[Sidenote:  A.D. 897.]

The latter part of his reign was molested with new and formidable attempts from the Danes:  but they no longer found the country in its former condition; their fleets were attacked; and those that landed found a strong and regular opposition.  There were now fortresses which restrained their ravages, and armies well appointed to oppose them in the field; they were defeated in a pitched battle; and after several desperate marches from one part of the country to the other, everywhere harassed and hunted, they were glad to return with half their number, and to leave Alfred in quiet to accomplish the great things he had projected.  This prince reigned twenty-seven, years, and died at last of a disorder in his bowels, which had afflicted him, without interrupting his designs or souring his temper, during the greatest part of his life.

FOOTNOTES: 

[48] Historians, copying after one another, and examining little, have attributed to this monarch the institution of juries, an institution which certainly did never prevail amongst the Saxons.  They have likewise attributed to him the distribution of England into shires, hundreds, and tithings, and of appointing officers over these divisions.  But it is very obvious that the shires were never settled upon any regular plan, nor are they the result of any single design.  But these reports, however ill imagined, are a strong proof of the high veneration in which this excellent prince has always been held; as it has been thought that the attributing these regulations to him would endear them to the nation.  Be probably settled them in such an order, and made such reformations in his government, that some of the institutions themselves which he improved have been attributed to him:  and, indeed, there was one work of his which serves to furnish us with a higher idea of the political capacity of that great man than any of these fictions.  He made a general survey and register of all the property in the kingdom, who held it, and what it was distinctly:  a vast work for an age of ignorance and time of confusion, which has been neglected in more civilized nations and settled times.  It was called the Roll of Winton, and served as a model of a work of the same kind made by William the Conqueror.

CHAPTER V.

SUCCESSION OF KINGS FROM ALFRED TO HAROLD.

[Sidenote:  Edward, A.D. 900.]

[Sidenote:  Athelstan A.D. 925.]

[Sidenote:  Edmund, A.D. 942.]

[Sidenote:  Edred, A.D. 947.]

[Sidenote:  Edwin, A.D. 957.]