onasteries, 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.

CHAPTER V.

STATE OF ENGLAND.

Having thus brought down the narrative of Alfred's early life as far
and as fully as the records that remain enable us to do so, we resume
the general history of the national affairs by returning to the
subject of the depredations and conquests of the Danes, and the
circumstances connected with Alfred's accession to the throne.

To give the reader some definite and clear ideas of the nature of
this warfare, it will be well to describe in detail some few of the
incidents and scenes which ancient historians have recorded. The
following was one case which occurred:

The Danes, it must be premised, were particularly hostile to the
monasteries and reli