Alfred the Great

Alfred, called the Great, was born about the year 849 at the royal estate of Wantage in Berkshire, the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex and his wife Osburh, a woman Asser praises as most religious and noble in character and birth. His parents died while he was still young. Three elder brothers—Æthelbald, Æthelberht, and Æthelred—reigned in turn before him. As a child he won a book of English poetry offered by his mother to the first son who could memorize it; though he could not yet read, the prize marked a lifelong love of learning. In 853 he was sent to Rome and confirmed by Pope Leo IV, who invested him as a consul; later he accompanied his father on pilgrimage to Rome and spent time at the court of Charles the Bald.

His public life began under his brother King Æthelred. In 868 he fought beside him against the Great Heathen Army in Mercia. After heavy fighting in 870–871—Englefield, Reading, Ashdown, Basing, Merton—Æthelred died in April 871. By prior agreement Alfred succeeded as King of the West Saxons, though his brother left young sons. Immediate defeats, including at Wilton, forced him to make peace and pay the Danes to withdraw. For years the Vikings pressed hard. In 876–877 they broke oaths at Wareham and Exeter. In January 878 they struck Chippenham at Christmas; Alfred fled with a small band through woods and swamps to the marsh fortress of Athelney in Somerset, from which he waged guerrilla war while Wessex alone still stood.

Tradition tells that in those days a peasant woman, not knowing who he was, set him to watch cakes by the fire; absorbed in the cares of the realm, he let them burn and was scolded. In the seventh week after Easter 878 he rode to Egbert's Stone, rallied the men of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington. He drove the Danes back to Chippenham and starved them into surrender. Guthrum and thirty of his chief men were baptized at Aller, Alfred standing as godfather; the chrisom was unbound at Wedmore. Treaties followed that divided territories and established the Danelaw, while Guthrum withdrew to East Anglia as a Christian king.

Alfred rebuilt defenses, organized the fyrd and burhs, and improved the navy. In 886 he reoccupied London and began to style himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, becoming the dominant Christian ruler in England. He encouraged learning for nobles and commoners in English and Latin, founded a court school, translated and sponsored works of Christian wisdom, and reformed the laws so that justice and mercy might better serve the people. Asser, his Welsh biographer and bishop, portrays him as gracious, level-headed, merciful, and devout amid constant illness and war. He died on 26 October 899. From the Middle Ages he has been honored with the epithet "the Great," the only native-born English monarch so named, and remembered among the saints for royal service ordered to the faith.

May Saint Alfred obtain for us steadfast courage in trial and a love of wisdom that serves God and neighbor today.