All these innovations by the strong and fearless hand of Alfred conduced to the general disciplining of the nation, for the condition of the fleet could not but react upon the condition of the coast towns, and the condition of the coast towns, then the most important, and, with one or two exceptions, the most populous in the kingdom, naturally influenced the state of the entire country. All luxuries—all things, indeed, that ranked much above the bare necessaries of life—reached the interior from the coast towns, and it is notorious that even in much earlier ages the ports, civilised by intercourse with abroad, and full of rich merchants, set a fashion in all sorts of matters to the inland towns and villages. There came a time when the ports were rougher and less polished than the inland districts, but that was not until external influences had been digested by the country.
At the end of the ninth century, when Alfred lived and ruled, the king was still a man chosen to rule on account of his bravery and capacity. That he generally inherited his office was an accident. When he failed to prove himself worthy of it, he was seldom able to retain it for long. Alfred set up an unusually high standard of kingship, and it is greatly to the credit of his immediate successors that, viewed even by the side of him, they loom large as men well worthy of their position. Of Edward, Freeman truly enough says: "It is only the unequalled glory of his father which has condemned this prince, one of the greatest rulers that England ever beheld, to a smaller degree of popular fame than he deserves." As for Athelstan,[1] he exacted tribute from the Danish pirates, who, in spite of the efforts of Alfred and Edward, still held Northumbria; and, first of the English kings, he caused his alliance to be seriously valued and sought for abroad.
Both these monarchs fostered the fleet, which, indeed, under the latter of them must have reached unusual efficiency, as well as great numerical strength, if it be true, as the Saxon Chronicle relates, that Anlaff (Olaf), the Danish king in Ireland, carried to the aid of the Scots a larger fleet than had previously been seen in their waters, yet, with his allies, was crushingly defeated by Athelstan.
The reigns of Edmund, Edred, and Edwy, were less brilliant; but they can have witnessed little or no change in the prosecution of Offa's and Alfred's naval policy, for they immediately preceded the
- ↑ Will. of Malmesbury, ii. 6; Roger Hoveden.
