In the ninth century the Kingdom of Wessex had assumed a compact shape, its boundaries well defined and capable of being well defended.  The valley of the Thames between Staines and Cricklade became the northern frontier; westwards Malmesbury, Chippenham and Bath fell within its sphere, and Bristol was a border city.  To the east of Staines the overlordship of Wessex extended across the river and reached within twenty miles of the Ouse at Bedford.  These districts were the remnants of the united state of the first King of the English—­Egbert, whose realm embraced not only the midland and semi-pagan Mercia, but who claimed the fealty of East Anglia and Northumbria and for a few years made the Firth of Forth the north coast of England.  To the south-west the country that Alfred was called upon to govern reached to the valley of the Plym, and so “West Wales” or Cornwall became the last retreat of those Britons who refused to bow to the Saxon.

It will be seen how difficult a matter it is to define the district this book has to describe, so the southern boundary of the true Wessex must be taken as the coast line from the Meon river on the east side of Southampton Water to the mouth of Otter in Devon.  On the north, the great wall of chalk that cuts off the south country from the Vale of Isis and the Midlands and that has its bastions facing north from Inkpen Beacon to Hackpen Hill in the Marlborough Downs.  East and west of these summits an arbitrary line drawn southwards to the coast encloses with more or less exactitude the older Wessex.

Outside the limits here set down but still within Alfred’s Kingdom is a land wonderful in its wealth of history, gracious in its English comeliness, the fair valleys and gentle swelling hills of South-west Devon, wildly beautiful Dartmoor and the coloured splendour of Exmoor, the patrician walls of Bath, and the high romance of ancient Bristol.  Under the Mendip is that gem of medieval art at Wells, one of the loveliest buildings in Europe, and the unmatched road into the heart of the hills that runs between the most stupendous cliffs in South Britain.  Not far away is Avalon, or Glastonbury if you will, the mysteries of which are still being mysteriously unfathomed.  From the chalk uplands of our northern boundary we may look to the distant vale in whose heart is the dream city of domes and spires—­Oxford, and trace the trench of England’s greatest river until it is lost in the many miles of woodland that surge up to the walls of Windsor.  East and south is that beautiful and still lonely country that lies between the oldest Wessex and the sister, and ultimate vassal, kingdom of Sussex; the country of the Meonwaras, a region of heather hills and quiet pine combes that stretch down to the Solent Sea and the maritime heart of England—­Portsmouth.

Across the narrow bar of silver sea is an epitome of Wessex in miniature, Vectis, where everything of nature described in these following chapters may be found, a Lilliputian realm that contains not only Wessex but morsels of East Anglia and fragments of Mercia and Northumbria, combined with the lovely villages and pleasant towns that only Wight can show.