These Northmen were rather coarse people, and even put the Anglo-Saxons to the blush sometimes.  They exercised vigorously, and thus their appetites were sharp enough to cut a hair.  They at first came in the capacity of pirates,—­sliding stealthily into isolated coast settlements on Saturday evening and eating up the Sunday victuals, capturing the girls of the Bible-class and sailing away.  But later they came as conquerors, and boarded with the peasantry permanently.

Egbert formed an alliance with his old enemies, the Welsh, and gained a great victory over the Northmen; but when he died and left Ethelwolf, his son, in charge of the throne, he made a great mistake.  Ethelwolf was a poor king, “being given more to religious exercises than reigning,” says the historian.  He would often exhibit his piety in order to draw attention away from His Royal Incompetency.  He was not the first or last to smother the call to duty under the cry of Hallelujah.  Like the little steamer engine with the big whistle, when he whistled the boat stopped.  He did not have a boiler big enough to push the great ship of state and shout Amen at the same time.

Ethelwolf defeated the enemy in one great battle, but too late to prevent a hold-up upon the island of Thanet, and afterwards at Shippey, near London, where the enemy settled himself.

Yet Ethelwolf made a pilgrimage to Rome with Alfred, then six years old (A.D. 855).  He was gone a year, during which time very little reigning was done at home, and the Northmen kept making treaties and coming over in larger droves.

Ethelwolf visited Charles the Bald of France at this time, and married his daughter Judith incidentally.  Ethelwolf’s eldest son died during the king’s absence, and was succeeded as eldest son by Ethelbald (heir-apparent, though he had no hair apparent), who did not recognize the old gentleman or allow him to be seated on his own throne when he came back; but Ethelwolf gave the naughty Ethelbald the western half of the kingdom rather than have trouble.  But Baldy died, and was succeeded by Ethelbert, who died six years later, and Ethelred, in 866, took charge till 871, when he died of a wound received in battle and closed out the Ethel business to Alfred.

The Danes had meantime rifled the country with their cross-guns and killed Edmund, the good king of East Anglia, who was afterwards canonized, though gunpowder had not then been invented.

Alfred was not only a godly king, but had a good education, and was a great admirer of Dickens and Thackeray. (This is put in as a titbit for the critic.)

He preferred literature to the plaudits of the nobility and the sedentary life on a big white-oak throne.  On the night before his coronation his pillow was wet with tears.

And in the midst of it all here came the Danes wearing heavy woollen clothes and introducing their justly celebrated style of honest sweat.

Alfred fought as many as eight battles with them in one year.  They agreed at last to accept such portions of the country as were assigned them, but they were never known to abide by any treaty, and they put the red man of America to shame as prevaricators.