Alfred the Great

In 870 only Wessex was left to resist the barbaric Danes. At that time a young king Alfred by name lived in the west of Wessex. When Alfred became king in the year 871, the Vikings had been burning villages and churches for eighty years. He was strong enough to resist the Vikings. In 878 Alfred captured London and made a treaty with the invaders. The Vikings controlled the east and the north of England and Alfred, nicknamed the Great, controlled the rest of the country.

He was a very talented king. Actually, he was the only king in the British history to be called the “Great”. When he came to the throne he was only 22. He was literate and wise. In his childhood he visited Rome and Paris. Alfred cared much for the education of the people. He founded many schools, he built new churches, brought foreign scholars, he translated himself a number of books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon (Old English) including “The History of the English Church and People” by monk Bede and “Pastoral Cares” by Pope Gregory. Alfred was first to begin the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, a year-by-year history of England.

He tried to restore countries economy and military forces. He created a type of settlements which were surrounded with a wall. They were later called “ boroughs ”. Inside the boroughs he kept strict discipline. Alfred the Great established order in the law system and administration. Alfred is considered the father of the Royal Navy. He was quick to learn from his enemies. He organized a skillful and efficient army, built a fleet of warships using the Danish samples which were known to have defeated Viking invaders at sea more than once. His ships patrolled the coasts of Britain to prevent the invaders from stepping on the British Isles.

Alfred the Great saved England from the Danish conquest, but in the 10^th-11^th centuries the Danes managed to expand their possession in Great Britain and from 1013 to 1042 the Danish royal power triumphed in England. King Canut’s empire included Norway, Denmark and England. In 1042 the house of Wessex was restored to power in England, when Edward the Confessor was elected king by the Witan. He was half-Norman, had spent his exile in Normandy, and William the Duke of Normandy was his cousin and a close friend.

Edward the Confessor was a religious monarch and developed his attention to the construction of churches and most of all to the building of Westminster Abbey.

(Alfred died in 899. His son King Edward the Elder was remarkable for having extended the territory of his kingdom by pushing the Danes to the North. He managed to unite all English kingdoms under his rule).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11