141 



ALFONSO I. 



ALFRED. 



ALFONSO I., of Naples. [ALFONSO V., of Aragon.] 



ALFONSO IL, of Naples, son of Ferdinand I., and grandson of 

 Alfonso I., was the chief cause of the famous revolt of the barons 

 under his father's reign, and of the cruelties that followed. On the 

 death of Ferdinand in 1494, he succeeded to the throne ; but the 

 approach of the French under Charles VIII. frightened him, and he 

 ran away before he had completed one year of his reign. He retired 

 to a convent at Messina, and died soon after. Ferdinand II., his son, 

 succeeded him, and, with the assistance of the Spaniards, drove away 

 the French ; but dying in 1496, was succeeded by his uncle Frederic, 

 Alfonso II.'s brother. (Guicciardini, Storia d' Italia ; Porzio, La Can- 

 giura dei Baroni.) 



ALFRAGANIUS, properly AL-FARGANI, or with his complete 

 name, Ahmed-ben-Kothair-Al-Faiycmi, was a celebrated astronomer, 

 who flourished under the reign of the Abbaside Kalif Mamun, in the 

 earlier part of the 9th century of the Christian era. He was called 

 Al-Fargani from his native place, Fargana, a town and province in 

 Transoxiana. \Ve possess an elementary treatise on Astronomy by 

 him, chiefly founded on the system of Ptoletnseus, which was printed 

 with a Latin translation and notes by Golius in 1669. 



ALFRED, AELFBED, ELFRED, or ALURED, surnamed the 

 Great, king of the West Saxons ia England, was born in 848 or 849, 

 at Wanading, or Wannating, in Berkshire, generally supposed to be 

 the village now called Wantage, which was then a royal town, and 

 had been originally a Roman station. His father was King Ethcl- 

 wulf, the son and successor of Egbert the Great; his mother was 

 Osburga, or Osbcrga, daughter of Oslac the Goth, who held the high 

 office of rnyal cupbearer (famosus pincerna), and was of the race of 

 the sub-kings of the Isle of Wight, who were sprung from a nephew 

 of Cerdic, the founder of the West Saxon kingdom. Ethelwulf, who 

 had been brought up as a monk, had come to the throne above twelve 

 years before the birth of Alfred, who was the youngest of his four 

 sons. The favourite of both his parents, Alfred is supposed to have 

 been from the first designed by Ethelwulf to succeed him on the 

 throne ; and it was probably with this view that the boy was sent to 

 Rome with a splendid retinue in 853, when, we are told by his bio- 

 grapher Asser, the Pope Leo IV. bestowed upon him the royal unction, 

 and adopted him as his son ; and that two years after Ethelwulf him- 

 self took him a second time to Rome, and remained with him there a 

 whole year. It was in returning through France from this visit that 

 Ethelwulf fell in love with Judith, the young and beautiful daughter 

 of Charles the Bald, king of that country, and was married to her in 

 October 856, after a courtship of three months. It is natural to sup- 

 pose that his former wife, Osberga, must have been dead when he 

 contracted this new alliance. Yet Asser tells a story of Alfred having 

 been first induced to learn his letters in his twelfth year by his 

 mother (mater sua) tempting him and his brothers with the promise 

 of a Saxon book of poetry, which she said she would give to the one 

 who should first learn to understand ami recite its contents. At this 

 date Judith had ceased to be even Alfred's step-mother; Ethelwulf 

 had died not long after his return home, and she had become the 

 wife of Ethelbald, his eldest son. In 868, in his twentieth year, Alfred 

 married Alswitha, Elswitha, or Ealswitha, the daughter of Ethelred, 

 surnamed Hucil (that is, the ' large '), a nobleman of Mercia. Alswitha' s 

 mother, Eadburb, was of the blood of the Mercian kings. During 

 the festivities at the celebration of his marriage, Alfred, as Asser tells 

 us, was suddenly stized before the assembled multitude with a dis- 

 tressing malady for which the physicians had neither name nor cure, 

 and the attacks of which continued to torment him daily down to the 

 time at which the biography professes to be written, when Alfred was 

 in his forty-fifth year. 



King Ethelbald had been succeeded in 860 by his next brother 

 Eth-jlbert; and Ethelbert having also died in 866, the throne at the 

 time of Alfred's marriage was filled by Ethelwulf 's third surviving son, 

 Ethelred, or Ethered (notwithstanding that Ethelbert appears to have 

 left at least one son). At the time of his marriage, Alfred, Asser tells 

 us, held the rank of Secundarius, whatever that may mean. This 

 title or rank, which he retained till he became king, he appears to 

 have enjoyed even before Ethelred came to the throne; for a little 

 lower down he ia spoken of as having been Secundarius while his 

 brothers lived. During the reign of Ethelred he probably took a 

 more active part than the king himself in the direction of public 

 affairs ; Agser's narration at least represents him as associated with 

 his brother on all occasions, both in war and negotiation. Ever since 

 the last years of the reign of Egbert, who died in 836, the Scandi- 

 navian sea-rovers, or Danes, ag they were called, had harassed England 

 with one descent after another; on some occasions wintering in the 

 country, and holding the district where they settled iu complete 



subjection. Indeed it is probable that the effect of these invasions had 

 already been to intermix a considerable number of foreigners with 

 the native population of the eastern and northern counties. But the 

 first year of the reign of Ethelred saw a hostile armament approach 

 the coasts so formidable as to be evidently designed for nothing less 

 than the entire conquest of the island. It was under the command of 

 three of the sons of the celebrated Ragnar Lodbrog, twenty-eight 

 others of whose relations and associates, styling themselves kings and 

 earls, were captains in the fleet. Disembarking in East Anglia, the 

 foreigners passed the winter in that kingdom ; in the spring of the 

 next year marched into and overran Northumbria ; and in 868 crossed 

 the Humber, and occupied part of Mercia. Both llercia and East 

 Anglia, the only other kingdoms of the old Heptarchy, with the excep- 

 tion of Northumbria, that still subsisted, had ever since the reign of 

 Egbert been accustomed to look up to Wessex as, if not actually their 

 superior iu the feudal sense, at least the leading member of the Anglo- 

 Saxon confederacy of states ; and in this emergency Burrhed the 

 Mercian king and his nobles immediately sent messengers to King 

 Ethelred and his brother Alfred to supplicate their assistance in 

 repelling the invaders. The two brothers thereupon collected an army, 

 with which they advanced as far as the towu of Nottingham (Scnoten- 

 gaham), where the Danes lay ; but the pagans, to use Asser's terms, 

 refused to come out to battle, and the Christians were not strong 

 enough to force their entry into the town ; so that the latter found 

 themselves obliged to return home without effecting anything, and 

 the Mercians made the best peace they could with their enemy. The 

 flaues now retired to York, in the dominion of tho Northumbrians, 

 and remained there a whole year. In the spring of 870, embarking 

 on the Humber, they landed at Hutnberstau in Lincolnshire, devastated 

 all the eastern part of Mercia, and then passed into East Anglia, where 

 they in like manner carried everything before them, and having seized 

 and put to death King Edmund (the St. Edmund of the calendar), 

 set Godrun, or Guthrun, one of their own leaders, on the vacant 

 throne. After wintering in Thetford, their army, iu the spring of 

 871, advanced into the dominions of the West Saxons, aud taking 

 possession of the royal town of Reading (Raedigam), on the third 

 day after their arrival, sent out pirt of their force mounted to plunder 

 in the neighbourhood, while another band employed themselves in 

 erecting a defensive rampart on the right (that is, the west) side of 

 tho town from the Thames to the Kenuet (Cynetan). The latter were 

 attacked by Ethelwulf, earl of Berkshire, near the village of Ingles- 

 field, and after a sharp conflict defeated, with the loss of one of their 

 captains. Four days after, Ethelred and Alfred appeared with their 

 forces before Reading, when another engagement took place, which 

 ended in the defeat of the Christiana, Earl Ethelwulf being among 

 the slain. After four days more the two armies met again at a place 

 called Aeacesdun (probably Aston, near Wallingford), when the iiapo- 

 tuoaity of Alfred, who commanded one of the two divisions of the 

 Saxon force, and who, Asser says, on the relation of an eyewitness, 

 led his men to the attack with the courage of a wild boar, nearly 

 lost the day ; but, Ethelred coming up (after saying his prayers with 

 unusual deliberation), the Saxons recovered themselves, and in the 

 end the fon-igners were defeated with great slaughter, and pursued 

 back into Reading. A fortnight afterwards however, in another 

 battle fought at Basing in Hampshire, the victory fell to the Danes ; 

 and soon after this they were joined by another body of their country- 

 men from beyond seas. Another battle, not noticed by As^er, but 

 mentioned botli in the Saxon Chronicle aud the Chronicle of Mailros, 

 took place about two months after at Mertune (probably Morton, to 

 the north-west of Reading), in which the Danes were again successful ; 

 and iu this conflict King Ethelred received a wound, of which he died 

 soon after Easter 871. Upon this Alfred was immediately declared 

 king, with the universal consent of all ranks of the people. Asser 

 intimates that he accepted the crown with some reluctance, as dread- 

 ing that he should never be ablo alone to sustain the hostility of the 

 pagans. 



The first seven years of Alfred's reign abundantly justified this 

 apprehension. The events of this space, as far as they are to be 

 collected from Aeser, the Saxon chronicler, and other early authorities, 

 whose narratives however are iu many particulars very confused and 

 indistinct, are as follows : In the course of the year in which Alfred 

 ascended the throne (including apparently the portion of it that had 

 elapsed before the death of Ethelred) eight or nine great battles, 

 besides innumerable skirmishes, were fought between the Saxons and 

 the Danes, in most or all of which the Saxons seem to have been 

 worsted. All that we are told is, that, after this course of ill success, 

 Alfred made a peace with the invaders, on condition that they should 

 leave \Vessex : it is probable that he bought them off by a payment 

 in money, or at least engaged to stand aloof while they fought out 

 their quarnls with the other states. We know, at any rate, that they 

 now overran the rest of the country without any further attempt on 

 his part to interfere with them. Having collected their forces at 

 London, and wintered there, they waited for another year, till their 

 strength had grown by accessions from their native north, and then 

 sallying forth, they soon reduced both Mercia and Northumbria, 

 pushing their conquests iu the latter direction as far as to the British 

 kingdom of Strathclyde, in the heart of what is now called Scotland. 

 Alfred appears to have remained quiet till tho year 875, when we are 



