A History of Britain 01. Beginnings (24 of 25)

A History of Britain

In a ceremony, the Pope dressed the little fellow in the imperial purple of a Roman consul and wound a sword belt around his waist, turning little Alfred into a true Roman Christian warrior.
On a second trip, Alfred spent a whole year in the Eternal City, along with his father, walking the ruins of the empire and the sacred sites.
It was surely this experience which made him what he was - a philosopher prince, who, in more than a literal sense, translated the works of Roman wisdom for Anglo-Saxon consumption.
Through Alfred, England got something it hadn't had since the legions departed: An authentic vision of a realm governed by law and education, a realm which, since Alfred commissioned a translation of Bede into Anglo-Saxon, understood its past and its special destiny as the western bastion of a Christian Roman world.
First, he had to win those battles.

He took the throne of Wessex at a time when, despite a recent victory, the collapse of his kingdom seemed imminent, and with it the entirety of Anglo-Saxon England.
It was here amidst the reeds of Athelney Island that the heroic legend of Alfred, the fugitive on the run, finally turning the tide against his enemies, was born.
By the spring of 878, Alfred had managed to piece together an improvised alliance of resistance.
At King Egbert's stone on the borders of Wiltshire and Somerset, near the site of this 19th-century folly celebrating it, he took command of an army which two days later, fought and defeated Guthrum's Vikings.
Alfred's victory was a holding operation, forcing the Vikings to settle for less than half the country.
But when in 886 Alfred entered London, rebuilt over the old Roman site, something of a deep significance did happen.