at times to the
fascinations of accomplished men, she yet fathomed the abyss into which
imprudence would bury her forever.
On the accession of Mary, her elder sister, daughter of Catharine of
Aragon, Elizabeth's position was exceedingly critical, exposed as she
was to the intrigues of the Catholics and the jealousy of the Queen. And
when we remember that the great question and issue of that age was
whether the Catholic or Protestant religion should have the ascendency,
and that this ascendency seemed to hinge upon the private inclinations
of the sovereign who in the furtherance of this great end would scruple
at nothing to accomplish it, and that the greatest crimes committed for
its sake would be justified by all the sophistries that religious
partisanship could furnish, and be upheld by all bigots and statesmen as
well as priests, it is really remarkable that Elizabeth was spared. For
Mary was not only urged on to the severest measures by Gardiner and
Bonner (the bishops of Winchester and London), and by all the influences
of Rome, to which she was devoted body and soul,--yea, by all her
confidential advisers in the State, to save themselves from future
contingencies,--but she was also jealous of her sister, as Elizabeth was
afterwards jealous of Mary Stuart. And it would have been as easy for
Mary to execute Elizabeth as it was for Elizabeth to execute the Queen
of Scots, or Henry VIII. to behead his wives; and such a crime would
have been excused as readily as the execution of Somerset or of the Lady
Jane Grey, both from political necessity and religious expediency.
Elizabeth was indeed subjected to great humiliations, and even compelled
to sue for her life. What more piteous than her letter to Mary, begging
only for an interview: "Wherefore I humbly beseech your Majesty to let
me answer before yourself; and, once again kneeling with humbleness of
heart, I earnestly crave to speak to your Highness, which I would not be
so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself
most true." Here is a woman pleading for her life to a sister to whom
she had done no wrong, and whose only crime was in being that sister's
heir. What an illustration of the jealousy of royalty and the bitterness
of religious feuds; and what a contrast in this servile speech to that
arrogance which Elizabeth afterward assumed towards her Parliament and
greatest lords! Ah, to what cringing meanness are most people reduced by
adversity! In what pride are we apt to indulge in the hour of triumph!
How circumstances change the whole appearance of our lives!
Elizabeth, however, in order to save her life, was obliged to dissemble.
If her true Protestant opinions had been avowed, I doubt if she could
have escaped. We do not see in this dissimulation anything very lofty;
yet she acted with singular tact and discretion. It is creditable,
however, to Mary that she did not execute her sister. She showed herself
more noble than Elizabeth did later in her treatment of the Queen of
Scots. History calls her the "Bloody Mary;" and it must be admitted that
she was the victim and slave of religious bigotry, and that she
sanctioned many bloody executions. And yet it would appear that her
nature was, after all, affectionate, which is evinced in the fact that
she did spare the life of Elizabeth. Here her better impulses gained the
victory over craft and policy and religious intolerance, and rescued her
name from the infamy to which such a crime would have doomed her, and
which her Church would have sanctioned, and in which it would have
rejoiced as much as it did in the slaughter of Saint Bartholomew.
The crocodile tears which Elizabeth is said to have shed when the death
of her sister Mary was announced to her at Hatfield were soon wiped away
in the pomps and enthusiasms which hailed her accession to the throne.
This was in 1558, when she was twenty-five, in the fulness of her
attractions and powers. Great expectations were formed of her wisdom and
genius. She had passed through severe experiences; she had led a life of
study and reflection; she was gifted with talents and graces. "Her
accomplishments, her misfortunes, and her brilliant youth exalted into
passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and led to extravagant
panegyrics." She was good-looking, if she was not beautiful, since the
expression of her countenance showed benignity, culture, and vivacity.
She had piercing dark eyes, a clear complexion, and animated features.
She was in perfect health, capable of great fatigue, apt in business,
sagacious, industrious, witty, learned, and fond of being surrounded
with illustrious men. She was high-church in her sympathies, yet a
Protestant in the breadth of her views and in the fulness of her
reforms. Above all, she was patriotic and disinterested in her efforts
to develop the resources of her kingdom and to preserve it from
entangling wars.