In the south, Alfred's son Edward had rapidly secured control of Mercia and had a burh constructed at Bakewell in the Peak District from which his armies could easily strike north.

Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians, built the new Anglo-Saxon ' burh ' at Chester.

At the centre of Alfred's reformed military defence system was a network of fortresses, or burhs, distributed at strategic points throughout the kingdom.

Alfred's burghal system was revolutionary in its strategic conception and potentially expensive in its execution.

Alternatively, King Alfred's system may in turn have its roots in an earlier age.

However, Alfred's new system of defence worked, and ultimately it wore the Danes down: they gave up and dispersed in the summer of 896.

That Latin learning had not been obliterated is evidenced by the presence in his court of learned Mercian and West Saxon clerics such as Plegmund, Wæferth, and Wulfsige, but Alfred's account should not be entirely discounted.

Alfred's first translation was of Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, which he prefaced with an introduction explaining why he thought it necessary to translate works such as this one from Latin into English.

King Alfred's ( Alfred the Great ) translation of Orosius ' history of the world uses Angelcynn (- kin ) to describe England and the English people ; Bede used Angelfolc (- folk ); there are also such forms as Engel, Englan ( the people ), Englaland, and Englisc, all showing i-mutation.

There are also sections such as the support for Alfred's programme of fortification that give the impression of the book's being aimed at an English audience.

It is often claimed to commemorate King Alfred's victory at the Battle of Eðandun in 878, and while this is not impossible, there is no trace of such a legend before the second half of the eighteenth century.

Other surreal elements to the cartoon include such strange characters as the evil genie of the bottle, living chess pieces from Alfred's chess game, Pied Piper style Clown On The Moon, and aliens who appear like ducks except for their human-style feet, and a " dream " style Wild West episode during which Dolf seems to become aware that he is a character in a cartoon.

It is possible that this arrangement was sanctioned by Alfred's father, or by the Witan, to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should Æthelred fall in battle.

Neither Alfred's reformed fyrd nor his burhs alone would have afforded a sufficient defence against the Vikings ; together, however, they robbed the Vikings of their major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility.

The Old English versions of Orosius's Histories against the Pagans and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People are no longer accepted by scholars as Alfred's own translations because of lexical and stylistic differences.

Neither Alfred's reformed fyrd nor his burhs alone would have afforded a sufficient defence against the Vikings ; together, however, they robbed the Vikings of their major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility.

Neither Alfred's reformed fyrd nor his burhs alone would have afforded a sufficient defence against the Vikings ; together, however, they robbed the Vikings of their major strategic advantages: surprise and mobility.

Alfred's son Edward, and his grandsons Æthelstan, Edmund I and Eadred, continued the policy of resistance against the Vikings.

In the one recorded naval engagement in the year 896, Alfred's new fleet of nine ships intercepted six Viking ships in the mouth of an unidentified river along the south of England.

It was first mentioned as " Ilfing " in The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan which was written in Anglo-Saxon in King Alfred's reign using information from a Viking who had visited the area.

Following the decline of the Mercian kingdom during the early 9th century, large parts of Mercia to the east of Warwickshire were ceded in 878 to Danish ( Viking ) invaders by King Alfred's Treaty of Wedmore with the Danish leader Guthrum.

Because of the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is little or no written evidence for the development of non-Wessex dialects after Alfred's unification, until the Middle English period.

It being a Christian feast day the Saxons were presumably taken by surprise — indeed it is possible that Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltshire, allowed the attack either through negligence or intent, for on Alfred's return to power later in 878 Wulfhere was stripped of his role as Ealdorman.

The one ship that escaped managed to do so only because all of Alfred's heavy ships became mired when the tide went out.

In 1660 when a replacement crown called St Edward's Crown was cast for the coronation of Charles II the gold from the aforementioned King Alfred's Crown ( the original crown of Edward the Confessor ) was used, so presumably even after the various jewels had been melted down strenuous efforts were made to recover their components.

Asser's Life omits any mention of internal strife or dissent in Alfred's own reign, though when he mentions that Alfred had to harshly punish those who were slow to obey Alfred's commands to fortify the realm, he makes it clear that Alfred did have to enforce obedience.

MacHardie, a shrewd businessman, senses Alfred's drive and ambition, and when Alfred asserts that his goal in life is to earn more money than his father, MacHardie offers him a job in his investment firm.

Alfred's only son, also named Alfred, committed suicide in 1899, so when Duke Alfred died in 1900, he was succeeded by his nephew the Duke of Albany, the sixteen-year-old son of Queen Victoria's youngest son, Leopold.

Alfred's parents separated when he was very young, and his father died when Alfred was in college.

He is first recorded in 883, when he made a grant to Berkeley Abbey with the approval of King Alfred of Wessex, showing that he acknowledged Alfred's lordship.

Batman and Alfred get into a heated argument over Alfred's providing Dick with clean clothes, a blanket and food, and when Batman manhandles Dick, Alfred orders him to cease, invoking a bitter reaction from Batman.

In 1956, Alfred's eldest son Paul Laubin joined the business, doing repair work and eventually learning every aspect of oboe-making before taking over the business when Alfred died in 1976.

The Danish army remained in Reading until late in 871, when they retreated to winter quarters in London, and much of King Alfred's 28-year reign was taken up with the Danish conflict.

The effectiveness of Alfred's ' fleet ' has been debated ; Dr. Kenneth Harl has pointed out that as few as eleven ships were sent to combat the Vikings, only two of which were not beaten back or captured.

According to Asser, in his Life of Alfred, the Vikings gave Alfred peace hostages, and " swore in addition that they would leave his kingdom immediately, and Guthrum, their king, promised to accept Christianity and to receive baptism at King Alfred's hand ; all of which he and his men fulfilled as they had promised.

Alfred's military reorganisation of Wessex consisted of three elements: the building of thirty fortified and garrisoned towns ( burhs ) along the rivers and Roman roads of Wessex ; the creation of a mobile ( horsed ) field force, consisting of his nobles and their warrior retainers, which was divided into two contingents, one of which was always in the field ; and the enhancement of Wessex's seapower through the addition of larger ships to the existing royal fleet.

Characteristically, all of Alfred's innovations were firmly rooted in traditional West Saxon practice, drawing as they did upon the three so-called ‘ common burdens ' of bridge work, fortress repair and service on the king's campaigns that all holders of bookland and royal loanland owed the Crown.

Characteristically, all of Alfred's innovations were firmly rooted in traditional West Saxon practice, drawing as they did upon the three so-called ‘ common burdens ' of bridge work, fortress repair and service on the king's campaigns that all holders of bookland and royal loanland owed the Crown.

Characteristically, all of Alfred's innovations were firmly rooted in traditional West Saxon practice, drawing as they did upon the three so-called ‘ common burdens ' of bridge work, fortress repair and service on the king's campaigns that all holders of bookland and royal loanland owed the Crown.

About a fifth of the law code is taken up by Alfred's introduction, which includes translations into English of the Decalogue, a few chapters from the Book of Exodus, and the " Apostolic Letter " from Acts of the Apostles ( 15: 23 – 29 ).

In 1933 the family moved to the market town of Wantage in what was then Berkshire, where Cyril took up the position of Chaplain at St Mary's, Wantage and Gardner was educated at the local King Alfred's School.

* Ollie is Alfred's close school-friend, a stork who grows up to be a lawyer, and later, after the defeat of Dolf, the first democratically elected president of Great Waterland.

Much of King Alfred's 28-year reign was taken up with the Danish conflict.