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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A09898	The life of Alfred, or, Alvred: the first institutor of subordinate government in this kingdome, and refounder of the Vniversity of Oxford Together with a parallell of our soveraigne lord, K. Charles untill this yeare, 1634. By Robert Povvell of Wels, one of the Society of New-Inne.	Powell, Robert, fl. 1636-1652.; Alfred, King of England, 849-899.	1634 (1634)	STC 20161; ESTC S115025	29,645	188

I shall conclude with a thankefull remembrance of some living Authors to whom this Treatise of Alfred must especially ascribe a part of its being Mr. Bryan Twyne sometimes Fellow of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford for his learned and laborious work touching the Antiquity of Oxford out of which I excerpted many things conducible to my purpose and to Mr. Noel Sparks Fellow and Greek Lecturer of the same house for his faithfull and carefull collections out of Asser. These and many more I consulted with before I brought it to that contexture and forme wherein it now presents it selfe to publike view And so beseeching the Almighty to direct all our actions for his glory and the common good and to blesse us with true piety towards him unfeigned loyalty to our Soveraigne and Christian charity one towards another I rest Yours howsoever you censure me ROBERT POWELL THE LIFE OF ALFRED OR ALVRED THE light of the Lawes of this vertuous magnanimous Prince drawne from the first and best patterne of all Lawes did not onely minister the occasion of compiling a Treatise to be hereto annexed but a just encouragement with my unworthy and unpolish't Pensil to limbe out the life of him who though he died seven hundred thirty three yeares since doth by the moderne practise and imitation of his Lawes and Government still live To speak sufficiently as one saith of so noble a Prince as Alfred was might require eloquence learning and a large Volume I must truly say that tota vita luctamen all his life was a perpetuall warfare against the enemies either of outward or inward peace men or vices And in this short breviary of his life I intend not any long discourse of the various and troublesome affaires of his twenty eight yeares raigne but what concernes his valour vertue and religion his pious and memorable deeds his orderly in the times of war and disorder course and method of a well disposed government This good King who is stiled by one the Mirror of Princes by another Moses his imitator was the Grand-childe of Egbert who first gave this Kingdome the name of England and the fourth and youngest son of Aethelwolphe by the Lady Ogburgh In his child-hood he was a carefull observer and celebrator of peculiar houres in prayers and service of God and so dextrously studious that he had many Psalmes and Prayers by heart which afterwards being gathered into a booke he did continually night and day carry about with him in his bosome as his inseparable companion and as a supply or provision for the worship of God amidst the manifold changes of those times he was a sedulous frequenter and visitor of holy places Etiam ab infantia orandi eleëmosynam dandi gratia diu in oratione tacita prostratus saith mine Author wherein hee followed his Fathers steps who by reason of his monasticke education under Swithun a Monke whom he afterwards made Bishop of Winton was a man zealously and piously addicted And of all his sonnes Alfred was most heire apparant to his fathers devotion and vertues though not to his Crown and Kingdome When he was not above five yeares old yet senior virtutibus quàm annis Aethelwolphe his father being warned thereto in a dreame by the voice of an Angell Adulphe Rex dilecte Dei quid moraris mitte filium postgenitum c. did upon this vision if it may receive any credite by an honourable Convoy of Swithun Bishop of Winton other Nobles send this blessed youngling to the Bishop of Rome to be anointed King of England certaine it is he was there and was humbly presented by Swithun to Pope Leo the fourth who as if divining and presaging his future fortune and succession to his fathers Crown did in the yeare of Christ eight hundred fifty five annoint him a King in the presence of his Father saith Rossus and it was about the time that Lewis the second succeeded Lotharius in the Empire of Rome Aethelwolphe not many yeares after his return from Rome died and his three elder sonnes Ethelbald Ethelbert and Etheldred successively raigned and dying left the Kingdome distracted by continuall conflicts with the Danes and Alfred having faithfully served his brothers as Viceroy in each of their sev●ral raignes survived and in the twenty second yeare of his age and the nineteenth yeare of the Emperour succeeded in his Kingdome in a yeare wherein eight severall battels had beene given to the Danes by the Saxons and himself within one moneth after his Coronation forced into the field by the Pagan Danes at Wilton where the end of the fight was more successefull than the beginning and procured the first truce betweene the Danes and Saxons yet so implacable were those Heathens against this pious Prince that like wilde and savage Boares after many overthrowes they would continually whet their tuskes to give new onsets After this truce about the yeare eight hundred seventy five Halden the Danish King having the fresh supply and aide of Guthrun and other Danish Leaders Viceroyes at least did both by Sea and Land continually exercise this gracious Prince in a defensive warfare but not without some perillous imbroylements he did inforce them to the treatie of a second peace and then more than ever they did before to any they tooke a solemn● Oath to depart the Countrey but eft-soones perfidiously violated the same and for further preparation of warre marched with an Armie towards Exeter Alfred approached them in such wise and so fiercely encountred them as that they were enforced to deliver pledges for performance of their former agreement of departure for no oathes would serve to binde the consciences of those lawlesse Miscreants Hence they departed and drew into Mercia and having usurped the government of the Kingdome from the River of Thames forward no termes nor tyes of truce could containe them from continuall incursions and invasions upon this noble Prince under the conduct of Guthrun called by some Gurmund The remnant of those disbanded Atheists mustered up themselves and about the first yeare of his raigne invaded the Countrey of West-saxia and pitched their Tents about Chipnam in Wiltshire where they infested the whole Countrey and so overlaid King Alfred with their united forces that by extremity hee was necessitated to make his recesse into obscure places almost inaccessible for fennes and marshes having nothing of his great Monarchie left unto him but that part of the Kingdome since knowne and distinguished by the Counties of Hampton Wilts and Somerset In this distresse one of his greatest Courts for residence was an Iland now knowne by the name of Athelney in the County of Somerset anciently in the Saxon called Aethelingarg that is Nobilium insula so termed by reason of the Kings abode and the concourse of his Nobles unto him this place is as famous to us for the shelter of Alfred from the Danish pursuit as the Minturnian

incense of his prayers to the Throne of Heaven which course he constantly observed in the silent houres of night and at all seasons aswell in the times of prosperity and victorious successe as also in all adverse and doubtfull variations of war or State or afflictions of sicknesse and infirmity of body in all which he had his vicissitude of participation He was the first lettered Prince in this Kingdome since it had its nomination of England and had the happinesse to be disciplined under the care of Plegmundus a man of excellent learning and eminent parts who was borne in Mercia and from the solitary life of an Eremite in the Island of Chester called to be a Tutor to this noble Prince who at that time found the number of Learned men to bee so scarce and few by reason of the continuall devastations of warres which are alwayes incompatible with lawes and literature as that with incessant sighs and groanes he would not daily cease to bemone the want of such men and with assiduity of earnest prayers to implore a supply from that Omnipotent w th soone gave a gratious issue to his desires for not many moneths after his inauguration to the Kingdome he obtained the comfortable service and attendance of Withfrithus called by some Werefridus who was consecrated Bishop of Worcester on Whitsunday 872. And for his singular learning was had in high estimation by King Alfred and by his command translated the dialogues of S. Gregorie out of the Latine into the Saxon or English dialect he wanted not all the helpes advise and instructions of Plegmundus his Tutor who was afterwards Anno 889. consecrated Archbishop of Canterburie Those he consulted with night and day taking sweet comfort aswell in their discourses as in their lectures and rehearsals of many learned books and workes and never thought himselfe happy longer than he had the fruition of their or such like pleasing companies by meanes whereof he attained the knowledge of most bookes and ability to understand them by himselfe without any of their interpretacions his regall desire of Arts and learning rested not at home but extended it selfe by messages and Embassages beyond the Seas for men of the most exquisit learning that could be heard of out of France he obtained Grimbald and Scotus men famous in their times for their great singular learning out of the remotest parts of Wales he sent for Asser who wrote his life and divers others of like parts he drew from other places Asser as himselfe affirmeth abode with the King in his Court by the space of eight moneths before his returne to Wales in which time he constantly read divers bookes unto him for saith he it was his custome both night and day amidst all other impediments both of mind and bodie to be ever versed in reading books himselfe or hearing them read by others and tooke a great felicity to translate bookes especially meetre into the vulgar then Saxon tongue and commanded others to do the like wherby he acquired such perfection therein as that the Art of Poësie was much honoured by ascribing to him the title of Poet. This religious Monarch out of his immoderate thirst of the Artes and liberall Sciences modestly conceiving the want thereof in himselfe to be more than it was did apply the greater care for the education of his children In which charge Asser being recalled from Wales had the principal imployment and was vouchsafed the name of Schoolemaster to his children being two sonnes and three daughters by his one and only Queene No lesse tender was he in the trayning up and tutoring of the children of his Nobility under the same masters and in the same method of discipline For the perpetuall propagation of learning he revived and repaired the old and erected and endowed new Schooles and Colledges as so many seed plots and nurseries of Religion and vertue Some write that he did first institute the Vniversity of Oxford the institution of that famous Achademie was doubtlesse long before but if vivification and redemption from oblivion and ruine be proportionable to a worke of creation it is not a graine in the ballance who should deserve the greatest honour of that renowned Seminary either the first founder or Alfred the refounder For amidst the many mournefull demolitions of stately monuments by the Danish and Saxon warres Oxford had her deplorable part and sufferance in the exile of her Muses in her houses and structures All by warres laid wast and even with the dust little or nothing left to demonstrate what her former beauty had beene save onely the Monasterie of S. Frideswide For repairing the wasts and spoiles of that sacred place Alfred bestirres himselfe and there for the studies of Divinity Philosophy and other Artes did raise up the fabrick of three magnificent Colledges then called by the name of his schooles one for divinity another for Philosophy and a third for Grammer one of which three is now knowne by the name of Vniversity Colledge In this revived Seminary he designed and appointed severall Readers and Professors to whom hee allotted large and liberall stipends The first divinity reader was Neote the second sonne of his father by his Queene Iudith daughter of Charles the bald Emperour and King of France whom he married upon his second returne from Rome a man of admired learning to whose forwardnes and direction in the reëdification of this ancient Nursery that place did owe a special part of her being Asser as propense and zealous to his power in advising and furthering the perfection of that worke was the Grammar and Rhetoricke reader hither hee sent Aethelward his second son and first and last child who was borne about An. 880. And thereby gave example to al the greatest Nobles of his Kingdome to send their sons thither and to honour their education with the company of the young Prince This worke of restitution was begun saith one An. Dom. 874. And doubtlesse it could not be presently finished and furnished the government thereof began to flourish betweene the yeares 882. 883 about which time Grimbald was made in the presence of that victorious Prince the first Chancellor of that Vniversity to make this worke more absolute he obtained the grant of many priviledges unto the schollers of this place from Martin the second Pope of Rome which he confirmed with his own grant of many honourable infranchisements and immunities From the same Pope he obtained a relaxation of all tribute to the Saxon schoole at Rome As hee was every way royall and magnificent in this ever blessed act of restauration so he was studious in the preservation therof in peace and concord a great dissension and perillous about the yeare 886 arose amongst the schollers the parties in this faction were Grimbald and such learned men as he brought thither with him and the old schollers who had their abode there at the time of Grimbalds