When Alfred had once more reunited the kingdoms of his ancestors, he
found the whole face of things in the most desperate condition; there
was no observance of law and order; religion had no force; there was no
honest industry; the most squalid poverty, and the grossest ignorance,
had overspread the whole kingdom. Alfred at once enterprised the cure of
all these evils. To remedy the disorders in the government, he revived,
improved, and digested all the Saxon institutions; insomuch that he
is generally honoured as the founder of our laws and constitution.
(Historians, copying after one another, and examining little, have
attributed to this monarch the institution of juries; an institution
which certainly did never prevail amongst the Saxons. They have likewise
attributed to him the distribution of England into shires, hundreds,
and tithings, and of appointing officers over these divisions. But it is
very obvious that the shires were never settled upon any regular plan,
nor are they the result of any single design. But these reports, however
ill imagined, are a strong proof of the high veneration in which this
excellent prince has always been held; as it has been thought that the
attributing these regulations to him would endear them to the nation.
He probably settled them in such an order, and made such reformations
in his government, that some of the institutions themselves, which he
improved, have been attributed to him; and indeed there was one work
of his, which serves to furnish us with a higher idea of the political
capacity of that great man than any of these fictions. He made a general
survey and register of all the property in the kingdom, who held it, and
what it was distinctly; a vast work for an age of ignorance and time
of confusion, which has been neglected in more civilized nations and
settled times. It was called the "Roll of Winton," and served as a model
of a work of the same kind made by William the Conqueror.) The shire
he divided into hundreds; the hundreds into tithings; every freeman
was obliged to be entered into some tithing, the members of which were
mutually bound for each other for the preservation of the peace, and the
avoiding theft and rapine. For securing the liberty of the subject, he
introduced the method of giving bail, the most certain fence against the
abuses of power. It has been observed, that the reigns of weak princes
are times favourable to liberty; but the wisest and bravest of all the
English princes is the father of their freedom. This great man was even
jealous of the privileges of his subjects; and as his whole life was
spent in protecting them, his last will breathes the same spirit,
declaring, that he had left his people as free as their own thoughts. He
not only collected with great care a complete body of laws, but he wrote
comments on them for the instruction of his judges, who were in general
by the misfortune of the time ignorant; and if he took care to correct
their ignorance, he was rigorous towards their corruption. He inquired
strictly into their conduct; he heard appeals in person; he held his
Wittena-Gemotes, or parliaments, frequently, and kept every part of his
government in health and vigour.
Nor was he less solicitous for the defence, than he had shown himself
for the regulation, of his kingdom. He nourished with particular care
the new naval strength, which he had established; he built forts and
castles in the most important posts; he settled beacons to spread an
alarm on the arrival of an enemy; and ordered his militia in such a
manner, that there was always a great power in readiness to march, well
appointed and well disciplined. But that a suitable revenue might not be
wanting for the support of his fleets and fortifications, he gave great
encouragement to trade; which by the piracies on the coasts, and the
rapine and injustice exercised by the people within, had long become a
stranger to this island.
In the midst of these various and important cares, he gave a peculiar
attention to learning, which by the rage of the late wars had been
entirely extinguished in his kingdom. "Very few there were (says
this monarch) on this side the Humber, that understood their ordinary
prayers; or that were able to translate any Latin book into English; so
few, that I do not remember even one qualified to the southward of the
Thames when I began my reign." To cure this deplorable ignorance, he was
indefatigable in his endeavours to bring into England men of learning in
all branches from every part of Europe; and unbounded in his liberality
to them. He enacted by a law, that every person possessed of two hides
of land should send their children to school until sixteen. Wisely
considering where to put a stop to his love even of the liberal arts,
which are only suited to a liberal condition, he enterprised yet a
greater design than that of forming the growing generation,--to instruct
even the grown; enjoining all his earldormen and sheriffs immediately
to apply themselves to learning or to quit their offices. To facilitate
these great purposes, he made a regular foundation of a university,
which with great reason is believed to have been at Oxford. Whatever
trouble he took to extend the benefits of learning amongst his subjects,
he showed the example himself, and applied to the cultivation of his
mind with unparalleled diligence and success. He could neither read nor
write at twelve years old; but he improved his time in such a manner
that he became one of the most knowing men of his age, in geometry, in
philosophy, in architecture, and in music. He applied himself to the
improvement of his native language; he translated several valuable works
from Latin, and wrote a vast number of poems in the Saxon tongue with a
wonderful facility and happiness. He not only excelled in the theory of
the arts and sciences, but possessed a great mechanical genius for the
executive part; he improved the manner of ship-building, introduced
a more beautiful and commodious architecture, and even taught his
countrymen the art of making bricks, most of the buildings having been
of wood before his time; in a word, he comprehended in the greatness of
his mind the whole of government and all its parts at once; and what is
most difficult to human frailty, was the same time sublime and minute.
Religion, which in Alfred's father was so prejudicial to affairs,
without being in him at all inferior in its zeal and fervour, was of
a more enlarged and noble kind; far from being a prejudice to his
government, it seems to have been the principle that supported him in
so many fatigues, and fed like an abundant source his civil and military
virtues. To his religious exercises and studies he devoted a full third
part of his time. It is pleasant to trace a genius even in its smallest
exertions; in measuring and allotting his time for the variety of
business he was engaged in. According to his severe and methodical
custom, he had a sort of wax candles, made of different colours,
in different proportions, according to the time he allotted to each
particular affair; as he carried these about with him wherever he went,
to make them burn evenly, he invented horn lanthorns. One cannot help
being amazed, that a prince, who lived in such turbulent times,
who commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so
disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator but a
judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his navies,
the traffic of his kingdom, his revenues, and the conduct of all his
officers, could have bestowed so much of his time on religious exercises
and speculative knowledge; but the exertion of all his faculties and
virtues seemed to have given a mutual strength to all of them. Thus all
historians speak of this prince, whose whole history was one panegyric;
and whatever dark spots of human frailty may have adhered to such a
character, they are entirely hid in the splendour of his many shining
qualities and grand virtues, that throw a glory over the obscure period
in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our
knowledge.