Alfred was looking at the book, and admiring the character in which it was written, particularly the ornamented letters at the headings.  Some of his brothers were in the room, they, of course, being much older than he.  Judith said that either of them might have the book who would first learn to read it.  The older brothers paid little attention to this proposal, but Alfred’s interest was strongly awakened.  He immediately sought and found some one to teach him, and before long he read the volume to Judith, and claimed it as his own.  She rejoiced at his success, and fulfilled her promise with the greatest pleasure.

Alfred soon acquired, by his Anglo-Saxon studies, a great taste for books, and had next a strong desire to study the Latin language.  The scholars of the various nations of Europe formed at that time, as, in fact, they do now, one community, linked together by many ties.  They wrote and spoke the Latin language, that being the only language which could be understood by them all.  In fact, the works which were most highly valued then by the educated men of all nations, were the poems and the histories, and other writings produced by the classic authors of the Roman commonwealth.  There were also many works on theology, on ecclesiastical polity, and on law, of great authority and in high repute, all written in the Latin tongue.  Copies of these works were made by the monks, in their retreats in abbeys and monasteries, and learned men spent their lives in perusing them.  To explore this field was not properly a duty incumbent upon a young prince destined to take a seat upon a throne, but Alfred felt a great desire to undertake the work.  He did not do it, however, for the reason, as he afterward stated, that there was no one at court at the time who was qualified to teach him.

Alfred, though he had thus the thoughtful and reflective habits of a student, was also active, and graceful, and strong in his bodily development.  He excelled in all the athletic recreations of the time, and was especially famous for his skill, and courage, and power as a hunter.  He gave every indication, in a word, at this early age, of possessing that uncommon combination of mental and personal qualities which fits those who possess it to secure and maintain a great ascendency among mankind.

The unnatural union which had been formed on the death of Ethelwolf between his youthful widow and her aged husband’s son did not long continue.  The people of England were very much shocked at such a marriage, and a great prelate, the Bishop of Winchester, remonstrated against it with such sternness and authority, that Ethelbald not only soon put his wife away, but submitted to a severe penance which the bishop imposed upon him in retribution for his sin.  Judith, thus forsaken, soon afterward sold the lands and estates which her two husbands had severally granted her, and, taking a final leave of Alfred, whom she tenderly loved, she returned to her native land.  Not long after this, she was married a third time, to a continental prince, whose dominions lay between the Baltic and the Rhine, and from this period she disappears entirely from the stage of Alfred’s history.