the others to the whole sovereignty, and was your grandfather's
grandfather." And so passes on to the next facts, without a word as to
the claims of his own lineal ancestor, though he had paused in his
narrative at this point for the special purpose of introducing a little
family episode.

When Alfred had buried his brother in the cloisters of Wimborne Minster,
and had time to look out from his Dorsetshire resting-place, and take
stock of the immediate prospects and work which lay before him, we can
well believe that those historians are right who have told us that for
the moment he lost heart and hope, and suffered himself to doubt whether
God would by his hand deliver the afflicted nation from its terrible
straits. In the eight pitched battles which we find by the _Saxon
Chronicle_ (Asser giving seven only) had already been fought with the
pagan army, the flower of the youth of these parts of the West Saxon
kingdom must have fallen. The other Teutonic kingdoms of the island, of
which he was overlord, and so bound to defend, had ceased to exist
except in name, or lay utterly powerless, like Mercia, awaiting their
doom. Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, which were now an integral part of the
royal inheritance of his own family, were at the mercy of his enemies,
and he without a hope of striking a blow for them. London had been
pillaged, and was in ruins. Even in Wessex proper, Berkshire and
Hampshire, with parts of Wilts and Dorset, had been crossed and
recrossed by marauding bands, in whose track only smoking ruins and dead
bodies were found. "The land was as the garden of Eden before them, and
behind them a desolate wilderness." These bands were at this very moment
on foot, striking into new districts farther to the southwest than they
had yet reached. If the rich lands of Somersetshire and Devonshire, and
the yet unplundered parts of Wilts and Dorset, are to be saved, it must
be by prompt and decisive fighting, and it is time for a king to be in