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Alfred and the Danes

Alfred and the Danes

Traditionally we are accustomed to think of Alfred and the Danes together. The name of the great hero-king at once raises in our minds the memory of a desperate struggle between the English and the invading sea rovers. Yet we must be on our guard lest we make too much of this. The Danes had begun to harass England long before Alfred's day; and though Alfred certainly checked their conquests for a time, he did not in any sense end the struggle. His sons and grandsons had to carry on his work, and even after their time the trouble broke out afresh. Indeed for nearly two hundred years English history is full of the Danes, plundering, fighting, conquering and being conquered, rebelling against their Saxon rulers, and at last reaching their final triumph when a Danish king, Canute, rules England. Of these two hundred years it is plain that the reign of Alfred can only occupy a small part. None the less, it is a distinguished part.

Again, though Alfred was great as a leader against the Danes, it is only a small part of his greatness. There were many stout warriors among the Saxon kings, but only one Alfred. Had he never fought a battle he would yet have deserved a place among the greatest rulers of the world. He was the first English king who gave up his whole life to the welfare of his country. Other kings had regarded their kingship largely as a position to be used for their own pleasure and ambition-Alfred treated his solely as a duty which he owed to his people. He was not content to be merely a king; he was a father to his fatherland, a servant to his own subjects.

Before Alfred could carry out any of his schemes of good government it was needful that the country should be at peace, and no peace was possible until the Danes were overcome. The Danes, then, were his first task.

Precisely the same cause which had brought the Saxons on the Britons was now driving the Danes on the Saxons. The Danes, as we are in the habit of calling them, did not come from Denmark alone, but from all North Germany, Scandinavia, and all the coasts of the North Sea. If we call them not Danes, but Northmen, we are reminded that they did not raid England only, but the north of France too, and gave their name to the province of Normandy. They went still farther afield, however. They made a settlement in South Italy, twice attacked Constantinople, conquered Iceland, sailed from there to Greenland, and even reached the coast of America centuries before Columbus. In this restless career of adventure, driven from their homes by the same pressure of westward-moving races which had urged the barbarians against the Roman Empire and the Saxons into Britain, we may find repeated the same stages of progress which had marked the Saxon invasion.

The first object was plunder; the second stage, settlement; the final stage, conquest.

Alfred and the Danes

Chronology