PREFACE


MY DEAR LADS,

Living in the present days of peace and tranquillity it is
difficult to picture the life of our ancestors in the days of
King Alfred, when the whole country was for years overrun
by hordes of pagan barbarians, who slaughtered, plundered,
and destroyed at will. You may gain, perhaps, a fair
conception of the state of things if you imagine that at the
time of the great mutiny the English population of India
approached that of the natives, and that the mutiny was
everywhere triumphant. The wholesale massacres and outrages
which would in such a case have been inflicted upon the
conquered whites could be no worse than those suffered by
the Saxons at the hands of the Danes. From this terrible state
of subjection and suffering the Saxons were rescued by the
prudence, the patience, the valour and wisdom of King Alfred.
In all subsequent ages England has produced no single man who
united in himself so many great qualities as did this first
of great Englishmen. He was learned, wise, brave, prudent,
and pious; devoted to his people, clement to his conquered
enemies. He was as great in peace as in war; and yet few
English boys know more than a faint outline of the events
of Alfred's reign--events which have exercised an influence