THE CLOSE OF LIFE.
It was twelve or fifteen years after Alfred's restoration to his
kingdom, by means of the victory at Edendune, that the great invasion
of Hastings occurred. That victory took place in the year 878. It was
in the years 893-897 that Hastings and his horde of followers infested
the island, and in 900 Alfred died, so that his reign ended, as it had
commenced, with protracted and desperate conflicts with the Danes.
Hastings was an old and successful soldier before he came to England.
He had led a wild life for many years as a sea king on the German
Ocean, performing deeds which in our day entail upon the perpetrator
of them the infamy of piracy and murder, but which then entitled the
hero of them to a very wide-spread and honorable fame. Afterward
Hastings landed upon the Continent, and pursued, for a long time,
a glorious career of victory and plunder in France. In these
enterprises, the tide, indeed, sometimes turned against him. On one
occasion, for instance, he found himself obliged to give way before
his enemies, and he retreated to a church, which he seized and
fortified, making it his castle until a more favorable aspect of his
affairs enabled him to issue forth from this retreat and take
the field again. Still he was generally very successful in his
enterprises; his terrible ferocity, and that of his savage followers,
were dreaded in every part of the civilized world.
Hastings had made one previous invasion of England; but Guthrum,
faithful to his covenants with Alfred, repulsed him. But Guthrum was
now dead, and Alfred had to contend against his formidable enemy
alone.
Hastings selected a point on the southern coast of England for his
landing. Guthrum's Danes still continued to occupy the eastern part of
England, and Hastings went round on the southern coast until he got
beyond their boundaries, as if he wished to avoid doing any thing
directly to awaken their hostility. Guthrum himself, while he lived,
had evinced a determination to oppose Hastings's plans of invasion.
Hastings did not know, now that Guthrum was dead, whether his
successors would oppose him or not. He determined, at all events,
to respect their territory, and so he passed along on the southern
shore of England till he was beyond their limits, and then prepared
to land.
[Illustration: HASTINGS BESIEGED IN THE CHURCH.]
He had assembled a large force of his own, and he was joined,
in addition to them, by many adventurers who came out to attach
themselves to his expedition from the bays, and islands, and harbors
which he passed on his way. His fleet amounted at least to two hundred
and fifty vessels. They arrived, at length, at a part of the coast
where there extends a vast tract of low and swampy land, which was
then a wild and dismal morass. This tract, which is known in modern
times by the name of the Romney Marshes, is of enormous extent,
containing, as it does, fifty thousand acres. It is now reclaimed, and
is defended by a broad and well-constructed dike from the inroads of
the sea. In Hastings's time it was a vast waste of bogs and mire,
utterly impassable except by means of a river, which, meandering
sluggishly through the tangled wilderness of weeds and bushes in a
deep, black stream, found an outlet at last into the sea.
Hastings took his vessels into this river, and, following its turnings
for some miles, he conducted them at last to a place where he found
more solid ground to land upon. But this ground, though solid, was
almost as wild and solitary as the morass. It was a forest of vast
extent, which showed no signs of human occupancy, except that the
peasants who lived in the surrounding regions had come down to the
lowest point accessible, and were building a rude fortification there.
Hastings attacked them and drove them away. Then, advancing a little
further, until he found an advantageous position, he built a strong
fortress himself and established his army within its lines.
His next measure was to land another force near the mouth of the
Thames, and bring them into the country, until he found a strong
position where he could intrench and fortify the second division as he
had done the first. These two positions were but a short distance from
each other. He made them the combined center of his operations, going
from them in all directions in plundering excursions. Alfred soon
raised an army and advanced to attack him; and these operations were
the commencement of a long and tedious war.
A detailed description of the events of this war, the marches and
countermarches, the battles and sieges, the various success, first of
one party and then of the other, given historically in the order of
time, would be as tedious to read as the war itself was to endure.
Alfred was very cautious in all his operations, preferring rather
to trust to the plan of wearing out the enemy by cutting off their
resources and hemming them constantly in, than to incur the risk of
great decisive battles. In fact, watchfulness, caution, and delay
are generally the policy of the invaded when a powerful force has
succeeded in establishing itself among them; while, on the other hand,
the hope of _invaders_ lies ordinarily in prompt and decided action.
Alfred was well aware of this, and made all his arrangements with
a view to cutting off Hastings's supplies, shutting him up into as
narrow a compass as possible, heading him off in all his predatory
excursions, intercepting all detachments, and thus reducing him at
length to the necessity of surrender.
At one time, soon after the war began, Hastings, true to the character
of his nation for treachery and stratagem, pretended that he was ready
to surrender, and opened a negotiation for this purpose. He agreed to
leave the kingdom if Alfred would allow him to depart peaceably, and
also, which was a point of great importance in Alfred's estimation, to
have his two sons baptized. While, however, these negotiations were
going on between the two camps, Alfred suddenly found that the main
body of Hastings's army had stolen away in the rear, and were marching
off by stealth to another part of the country. The negotiations were,
of course, immediately abandoned, and Alfred set off with all his
forces in full pursuit. All hopes of peace were given up, and the
usual series of sieges, maneuverings, battles, and retreats was
resumed again.
On one occasion Alfred succeeded in taking possession of Hastings's
camp, when he had left it in security, as he supposed, to go off for a
time by sea on an expedition. Alfred's soldiers found Hastings's wife
and children in the camp, and took them prisoners. They sent the
terrified captives to Alfred, to suffer, as they supposed, the long
and cruel confinement or the violent death to which the usages of
those days consigned such unhappy prisoners. Alfred baptized the
children, and then sent them, with their mother, loaded with presents
and proofs of kindness, back to Hastings again.
This generosity made no impression upon the heart of Hastings, or, at
least, it produced no effect upon his conduct. He continued the war
as energetically as ever. Months passed away and new re-enforcements
arrived, until at length he felt strong enough to undertake an
excursion into the very heart of the country. He moved on for a time
with triumphant success; but this very success was soon the means of
turning the current against him again. It aroused the whole country
through which he was passing. The inhabitants flocked to arms. They
assembled at every rallying point, and, drawing up on all sides nearer
and nearer to Hastings's army, they finally stopped his march, and
forced him to call all his forces in, and intrench himself in the
first place of retreat that he could find. Thus his very success was
the means of turning his good fortune into disaster.
And then, in the same way, the success of Alfred and the Saxons soon
brought disaster upon them too, in their turn; for, after succeeding
in shutting Hastings closely in, and cutting off his supplies of food,
they maintained their watch and ward over their imprisoned enemies
so closely as to reduce them to extreme distress--a distress and
suffering which they thought would end in their complete and absolute
submission. Instead of ending thus, however, it aroused them to
desperation. Under the influence of the phrensy which such hopeless
sufferings produce in characters like theirs, they burst out one day
from the place of their confinement, and, after a terrible conflict,
which choked up a river which they had to pass with dead bodies and
dyed its waters with blood, the great body of the starving desperadoes
made their escape, and, in a wild and furious excitement, half a
triumph and half a retreat, they went back to the eastern coast of the
island, where they found secure places of refuge to receive them.
In the course of the subsequent campaigns, a party of the Danes came
up the River Thames with a fleet of their vessels, and an account is
given by some of the ancient historians of a measure which Alfred
resorted to to entrap them, which would seem to be scarcely credible.
The account is, that he _altered the course of the river_ by digging
new channels for it, so as to leave the vessels all aground, when, of
course, they became helpless, and fell an easy prey to the attacks of
their enemies. This is, at least, a very improbable statement, for a
river like the Thames occupies always the lowest channel of the land
through which it passes to the sea. Besides, such a river, in order
that it should be possible for vessels to ascend it from the ocean,
must have the surface of its water very near the level of the surface
of the ocean. There can, therefore, be no place to which such waters
could be drawn off, unless into a valley below the level of the sea.
All such valleys, whenever they exist in the interior of a country,
necessarily get filled with water from brooks and rains, and so become
lakes or inland seas. It is probable, therefore, that it was some
other operation which Alfred performed to imprison the hostile vessels
in the river, more possible in its own nature than the drawing off of
the waters of the Thames from their ancient bed.
Year after year passed on, and, though neither the Saxons nor the
Danes gained any very permanent and decisive victories, the invaders
were gradually losing ground, being driven from one intrenchment and
one stronghold to another, until, at last, their only places of refuge
were their ships, and the harbors along the margin of the sea. Alfred
followed on and occupied the country as fast as the enemy was driven
away; and when, at last, they began to seek refuge in their ships, he
advanced to the shore, and began to form plans for building ships, and
manning and equipping a fleet, to pursue his retiring enemies upon
their own element. In this undertaking, he proceeded in the same calm,
deliberate, and effectual manner, as in all his preceding measures. He
built his vessels with great care. He made them twice as long as those
of the Danes, and planned them so as to make them more steady, more
safe, and capable of carrying a crew of rowers so numerous as to be
more active and swift than the vessels of the enemy.
When these naval preparations were made, Alfred began to look out for
an object of attack on which he could put their efficiency to the
test. He soon heard of a fleet of the Northmen's vessels on the coast
of the Isle of Wight, and he sent a fleet of his own ships to attack
them. He charged the commander of this fleet to be sparing of life,
but to capture the ships and take the men, bringing as many as
possible to him unharmed.
There were nine of the English vessels, and when they reached the Isle
of Wight they found six vessels of the Danes in a harbor there. Three
of these Danish vessels were afloat, and came out boldly to attack
Alfred's armament. The other three were upon the shore, where they had
been left by the tide, and were, of course, disabled and defenseless
until the water should rise and float them again. Under these
circumstances, it would seem that the victory for Alfred's fleet would
have been easy and sure; and at first the result was, in fact, in
Alfred's favor. Of the three ships that came out to meet him, two were
captured, and one escaped, with only five men left on board of it
alive. The Saxon ships, after thus disposing of the three living and
moving enemies, pushed boldly into the harbor to attack those which
were lying lifeless on the sands. They found, however, that, though
successful in the encounter with the active and the powerful, they
were destined to disaster and defeat in approaching the defenseless
and weak. They got aground themselves in approaching the shoals on
which the vessels of their enemies were lying. The tide receded and
left three of the vessels on the sands, and kept the rest so separated
and so embarrassed by the difficulties and dangers of their situation
as to expose the whole force to the most imminent danger. There was a
fierce contest in boats and on the shore. Both parties suffered very
severely; and, finally, the Danes, getting first released, made their
escape and put to sea.
Notwithstanding this partial discomfiture, Alfred soon succeeded in
driving the ships of the Danes off his coast, and in thus completing
the deliverance of his country. Hastings himself went to France, where
he spent the remainder of his days in some territories which he had
previously conquered, enjoying, while he continued to live, and for
many ages afterward, a very extended and very honorable fame. Such
exploits as those which he had performed conferred, in those days,
upon the hero who performed them, a very high distinction, the luster
of which seems not to have been at all tarnished in the opinions of
mankind by any ideas of the violence and wrong which the commission of
such deeds involved.
Alfred's dominions were now left once more in peace, and he himself
resumed again his former avocations. But a very short period of his
life, however, now remained. Hastings was finally expelled from
England about 897. In 900 or 901 Alfred died. The interval was spent
in the same earnest and devoted efforts to promote the welfare and
prosperity of his kingdom that his life had exhibited before the war.
He was engaged diligently and industriously in repairing injuries,
redressing grievances, and rectifying every thing that was wrong.
He exacted rigid impartiality in all the courts of justice; he held
public servants of every rank and station to a strict accountability;
and in all the colleges, and monasteries, and ecclesiastical
establishments of every kind, he corrected all abuses, and enforced a
rigid discipline, faithfully extirpating from every lurking place all
semblance of immorality or vice. He did these things, too, with so
much kindness and consideration for all concerned, and was actuated
in all he did so unquestionably by an honest and sincere desire to
fulfill his duty to his people and to God, that nobody opposed him.
The good considered him their champion, the indifferent readily caught
a portion of his spirit and wished him success, while the wicked were
silenced if they were not changed.
Alfred's children had grown up to maturity, and seemed to inherit,
in some degree, their father's character. He had a daughter, named
Æthelfleda, who was married to a prince of Mercia, and who was famed
all over England for the superiority of her mental powers, her
accomplishments, and her moral worth. The name of his oldest son was
Edward; he was to succeed Alfred on the throne, and it was a source
now of great satisfaction to the king to find this son emulating his
virtues, and preparing for an honorable and prosperous reign. Alfred
had warning, in the progress of his disease, of the approach of his
end. When he found that the time was near at hand, he called his son
Edward to his side, and gave him these his farewell counsels, which
express in few words the principles and motives by which his own life
had been so fully governed.
"Thou, my dear son, set thee now beside me, and I will deliver thee
true instructions. I feel that my hour is coming. My strength is gone;
my countenance is wasted and pale. My days are almost ended. We must
now part. I go to another world, and thou art to be left alone in the
possession of all that I have thus far held. I pray thee, my dear
child, to be a father to thy people. Be the children's father and the
widow's friend. Comfort the poor, protect and shelter the weak, and,
with all thy might, right that which is wrong. And, my son, govern
_thyself_ by _law_. Then shall the Lord love thee, and God himself
shall be thy reward. Call thou upon him to advise thee in all thy
need, and he shall help thee to compass all thy desires."
Alfred was fifty-two years of age when he died. His death was
universally lamented. The body was interred in the great cathedral at
Winchester. The kingdom passed peacefully and prosperously to his son,
and the arrangements which Alfred had spent his life in framing and
carrying into effect, soon began to work out their happy results. The
constructions which he founded stand to the present day, strengthened
and extended rather than impaired by the hand of time; and his memory,
as their founder, will be honored as long as any remembrance of the
past shall endure among the minds of men.