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Justin Pollard | 384 pages | 01 Apr 2007 | Hodder & Stoughton General Division | 9780719566660 | English | , United Kingdom Alfred the Great - Historic UK

After ascending the throne, Alfred spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in and made an agreement Alfred the Great the , creating what was known as the in the North of England. Alfred also oversaw the conversion of Viking leader to Christianity. He defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest, becoming the dominant ruler in England. Alfred had a reputation as a learned and merciful man of a gracious and level-headed nature who encouraged education, proposing that primary education be conducted in Old English rather than Latin and improving the legal system and military structure and his people's quality of life. He was given the epithet "the Great" during and after the Reformation in the 16th century, and together with Danish Cnut the Greatis the only king of England to be given such a name. He was the youngest of six children. He died in the early s. Alfred's next three brothers were successively kings of . Osburh was descended from the rulers of the Isle of Wight. She was described by Alfred's biographer as "a most religious woman, noble by temperament and noble by birth". Alfred's grandfather, Ecgberhtbecame king of Wessex inand in the Alfred the Great of the historian Richard Abelsit must have seemed very unlikely to contemporaries that he would establish a Alfred the Great dynasty. For years, three families had fought for the West Saxon throne, and no son had followed his father as king. No ancestor of Ecgberht had been a king of Wessex since Ceawlin in the late sixth century, but he was believed to be a paternal descendant of Cerdicthe founder of the West Saxon dynasty. At the beginning of the ninth century, England was almost wholly under the control of the Anglo-Saxons. dominated southern England, but its supremacy came to an end in when it was decisively defeated by Ecgberht at the Battle of Ellendun. According to Asser, in his childhood Alfred won a beautifully decorated book of English poetry, offered as a Alfred the Great by his mother to the first of her sons able to memorise it. He must have had it read to him because his mother died when he was about six and he did not learn to read until he was This is unlikely; his succession could not have been foreseen at the time because Alfred had three living elder brothers. A letter of Alfred the Great IV shows that Alfred was made a Alfred the Great consul " and a misinterpretation of this investiture, deliberate or accidental, could explain later confusion. With civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met Alfred the Great council to form a compromise. During this period, Bishop Asser gave Alfred the unique title of secundariuswhich may indicate a position similar to the Celtic tanista recognised successor closely associated with the reigning monarch. It was a well known tradition among other Germanic peoples - such as the Swedes and Franks to whom the Anglo-Saxons were Alfred the Great related - to crown a successor as royal prince and military commander. A successful skirmish at the Battle of Englefield in Berkshire on 31 December was followed by a severe defeat at the siege and the Battle of Reading by Ivar's brother Halfdan Ragnarsson on 5 January The deceased's sons would receive Alfred the Great whatever property and riches their father had settled upon them and whatever additional Alfred the Great their uncle had acquired. The unstated premise was that the surviving brother would be king. Given the Danish invasion and the youth of his nephews, Alfred's accession probably went uncontested. While he was busy with the burial ceremonies for his brother, the Danes defeated the Saxon army in his absence at Alfred the Great unnamed spot and then again in his presence at Wilton in May. Alfred was forced instead to make peace with them, according to sources that do not tell what the terms of the peace were. Bishop Asser claimed that the pagans agreed to vacate the realm and made good their promise. The Viking army withdrew from Reading in the autumn of to take up winter quarters in Mercian London. Although not mentioned by Alfred the Great or by the Anglo-Saxon ChronicleAlfred probably paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year. These finds hint at the cost involved in making peace with the Vikings. For the next five years, the Danes occupied other parts of England. Inunder their three leaders GuthrumAlfred the Great and Anwend, the Danes Alfred the Great past the Saxon army and attacked and occupied Wareham in Dorset. Alfred blockaded them but was unable to take Wareham by assault. He negotiated a peace that involved an exchange of hostages and oaths, which the Danes swore on a "holy ring" associated with the worship of Thor. The Danes broke their word, and after killing all the hostages, slipped Alfred the Great under cover of night to in . Alfred blockaded the Viking ships in Devon, and with a relief fleet having been scattered by a storm, the Danes were forced to submit. The Danes withdrew to Mercia. In Januarythe Danes made a sudden attack on Chippenhama royal stronghold in which Alfred had been staying over Christmas "and most of the people they killed, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after Easter he made a fort at Athelney in the marshes of Somersetand from that fort kept fighting against the foe". With all the other kingdoms having fallen to the Vikings, Wessex alone was resisting. A legend tells how when Alfred Alfred the Great fled to the Levelshe was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of Alfred the Great identity, left him to watch some wheaten cakes she had left cooking on the fire. There is no contemporary evidence for the legend, but it is possible that there was an early oral tradition. The first time that it was Alfred the Great written was about years after Alfred's death. In the seventh week after Easter 4—10 Mayaround WhitsuntideAlfred rode to Egbert's Alfred the Great east of Selwood where he was met Alfred the Great "all the people of Somerset and of and of Alfred the Great part of which is on this side of the sea that is, west of Waterand they rejoiced to see him". This meant not only that the king had retained the loyalty of ealdormenroyal reeves and king's thegnswho were charged with levying and leading these forces, but that they had maintained their positions of authority in these localities well enough to answer his summons to Alfred the Great. Alfred's actions also suggest a system of scouts and messengers. Alfred won a decisive victory in the ensuing Battle of Edington which may have been fought near Westbury, Wiltshire. He then pursued the Danes to their stronghold at and starved them into submission. One of the terms of the surrender was that Guthrum convert to Christianity. Three weeks later, the Danish king and 29 of his chief men were baptised at Alfred's court at Alfred the Great, near Athelney, with Alfred's receiving Guthrum as his spiritual son. The unbinding of Alfred the Great chrisom [f] on the eighth day took place at a royal estate called . While at Wedmore, Alfred and Guthrum negotiated what some historians have called the Treaty of Wedmorebut it was to be some years after the cessation of hostilities that a formal treaty was signed. Consequently, in the Viking army left Chippenham and made its way to . That treaty divided up the kingdom of Mercia. By its terms, the Alfred the Great between Alfred's and Alfred the Great kingdoms was to run up the to the River Leafollow the Lea Alfred the Great its source near Lutonfrom there extend in a straight line to Bedfordand from Bedford follow the River Ouse to Watling Street. In other words, Alfred succeeded to Ceolwulf's kingdom consisting of western Mercia, and Guthrum incorporated the eastern part of Mercia into an enlarged kingdom of East Anglia henceforward known as the Danelaw. By terms of the treaty, moreover, Alfred was to have control over the Mercian city of Alfred the Great and its mints—at least for the time being. After the foundation Alfred the Great Danelaw, it seems that some of Essex would have been ceded Alfred the Great the Danes, but how much is not clear. Alfred the Great the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and GuthrumAlfred the Great event most commonly held to have taken place around when Guthrum's people began settling East AngliaGuthrum was neutralised as a threat. There were local raids on the coast of Wessex throughout the s. InAlfred fought a small sea battle against four Danish ships. Two of the ships were destroyed, and the Alfred the Great surrendered. This was one of four sea battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclethree of which involved Alfred. InPope Marinus exempted the Saxon quarter in Rome from taxation, probably in return for Alfred's promise to send alms annually to Rome, which may be the origin of the medieval tax called Peter's Pence. The pope sent gifts to Alfred, including what was reputed to be a piece of the True Cross. After the signing of the treaty with Guthrum, Alfred was spared any large-scale conflicts for some time. Despite this relative peace, the king was forced to deal with a number of Danish raids and incursions. Among these was a raid in KentAlfred the Great allied kingdom in South East Englandduring the yearwhich was possibly the largest raid since the battles with Guthrum. Asser's account of the raid places the Danish raiders at the Saxon city of Rochester[53] where they built a temporary fortress in order to besiege the city. In response to this incursion, Alfred led an Anglo-Saxon force against the Danes who, instead of engaging the army of Wessex, fled to their beached ships and sailed to another part Alfred the Great Britain. The retreating Danish force supposedly left Britain the following summer. The purpose of this expedition is debated, but Asser claims that it was for the sake of plunder. The Danish fleet defeated Alfred's fleet, which may have been weakened in the previous engagement. A year later, inAlfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again. The restoration of London progressed through the latter half of the s and is believed to have revolved around a new street plan; added fortifications in addition to the existing Roman walls; and, some believe, the construction Alfred the Great matching fortifications on the south bank of the River Thames. This is also the period in which almost all chroniclers agree that the Saxon people of pre-unification England submitted to Alfred. One year later Guthrum, or Athelstan by his baptismal name, Alfred's former enemy and king of East Anglia, died and was buried in Hadleigh, Suffolk. The resulting power vacuum stirred other power-hungry warlords eager to take his place Alfred the Great the following years. The quiet years of Alfred's life were coming to a close. After another lull, in the autumn of orthe Danes attacked again. Finding their position in mainland Europe precarious, they crossed to England in ships in two divisions. They entrenched themselves, the larger body, at Appledore, Kent and the lesser under Hasteinat Miltonalso in Kent. The invaders brought their wives and children with them indicating a meaningful attempt at conquest and colonisation. Alfred, in ortook up a position from which he could observe both forces. While he was in talks with Hastein, the Danes at Appledore broke out and struck north-westwards. They were overtaken by Alfred's eldest son, Edward and were defeated in a general engagement at in Surrey. They took refuge on an island at Thorneyon the River Colne between Buckinghamshire and Middlesexwhere they were blockaded and forced to give hostages and Alfred the Great to leave Wessex. Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and Alfred the Great Anglian Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed stronghold on the North Devon shore. Alfred at once hurried westward and raised the Siege of Exeter. The fate of the other place is not recorded. The force under Hastein set out to march up the Thames Valleypossibly with the idea of assisting their friends in the west. They were met by a large force under the three great ealdormen of MerciaWiltshire and Somerset and forced to head off to the north-west, being finally overtaken and blockaded at Buttington. An attempt to break through the English lines failed. Those Alfred the Great escaped retreated to Shoebury. After collecting reinforcements, they made a sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of Alfred the Great. The English did not attempt a winter blockade but contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the district. Early in or lack of food obliged the Danes to retire once more to Essex. Alfred the Great () - IMDb

As IMDb celebrates its 30th birthday, we have six shows to get you ready for those pivotal years of your life Alfred the Great some streaming picks. While Old England is being ransacked by roving Danes in the ninth century, Alfred is planning to join the priesthood. But observing the rape of his land, he puts away Alfred the Great religious vows, to take up arms against the invaders, leading the English Christians to fight for their country. Alfred soundly defeats the Danes Alfred the Great becomes a hero. But now, although Alfred still longs for the priesthood, he is torn between his passion for God and his lust for blood. I liked this. Set in England in the s it tells the story of one of the great Kings Alfred the Great history. Hemmings does a great job as the complicated cynical Alfred who wants to be a priest but is forced into becoming King because his leadership qualities are badly needed against the marauding Danes. Hemmings Alfred is a formidable character but he's refreshingly no Hollywood hero. The battle scenes are excellent when you consider this was made on a low budget way back in There's a great aerial shot of a battle focusing on Alfred who's just come from the monastery to answer his country's call, giving off the impression that while he might prefer to be a holy man of letters, he can still effortlessly slide into the Alfred the Great in an I can take or leave this manner. Hence his greatness. Looking for some great streaming picks? Check out some of the IMDb editors' favorites movies and shows to round out your Watchlist. Visit our What to Watch page. Sign In. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Release Dates. Official Sites. Company Credits. Technical Specs. Plot Summary. Plot Keywords. Parents Guide. External Sites. User Reviews. User Ratings. External Reviews. Metacritic Reviews. Photo Gallery. Trailers and Videos. Crazy Credits. Alternate Versions. Rate This. But observing the rape of his land, he puts away his religious vows, to Director: Clive Donner. Writers: James R. Added to Watchlist. Medieval Dark Middle AgeS. Drama--Movies I would like to watch. The Best Viking- Movies! British Royalty movies. Movies About Vikings. Share this Rating Title: Alfred the Great 6. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: David Hemmings Alfred Michael York Guthrum Prunella Ransome Aelhswith Colin Blakely Asher Ian McKellen Roger Peter Vaughan Burrud Alan Dobie Ethelred Julian Glover Freda Julian Chagrin Ivar Alfred the Great Norton Thanet John Rees Cuthbert Christopher Timothy Cerdic Peter Blythe Edit Storyline While Old England is being ransacked by roving Danes in the ninth century, Alfred is planning to join the priesthood. Taglines: The dissenter king. Edit Did You Alfred the Great Trivia Vivien Alfred the Great has a prominent role in this movie, but doesn't say a word. Critic Pauline Kael suggested sarcastically that she'd probably refused to say her lines, as the dialogue in the movie was unspeakably bad. That turned out to be the truth. Alfred the Great Guthrum : I am Guthrum, son of Odin! This is Ivar, my warrior chief. He's called because his mother made him with gristle, instead of bone. Show them. Alfred : I am Alfred, king of Wessex. This is my cousin, Athelstan of Lamborn. I fear he only jumps on Danish graves. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report Alfred the Great. Edit Details Country: UK. Language: English. Sound Mix: 70 mm 6-Track 70 mm prints Mono 35 mm prints. Color: Color Metrocolor. Edit page. October Streaming Picks. Back to School Picks. Clear your history. Years Carnegie: Alfred the Great

Barbara Yorke considers Alfred the Great reputation of King Alfred the Great, and the enduring cult around his Alfred the Great and legend. King Alfred of Wessex r. The year saw the th anniversary of his death on October 26th,at the age of about The occasion is being marked with conferences and exhibitions in Winchester, Southampton and London, but the scale of celebrations will be modest compared with those which commemorated his millenary, and culminated in the unveiling by Lord Rosebery of his statue in Winchester. Alfred is someone who has had greatness thrust upon him. How and why did he acquire his glowing reputation, and how does it stand up today? Alfred nearly succumbed to the Vikings as well, but kept his nerve and won a decisive victory at the battle of Edington in Further Viking threats were kept Alfred the Great bay by a Alfred the Great of military service and particularly through the ringing of Wessex by a regular system of garrisoned fortresses. At the same time Alfred promoted himself as the defender of all Christian Anglo-Saxons against the pagan Viking threat and began the liberation of neighbouring areas from Viking control. He thus paved the way for Alfred the Great future unity of England, which was brought Alfred the Great fruition under his son and grandsons, who conquered the remaining areas held by the Vikings in the east and north, so that by the mid-tenth century the England we are familiar with was ruled as one country for the first time. His preservation from the Vikings and unexpected succession as king after the death of four older brothers, seem to have given Alfred a sense that he had been specially destined for high office. Alfred tried to put Alfred the Great principles into practice, for instance, in the production of his law- code. Alfred also had the foresight to commission his biography from Bishop Asser of Wales. Asser presented Alfred as the embodiment of the ideal, but practical, Christian ruler. One could say that Asser accentuated the positive, and ignored those elements of ruthless, dictatorial behaviour which any king needed to survive in ninth-century realpolitik. Alfred and Asser did such Alfred the Great good job that when later generations looked back Alfred the Great his reign through their works they saw Alfred the Great a ruler apparently more perfect than any before or after. Alfred is often thought to have provided his own epitaph in this passage from his translation of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius:. I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and to leave after my life, to the men who should come after me, the Alfred the Great of me in Alfred the Great works. Alfred, particularly as presented by Asser, may Alfred the Great had something of a saint in him, but he was never canonised and this put him at something of a disadvantage in the later medieval world. The Normans and their successors were certainly interested in presenting themselves as the legitimate heirs of their Anglo-Saxon predecessors, but favoured the recognised royal saints, especially Edmund of the East Angles, killed by the Danish army which Alfred defeated, and , the last ruler of the old West Saxon dynasty. St Edmund and St Edward can be seen supporting Richard II on the Wilton diptych, and members of the later medieval royal houses were named after them. None of the Anglo-Saxon rulers qualified for this role. However, Alfred was lauded by Anglo-Norman historians, like William of Alfred the Great, Gaimar and Matthew Paris, and their presentations, and occasional embellishments, Alfred the Great his achievements would be picked up by later writers. As a pious king with an interest in promoting the use of English, Alfred was an ideal figurehead for the emerging English Protestant church. The works he had commissioned or translated were interpreted as evidence for the pure Anglo-Saxon church, before it had become tainted by the false Romanism introduced by Alfred the Great Normans. With a bit of selective editing, Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical provision came to bear an Alfred the Great resemblance to Elizabethan Anglicanism. Comparable claims of the contribution of the Anglo-Saxons to English life were used to support radical political change in the seventeenth century, when it was argued, for Alfred the Great, that the right of all freemen to vote for representatives in Parliament was a lost Anglo-Saxon liberty. Alfred himself was an unlikely champion for the more radical movements, and was more readily adopted by those who wanted to show Alfred the Great, and eventually Hanoverian, rulers, how they could become successful constitutional monarchs by emulating their most famous Anglo-Saxon ancestor. Robert Powell, in his Life of Alfred, published inattempted to draw parallels between the reigns of Alfred and Charles I, something which often called for considerable ingenuity, and his hope that Charles would share the same respect for English law as that apparently shown by Alfred proved misplaced. Spelman was to die the following year of camp fever, and publication of the biography was delayed until more propitious times. In fact, any attempts to interest Stuart monarchs in their Saxon forebears had only a limited success. The common Saxon heritage of the Hanoverians and the Anglo-Saxons provided more fertile ground for the promotion of a cult of King Alfred. His first aristocratic Alfred the Great royal backers came from the circle which gathered around Frederick, Prince of Walesthe eldest son of George II, and was united by the opposition of its members to the prime minister Robert Walpole. A number of literary works centred upon Alfred were dedicated to the prince. This new interest in the Alfred the Great past began to trickle down to other sectors of society. Those who could not have a Saxon memorial in their grounds or in the nearby countryside could at least own a Alfred the Great of the new genre of History painting. A series of patriotic Alfred Alfred the Great, opera and ballets were performed, particularly during the French Wars As in other European countries, a new national pride in nineteenth-century England had an important historical dimension, and an accompanying cult of the heroes who had made later success possible. These characteristics were felt to have made those of Anglo-Saxon descent uniquely programmed for success, and to rule other less fortunately endowed peoples, and the best of them were represented by King Alfred himself. Anglo-Saxonism, and the accompanying Alfredism, could be found on both sides of the Atlantic. Thomas Jefferson had ingeniously argued that, as the Anglo-Saxons who had settled in Britain had ruled themselves independently from their Continental homelands, so the English settlers of America should also be allowed their Alfred the Great. He believed both countries shared an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and proposed a local government for Virginia based on a division into hundreds, an Anglo-Saxon institution widely believed then to have been instituted by Alfred the Great. He is a native of every clime — a messenger of heaven to every corner of this Planet. One of the chief supporters Alfred the Great The Anglo-Saxonwho wrote large segments of it if no other copy was available, was Martin Tupper, the author of several volumes of popular, highly sentimental and moralistic verses. The event was not the success for which Tupper had hoped, largely because he left arrangements rather late in the day and had Alfred the Great influential backers. During the reign of Victoria, who gave birth to Alfred the Great first Prince Alfred since the Anglo-Saxon period b. Alfred was no longer a mirror for princes, but an exemplar for people at all levels of society and, above all, for children. The noble king Whom misfortune could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, whose perseverance, nothing could shake. Who was hopeful Alfred the Great defeat, and generous in success. Who loved justice, freedom, truth and knowledge. So much had Alfred become the epitome of the ideal Victorian that Walter Besant, in a lecture on Alfred inthought it entirely appropriate to apply to him verse that Alfred, Lord Tennyson had written to commemorate Prince Albert. Alfred was no longer the totem of one political party. Problems with the calculation of Alfred the Great dates meant it was widely believed then that Alfred had died inrather thanwhich is now recognised as the true date of his death, but at the time it seemed particularly apposite to many that the great Queen and her illustrious forebear had died a thousand years apart. But in Britain was embroiled in the Boer War, and the priority was the reality of the present rather than an imagined past. The National Committee did not raise nearly as much money as it had expected and had to abandon many of its ambitious plans, including one for a Museum of Early Alfred the Great History. But there was also a more positive side to the celebrations when Alfred was used, as he had been in the past, as a cloak for the introduction of change in society. It was not by chance that the statue was unveiled by the Liberal leader Lord Rosebery, Alfred the Great the former Whig support for British Worthies had never completely died away, and Liberals were prominent in the many commemorations of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Alfred, though no doubt gratified by his posthumous fame, would have trouble recognising himself in some of his later manifestations, and would find it difficult to comprehend, let alone approve, some of the constitutional developments he was supposed to have championed. Now that Britain is relapsing into its regional components, who better than Alfred, the champion of the English language and Anglo-Saxon hegemony, to be a figurehead of the new England? Alfred is often thought to have provided his own epitaph in this passage from his translation of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius: I desired to live worthily as long as I lived, and to leave after my life, to the men who should come Alfred the Great me, the memory of me in good works. Lord Rosebery commented that the statue he was to unveil in Winchester can only be an effigy of the imagination, and so the Alfred we reverence may well be an Alfred the Great figure Anglo-Saxon England Alfred Political. Popular articles. Could the Soviet Union Have Survived? Distortions and Omissions.