aka Aelfred. Sent to Rome, where Leo IV hallowed him to king, 853. Returning to England in 856. No attempt was made to set him on the throne on his father's death, though he perhaps bore the title of secundarius during his brother's reigns. Assisted his brother, Ethelred I, against the Danes, and fought at Aescesdun, Basing, and Merton, 871. Succeeded his brother, defeated the Danes at Wilton, and obtained a respite by concluding a treaty, 871. The legendary account of the harshness of his early rule and of his three years' sojourn in hiding at Glastonbury is untrustworthy in its particulars and largely mythical. Called to meet, according to authentic history, the second great invasion of the Danes in December 878, headed by Guthrum, who overran Somerset without opposition. Gathered a small company with which he took post at Athelney. Seven weeks later defeated the Danes at Ethandun (seemingly Edington in Wiltshire) on which peace followed (Guthrum being baptised and assigned a dominion in the north and east of England -- roughly speaking, the part beyond Watling Street -- under the nominal overlordship of Alfred). War with Guhtum renewed in 884 by Alfred. Acquired London, which he fortified and about the same time received the submission of the Angles and Saxons throughout Britain, as well as of several princes of Wales. Assailed, after a few years of comparative quiet, by another great host of Northmen, who were joined by the Danes of East-Anglia in 894. War raged in all parts of England until 897, when the invaders withdrew and Alfred, by improving his ships, put an end to the ravagings of the smaller vikings. Buried at New Minster (afterwards Hyde Abbey) at Winchester. Alfred not only saved Wessex from the perils of the Scandinavian invasions, but made his kingdom a center for the deliverance and union of the whole country. The stress of the times naturally strengthened the royal authority. Much of the fame of Alfred's institutions is legendary. His legislation consisted simply in selecting the best of the laws of the earlier kings, but the account of his division of England into hundreds and shires may have some basis in a reorganisation of southern Mercia. Alfred's promotion of learning is perhaps the most distinctive feature of his rule. His foundation of schools at Oxford is fabulous, but he brought to Wessex the best scholars of the time, including Plegmund, Werfrith, Grimbold, John the Old-Saxon, Asser, and John Scotus Erigena. Men of eminence in any useful art, like the seafaring Othere, were also encouraged. The time of his own greatest literary activity lay between 886 and 893. His chief writings were his translations of Boethuis' "Consolation of Philospohy", of the histories of Baeda and "Orosius" and of the "Pastoral Care" of Gregory the Great (The concise dictionary of national biography. Part 1 : from the beginnings till 1900. London : Oxford University Press, 1969, pg. 9).