Michael, an English Jesuit whose real name was Griffiths, was born at London in 1587. This work entitled *Annales Ecclesiastici et Civiles Britannorum, Saxonum et Anglorum*, is valuable to the student of early English history.

or Ælfred, the Great, king of England, was the fifth and youngest son of Æthelwolf, king of the West Saxons, and was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 849. He distinguished himself during the reign of his brother Ethelred in several engagements against the Danes, and upon his death succeeded to the crown, in the year 871, and the 22d of his age. On his accession to the throne he found himself involved in a dangerous war with the Danes, and placed in circumstances fitted to call forth all the great qualities by which he was distinguished. The Danes had already penetrated into the heart of his kingdom; and before he had been a month upon the throne, he was obliged to take the field against those formidable enemies. After many battles gained on both sides, he was at length reduced to the greatest distress, and was entirely abandoned by his subjects. In this situation Alfred, laying aside the useless insignia of royalty, took shelter in the house of one of his own herdsmen. He afterwards retired to Æthelingcay, in Somersetshire, the modern Athelney, where he built a fort for the security of himself and family, and his few faithful followers. When he had been about a year in this retreat, having been informed that some of his subjects had routed a great army of the Danes, killed their chief, and taken their magical standard, he issued his letters, giving notice where he was, and inviting his nobility to come and consult with him. Before they came to a final determination, Alfred, putting on the habit of a harper, went into the enemy's camp, where, without suspicion, he was everywhere admitted, and introduced to play before their chief. Having thus acquired an exact knowledge of their situation, he returned in great secrecy to his nobility, whom he ordered to their respective homes, there to draw together each man as great a force as he could; appointing a day for a general rendezvous at the forest of Selwood in Wiltshire. This affair was transacted so secretly and expeditiously, that the king, at the head of his army, was close upon the Danes before they had the least intelligence of his design. Alfred, taking advantage of their surprise and terror, fell upon them, and totally defeated them at Æthel-dune, now Eddington. Those who escaped fled to a neighbouring castle, where they were soon besieged, and obliged to surrender at discretion. Alfred granted them better terms than they had reason to expect. He agreed to give up the whole kingdom of the East Angles to such as would embrace the Christian religion, on condition that they would oblige the rest of their countrymen to quit the island, and, as much as was in their power, prevent the landing of any more foreigners. For the performance of this treaty he took hostages; and when, in pursuance of the stipulation, Godrun the Danish chief came, with thirty of his chief officers, to be baptized, Alfred answered for him at the font, and gave him the name of Æthelstan; and certain laws were drawn up betwixt the king and Godrun for the regulation and government of the Danes settled in England. In 884 a fresh swarm of Danes landed in Kent and laid siege to Rochester; but the king coming to the relief of that city, they were obliged to abandon their design. Alfred had now great success, which was chiefly owing to his fleet, an advantage of his own creating. Having secured the sea-coasts, he fortified the rest of the kingdom with castles and walled towns; and he besiegéd and recovered from the Danes the city of London, which he resolved to repair, and to keep as a frontier.

After some years' respite, Alfred was again called into the field; for a body of Danes, being worsted in the west of France, came with a fleet of 250 sail on the coast of Kent, and having landed, fixed themselves at Appuldur. Shortly after, another fleet of eighty vessels coming up the Thames, the men landed, and built a fort at Milton. Before Alfred marched against the enemy, he obliged the Danes settled in Northumberland and Essex to give him hostages for their good behaviour. He then moved towards the invaders, and pitched his camp between their armies, to prevent their junction. A great body, however, moved off to Essex, and crossing the river, came to Farnham in Surrey, where they were defeated by the king's forces. Meanwhile the Danes settled in Northumberland, in breach of treaty, and notwithstanding the hostages given, equipped two fleets, and after plundering the northern and southern coasts, sailed to Exeter and besieged it. The king, as soon as he received the intelligence, marched against them; but before he reached Exeter they had got possession of it. He kept them, however, blocked up on all sides, and reduced them at last to such extremities that they were obliged to eat their horses, and were even ready to devour each other. Being at length rendered desperate, they made a general sally on the besiegers; but were defeated, though with great loss on the king's side. The remainder of this body of Danes fled into Essex, to the fort they had built there, and to their ships. Before Alfred had time to recruit himself, Laf, another Danish leader, came with a great army out of Northumberland, and ravaged all before him, marching on to the city of Werheal in the west (supposed to be Chester), where they remained the rest of the year. The year following they in- Alfred vaded North Wales; and after having plundered and destroyed every thing, they divided, one body returning to Northumberland, another into the territories of the East Angles, from whence they proceeded to Essex, and took possession of a small island called Meresig. Here they did not long remain; for having separated, some sailed up the river Thames, and others up the Lea road, where, drawing up their ships, they built a fort not far from London, which proved a great check upon the citizens, who went in a body and attacked it, but were repulsed with great loss. At harvest-time the king himself was obliged to encamp with a body of troops in the neighbourhood of the city, in order to cover the reapers from the excursions of the Danes. As he was one day riding by the side of the river Lea, after some observations he began to think that the Danish ships might be laid quite dry. This he attempted; and having succeeded, the Danes were forced to desert their fort and ships, and march away to the banks of the Severn, where they built a fort, and wintered at a place called Quatbrig. Such of the Danish ships as could be got off, the Londoners carried into their own road; the rest they burned and destroyed.

Alfred enjoyed a profound peace during the last three years of his reign, which he chiefly employed in establishing and regulating his government, for the security of himself and his successors, as well as the ease and benefit of his subjects in general. After a troubled reign of 28 years, he died on the 28th of October A.D. 900, and was buried at Winchester, in Hyde Abbey. A monument of porphyry was erected over his tomb.

All our historians agree in characterising him as perhaps the wisest, best, and greatest king that ever reigned in England; and it is also generally allowed, that he not only digested several particular laws still in existence, but that he laid the first foundation of our present constitution. There is great reason to believe that we are indebted to this prince for trial by jury; and the Doomsday Book, which is preserved in the Exchequer, is thought to be no more than another edition of Alfred's book of Winchester, which contained a survey of the kingdom. It is said also that he was the first who divided the kingdom into shires. What is ascribed to him is not a bare division of the country, but the settling of a new form of judicature; for after having divided his dominions into shires, he subdivided each shire into three parts, called tryththings. There are some remains of these ancient divisions in the ridings of Yorkshire, the laths of Kent, and the three parts of Lincolnshire. Each trything was divided into hundreds or wapentakes; and these again into tythings or dwellings of ten householders. Each of these householders stood engaged to the king as a pledge for the good behaviour of his family, and all the ten were mutually pledges for each other; so that if any one of the tythings was suspected of an offence, if the head boroughs or chiefs of the tythings would not be security for him, he was imprisoned; and, if he made his escape, the tything and hundred were fined to the king. Each shire was under the government of an earl, under whom was the reece, his deputy, since, from his office, called shire-reece, or sheriff. And so effectual were these regulations, that it is said he caused bracelets of gold to be hung up in the highways, as a challenge to robbers; and that they remained untouched.

In private life Alfred was singularly amiable; of so equal a temper, that he never suffered either sadness or unbecoming gaiety to disturb his mind; but appeared always of a calm yet cheerful disposition, familiar to his friends, just even to his enemies, kind and tender to all. He was a remarkable economist of his time; and Asser has given us an account of the method he took for dividing and keeping an account of it. He caused six wax-candles to be made, each of 12 inches long, and of as many ounces weight; on the candles the inches were regularly marked, and having found that one of them burned just four hours, he committed them to the care of the keepers of his chapel, who from time to time gave him notice how the hours went.

This prince, we are told, was 12 years of age before a master could be procured in the western kingdom to teach him the alphabet; such was the state of learning when Alfred began to reign. He had felt the misery of ignorance, and determined even to rival his contemporary Charlemagne in the encouragement of literature. He is supposed to have appointed persons to read lectures at Oxford, and is thence considered as the founder of that university. By other suitable measures and by his general encouragement of learning and abilities, he did everything in his power to diffuse knowledge throughout his dominions. Nor was this end promoted more by his countenance and encouragement than by his own example and his writings; for notwithstanding the lateness of his education he had acquired extraordinary erudition; and, had he not been illustrious as a king, he would have been famous as an author. His works are, 1. Breviarium quoddam collectum ex Legibus Trojanorum, &c. lib. i.; a Breviary collected out of the Laws of the Trojans, Greeks, Britons, Saxons, and Danes. Leland saw this book in the Saxon tongue, at Christ Church, in Hampshire. 2. Visi-Saxorum Leges, lib. i. Pitts tells us that it is in Bennett College library, at Cambridge. 3. Instituta quaedam, lib. i. This is mentioned by Pitts, and seems to be the second capitulation with Godrun. 4. Contra Medicas Iniquas, lib. i. 5. Acta Magistratum suorum, lib. i. This is supposed to be the Book of Judgments mentioned by Horne, and was in all probability a kind of Reports intended for the use of succeeding ages. 6. Regum Fortunae varia, lib. i. 7. Dicta Sapientum, lib. i. 8. Parabola et Solus, lib. i. 9. Collectiones Chronicorum, 10. Epistolae ad Wulf-sigum Episcopum, lib. i. 11. Manuale Meditationum. Besides those original works, he translated many authors from the Latin, &c., into the Saxon language, viz., 1. Bede's History of England. 2. Paulus Orosius's History of the Pagans. 3. St Gregory's Pastoral, &c. The first of these, with his prefaces to the others, together with his laws, were printed at Cambridge, 1644. His laws are likewise inserted in Spelman's Councils. 4. Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy. Dr Plot tells us King Alfred translated it at Woodstock, as he found in a MS. in the Cotton Library. 5. Æsop's Fables; which he is said to have translated from the Greek both into Latin and Saxon. 6. The Psalms of David. This was the last work the king attempted, and was unfinished at the time of his death. It was, however, completed by another hand, and published at London in 1640, in quarto, by Sir John Spelman. Several others are mentioned by Malmsbury, and the old history of Ely asserts that he translated the Old and New Testaments.