88 Sir Frederick Pollock [March 3, 



revision, was finally put on record.* Within six years events proved 

 Alfred's wisdom. In 893 the Danes had a camp where Westminster 

 now stands, but were kept in check by iEthelred and the garrison of 

 London. In 894-5 Hasting was on the Lea, and held out agaiust 

 the men of London till Alfred came in person and baffled the Danes 

 by diverting the course of the stream below their camp, and so cutting 

 off their communications. But the old pirate had failed to gain any 

 ground, whereas, if things had been as they were twenty years before, 

 he might have worked his will far up the river. Alfred took care in 

 other ways that good witness should not be lacking to the restoration 

 of English power in Mercia. He put in exercise there an ancient 

 and eminent attribute of sovereignty. We have coins of Alfred's 

 bearing the name of Oxford, then a Mercian town. At this time of 

 day one need hardly repeat that this is the only authentic connection 

 of his name with Oxford. The story that he founded the University, 

 or schools of any kind, at Oxford is a late and gross fiction, which it 

 would be too polite to call a legend ; in its developed form it cannot 

 boast even mediaeval antiquity. 



To return to Alfred's improvements, it is more pardonable to 

 speak of him as the founder, or one of the founders, of the English 

 navy than as the founder of a university. But here (while we rejoice 

 that the Admiralty has decided to name a first-class cruiser the " King 

 Alfred ") we must beware of exaggeration. I do not mean merely that 

 Alfred's ships were singly and collectively inferior to those of the 

 smallest modern navy. They were as good as he could make them 

 then, and it is quite possible that the warships of a century hence 

 may be as superior to ours as one of Nelson's frigates to the vessels 

 of an Anglo-Saxon or Danish flotilla. Such comparisons are of no 

 historical value. It might be more useful to consider how little the 

 art of war on land had improved (if it had not gone back) since 

 Agricola commanded in Britain. Probably one of his legions was 

 more formidable in every way than the whole muster of Christian 

 and heathen men who fought at Ashdown. As to naval matters, what 

 really has to be said is that Alfred had not, for aught that appears, 

 nor can we see how he could have had, any conception of what we 

 now mean by the command of the sea. Within two centuries 

 William the Conqueror landed his army without opposition of any 

 kind. One such fact is conclusive to show that, even if we could 

 suppose Alfred to have had some inkling of a real naval policy, he 

 did not succeed in leaving any sound doctrine on the subject after his 

 own day. The importance of sea power to England did not begin to 

 be realised till the time of Elizabeth, and it has been strangely 

 possible to forget it even within living memory. The Anglo-Saxon 

 and mediaeval plan of a navy was merely to keep the narrow seas 



* Green, 'Conquest of England,' 150 (but the mention of a "war of S86 ' 

 is an obvious slip ; there was no sueh war in England); Ramsay, ' Foundations 

 of England,' i. 255. 



