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The cult of King Alfred the Great

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Simon Keynes
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Extract

King Alfred the Great has long been regarded as the archetypal symbol of the nation's perception of itself. Beset throughout his reign with the reality or threat of Viking invasions, Alfred battled fiercely and suffered heroically in leading his people to their eventual victory; at the same time he promoted the causes of religion and learning, and by the example of his government upheld truth, justice and the Anglo-Saxon way. Moreover, although himself fundamentally English (with West Saxon parents and a Mercian wife), he stood for a combination of political interests which made it easier to pass him off as prototypically British. Certainly he has done well, over the years, from the processes which turn history into legend. It may have taken a while for the cult to get going; but once up and running, the bandwagon could not be stopped. My purpose in reviewing the development of the cult of King Alfred is to explore the variety of factors which in their different ways contributed to the process from the ninth century to the present day, and to show how Alfredophilia, and latterly Alfredomania, found expression not only in religious, legal, political and historical writing, but also in much else besides. The overdy ‘literary’ manifestations of the cult of King Alfred, in poetry, drama, music, and prose, are not unfamiliar; yet they must be taken in connection with manifestations of the cult of King Alfred in sculpture, painting, engraving, and book-illustration, and all placed in whatever contexts may be appropriate, if we are to understand how the image of the king was formed and then transmitted to the next generation.

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Research Article
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Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 28 , December 1999 , pp. 225 - 356
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 An unpublished lecture by Sir Frank Stenton, entitled ‘King Alfred and his Place in History’, was delivered at Wantage in 1949, and is preserved in the Library, Univ. of Reading, Stenton Papers 16/7. I am grateful to Michael Bott for supplying me with a photocopy of the typescript.

2 Davis, R. H. C., ‘Alfred the Great: Propaganda and Truth’, History 56 (1971), 169–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, repr. in his From Alfred the Great to Stephen (London, 1991), pp. 33–46.Google Scholar

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7 I have to thank my colleague, Professor David Dumville, for reminding me that the same distinction applies (under the wilder conditions of Irish history) to St Patrick. The 1500th anniversary of Patrick's death in 461 was celebrated, or rather contested, in 1961; the 1500th anniversary of his death in 493 was celebrated in 1993. For further explanation, see Dumville, D. N. et al. , Saint Patrick, A.D. 493–1993 (Woodbridge, 1993).Google Scholar

8 I should like to record my particular gratitude to the late Jeremy Maule (Trinity College, Cambridge) for discussion of the early modern period (and much else besides) in the early stages of this work, and to Dr Boyd Hilton, Dr David McKitterick, Mr William St Clair, and Dr Tessa Webber (also of Trinity College) for references and suggestions as I strayed further afield. I am also grateful to Dr Nigel Ramsay for reading this paper in typescript, and for making a number of valuable suggestions. Many other debts are mentioned where appropriate below. Papers based on aspects of this material were delivered at the University of Oxford in November 1998, at the University of Notre Dame and at the Newberry Library, Chicago, in March 1999, and at the meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, Notre Dame, in August 1999. I am grateful to Professors Rees Davies, Patrick Geary, Paul Szarmach, and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe for their cood offices in these connections.

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35 The account of Alfred in the vernacular chronicle attributed to Robert of Gloucester, written c. 1300, draws on William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, but makes more than they do of the significance of the (supposed) fact that Alfred was anointed king by Pope Leo in Rome. See The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, ed. Wright, W. A., 2 vols., RS 86 (London, 1887) I, xix and 387–94, at lines 5326–32Google Scholar; see also Gransden, , Historical Writing I, 405–6 and 432–8.Google Scholar

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86 See A Bibliography of English History to 1485, ed. Graves, E. B. (Oxford, 1975), p. 294Google Scholar, with references.

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96 ‘A merry songe of a kinge and a shepherd’ was entered on the Stationers’ Register for 25 Sept. 1578, and ‘King and shepperd’ was entered on 14 Dec. 1624; see Rollins, H. E., ‘An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries in the Register of the Company of Stationers of London’, Stud. in Phil. 21 (1924), 1–324, at 117–18 (nos. 1354 and 1358)Google Scholar. The ballad in question (a seventeenthcentury copy of which survives among the Roxburghe Ballads in the British Library [Rox. I. 504–5]) was incorporated in Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy, ed. D'Urfey, T., 6 vols. (London, 1719–1720)Google Scholar, repr. with an Introduction by Day, C. L., 6 vols. in 3 (New York, 1959) V, 289–97Google Scholar, and in Evans, T., Old Ballads, Historical and Narrative, new ed., rev. Evans, R. H., 4 vols. (London, 1810) II, 11–21Google Scholar. For an edition, see Chappell, W., The Roxburgbe Ballads III.i (Hertford, 1880), 211–19Google Scholar, with a woodcut of Alfred burning the cakes. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 48–52Google Scholar, and Lees, , Alfred the Great, pp. 456–7.Google Scholar

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115 ibid. pp. 348–9 [Egbert] and 356–9 [Alfred].

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138 University College, MS. 131 (‘Joan. Spelmanni notæ in vitam Ælfredi regis, 8vo’) was perhaps a volume of Spelman's working notes. University College 136 (‘Vita Ælfredi regis, primi monarchiæ Anglicanæ fundatoris, Anglicano sermone, folio’), if not an earlier manifestation of a local interest in King Alfred, was perhaps a copy of the finished work in its original English form. The descriptions are from Bernard, E., Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti (Oxford, 1697), p. Univ 5Google Scholar, cited by Coxe, H. O., Catalogus codicum MSS. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1852) 1, 38 (by which time both were missing).Google Scholar

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141 ibid. pp. 586–93. In both cases, Milton cites the Mirror of Justices.

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153 Sir Matthew Hale's The Prerogatives of the King, ed. Yale, D. E. C., Selden Soc. 92 (London, 1976).Google Scholar

154 Hale's ‘History of the Common Law’ was first published in 1713, repr. in 1716 and 1739. It is repr. from the 3rd ed. in Hale, M., The History of the Common Law of England, ed. Gray, C. M. (Chicago, 1971)Google Scholar; but cf. Yale, D. E. C., Hale as a Legal Historian, Selden Soc. Lecture (London, 1976), pp. 5–6Google Scholar, on the transmission of the text. See also Cromartie, Sir Matthew Hale, pp. 104–9.Google Scholar

155 Prerogatives of the King, ed. Yale, , pp. 19–20Google Scholar; History of the Common Law, ed. Gray, , pp. 5, 36–8, 42–3, 55–6, 62, 68–9 and 76 (and pp. 160–7, on trials by jury, without mention of Alfred)Google Scholar. For Hale and the Norman Conquest, see also ibid. pp. xxvii–xxviii; Prerogatives of the King, ed. Yale, , pp. xli–xliiGoogle Scholar; Cromartie, , Sir Matthew Hale, pp. 33–6.Google Scholar

156 In the early 1640s Hare, John, in his tract St Edwards Ghost, or Anti-Normanisme (London, 1647)Google Scholar, had developed a version of the ‘Norman Yoke’ which proposed the restoration of the laws of Edward the Confessor (Hill, , ‘The Norman Yoke’, pp. 72–4), though it might have been realized subsequently that it was better to maintain differentials between the Norman and the English regimes.Google Scholar

157 Petyt, W, The Antient Right of the Commons of England Asserted; or, A Discourse Proving by Records and the Best Historians that the Commons of England were Ever an Essential Part of Parliament (London, 1680), esp. Preface, pp. 1–75, at 6–16 (on ‘Saxon government’).Google Scholar

158 Brady's response to Petyt's tract was first published in 1681, and revised in Brady, R., An Introduction to the Old English History (London, 1684)Google Scholar; see also Brady, R., A Complete History of England (London, 1685), pp. 114–17Google Scholar. For Petyt and Brady, see Weston, , ‘England: Ancient Constitution and Common Law’, pp. 404–10Google Scholar. See also Douglas, D. C., English Scholars 1660–1730, 2nd ed. (London, 1951), pp. 119–38Google Scholar; Butterfield, , The Englishman and his History, pp. 75–8Google Scholar; Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, pp. 182–228Google Scholar; Smith, R. J., The Gothic Bequest: Medieval Institutions in British Thought, 1688–1863 (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 7–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hicks, P., Neoclassical History and English Culture: From Clarendon to Hume (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 82–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

159 For a conspectus of the arguments deployed c. 1690, see Goldie, M., ‘The Revolution of 1689 and the Structure of Political Argument: an Essay and an Annotated Bibliography of Pamphlets on the Allegiance Controversy’, Bull, of Research in the Humanities 83 (1980), 473–564, at 485–91 and 529.Google Scholar

160 Temple, W., An Introduction to the History of England (London, 1695), 3rd ed. (London, 1708)Google Scholar. for Temple, see the entry in DNB, and Steensma, R. C., ‘“So Ancient and Noble a Nation”: Sir William Temple's History of England’, NM 77 (1976), 95–107.Google Scholar

161 Above, p. 236.Google Scholar

162 The payments are recorded in the General Accounts for 1661/2 (UC:BU2/F1/1, 389r and 389v), cited by Poole, R. Lane, Catalogue of Portraits in the Possession of the University, Colleges, City, and County of Oxford, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1912–1926)Google Scholar II, 1, n. 1. A payment of £3 10s ‘for King Alfreds picture’, recorded in a private account book of Thomas Walker, Master of Univ 1632–48 and 1660–5, suggests, however, that the Master paid for the picture himself (UC:MA26/F4/1, 3v). I am most grateful to Dr Robin Darwall-Smith, Archivist of University College, for supplying and clarifying these references (letter, 4 Jan. 1999), and for determining that a further payment of £8 10s, ‘to the painter’, adduced in this connection by Lane Poole, probably had nothing to do with the picture of Alfred. A payment of 2s 6d was made in 1706 ‘for mending and varnishing King Alfred's picture’ (UC:BU5/F2/1, p. 3).Google Scholar

163 Cf. Hearne's remarks in his diary, 24 Feb. 1714: ‘I saw this morning in the Master of University College's Dining Room a Picture of K. Alfred, painted a pretty many Years agoe. But us nothing near as good as that I have printed from the Draught in Sr John Spelman's MS. ‘The Beard is also wrong, & it makes him look too old. There is not that Briskness neither in the Face as should be.’ (Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. Doble, C. E. et al. , 11 vols., Oxford Hist. Soc. 2, 7, 13, 34, 42–3, 48, 50, 65, 67, 72 (Oxford, 1885–1921) IV, 313–14Google Scholar.) In March 1721 Francis Wise addressed some queries on Alfredian matters to Arthur Charlen, including the age of the Cottonian manuscript of Asser and ‘the Age of the Picture of King Alfred in the Master's Lodgings at University’, which Charlett forwarded to Humfrey Wanley (BL, Add. 70477); Wanley dealt with the former, but avoided the latter (Letters of Wanley, ed. Heyworth, , pp. 423–5 (no. 217) and 431–2 (no. 220))Google Scholar. In 1728 William Smith alluded to a ‘very small’ painting of King Alfred in the Lodgings which was considered to be older than another painting of Alfred which by implication was not in the Lodgings (Annals of University-College [below, n. 461], p. 251).Google Scholar

164 See below, pp. 265 and 271. The engravings do not include the college's coat of arms, on which see above, n. 114.Google Scholar

165 The assumption derives from the fact that the portrait is not registered in Poole, Lane, Catalogue of Portraits II [1926]Google Scholar, even though the details of its origin in 1661–2 are given in a footnote (ibid. p. 1, n. 1).

166 For some of the classic examples of Caroline portraiture, see Ollard, R., The Image of the King: Charles I and Charles II (London, 1979)Google Scholar. For Charles I, see also Howarth, D., Images of Rule: Art and Politics in the English Renaissance, 1485–1649 (London, 1997), pp. 132–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and esp. Roberts, J., The King's Head. Charles I: King and Martyr, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1999).Google Scholar

167 The size and appearance of the portraits, the similar form of lettering on each, and the identical frames, suggest that they have long been hung as a pair; they were still regarded as a pair in 1902 (Carr, , University College, pp. 7 and 225)Google Scholar, and are recorded as a pair (though correctly identified) in the college inventory of 1943. The portrait of the queen conforms to the standard iconographic type for Elizabeth of York: see Strong, R., Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 2 vols. (London, 1969) I, 97–8. I am grateful to Lord Butler (Master of University College), Ms Christine Ritchie (Librarian of University College), and Dr Jane Cunningham (Courtauld Institute) for their good offices in connection with these portraits; and to the occupants of the Blue Room, in the Master's Lodgings, for tolerating an intrusion when I came to see the portraits in March 1999.Google Scholar

168 For the Bodleian picture gallery, see Waterhouse, E., ‘Paintings and Painted Glass’, The History of the University of Oxford, V: the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, L. S. and Mitchell, L. G. (Oxford, 1986), 857–64, at 857–9Google Scholar. I am grateful to Steven Tomlinson, Assistant Librarian, Bodleian Library, for his guidance in this connection.

169 The Bodleian portrait appears to be a cross between the engraving of the portrait made in 1661–2 and the engraving of a medieval painting, said to represent King Alfred, in St Albans cathedral, published in Spelman, Life of Alfred, ed. Walker, (1678)Google Scholar, pl. II. It was presumably one of the portraits of founders commissioned for the picture gallery, c. 1670, by Willem Sonmans (William Sunman), who died in 1708. For the date ‘872’, cf. Rous (above, pp. 236–7), who gives 873. A mezzotint of the Bodleian portrait was published in Faber, John, Founders of Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge (London, 1712–1714)Google Scholar, inscribed: ‘Alfredus Saxonum Rex Coll. Universitatis Oxon. Fundr. Circa Ao Chr. 872. Hujus summi Regis Effigiem a Tabula in Bibl. Bodleiana factam Reverendo Viro Arthuro Charlett S.T.P. et istius Collegii Magistro &c. Summa cum Humil. & Observantia D.D.D. J. Faber Ao 1712.’ A particularly fine reproduction of the portrait, in colour, was published in Ackermann, R., A History of the University of Oxford, its Colleges, Halls, and Public Buildings, 2 vols. (London, 1814) I, opp. p. 25.Google Scholar

170 For Obadiah Walker, see the account of his life in the DNB, and VCH Oxon III, 67–8Google Scholar. See also F[irth], A. E., ‘Obadiah Walker’, University College Record 1961, 95–106, and 1964, 261–73Google Scholar; Darwall-Smith, R., ‘Obadiah Walker in his own Words’, University College Record 1998, 56–68Google Scholar; Mitchell, L., ‘Obadiah Walker: Addendum’, University College Record 1998, 69–73Google Scholar; and Darwall-Smith, , University College: the First 750 Years, pp. 16–18.Google Scholar

171 Printed here from Walker's draft (UC:MA30/1/C/13). I am grateful to Dr Robin Darwall-Smith for supplying me with a photocopy. The letter is also cited by Newman, J., ‘The Architectural Setting’, The History of the University of Oxford, IV: Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke, N. (Oxford, 1997), pp. 135–77, at 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by Beddard, R. A., ‘Tory Oxford’, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke, , pp. 863–905, at 864.Google Scholar

172 Wase is named as the translator by Hearne, , Life of Alfred, p. 225. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge.Google Scholar

173 The draft of Walker's letter to Ashmole (UC:MA30/3/C7/1) is printed by Darwall-Smith, , ‘Obadiah Walker in his own Words’, p. 63.Google Scholar In the event, Walker published five engraved plates of coins, which are not in themselves unimportant in the history of Anglo-Saxon numismatics. The first (pl. III) shows the coins found at Harkirke, Lanes., in 1611 (Blackburn, M. and Pagan, H., ‘A Revised Check-List of Coin Hoards from the British Isles, c.500–1100’, Anglo-Saxon Monetary History, ed. Blackburn, M. A. S. (Leicester, 1986), pp. 291–313, at 295 and 303 (no. 92)Google Scholar, from a manuscript in Corpus Christi College, Oxford (MS. 255, 78v). The other four plates (pls. IV–VII) show a range of Anglo-Saxon coins from the collections of Sir John Cotton, Elias Ashmole, the Bodleian Library, and Dr Nicholas Jonston, but also including some said to be ‘apud nos’. The device on the ‘London Monogram’ type was interpreted by Walker as evidence that the Alfred who issued it was king of Northumbria; cf. Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , II, 189.Google Scholar

174 [Walker], Ælfredi Magni Anglorum regis invictissimi vita. Walker's own copy, with extensive annotations, is preserved in the library of University College, Oxford. The original copperplates for all seven of the engraved plates are preserved in the college archives (UC:MA30/2/AR/1–7). I am grateful to Ms Christine Ritchie for enabling me to examine the book in November 1998.

175 The notes include a text of the OE Coronation Oath, printed from ajunius transcript [Junius 60, 2r] of a (burnt) Cottonian manuscript [Cotton Vitellius A. vii] (p. 62)Google Scholar; an interesting discussion of the Alfredian church at Athelney described by William of Malmesbury (pp. 130–1, with diagram)Google Scholar, and some carefully chosen words on Alfred's foundation of Oxford University and of University College (p. 135).Google Scholar

176 The appendices include the Latin version of King Alfred's will (from Parker), the prose and verse prefaces to Alfred's translation of Gregory's Regula pastoralis (from Parker), a text of the West Saxon regnal table (from Whelock), a chronology of Alfred's life, a text of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan (presumably derived from a transcript of BL, Cotton Tiberius B. i), and an account of Alfred's descendants to King Charles II. See also Brewer, , ‘References to the Voyage of Ohthere’, p. 209.Google Scholar

177 Clark, A., The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632–1695, Described by Himself, 5 vols., Oxford Hist. Soc. 19, 21, 26, 30, 40 (Oxford, 1891–1900) II, 421–2 and 449Google Scholar; see also Beddard, , ‘Tory Oxford’, pp. 864–5Google Scholar, and Jones, , The English Nation, pp. 107–14.Google Scholar

178 The statue was given to the college by Dr Robert Plot, on his becoming a Fellow Commoner; see Smith, , Annals of University-College [below, n. 461], pp. 251–2Google Scholar, and VCH Oxon III, 77Google Scholar. David, Loggan's view of the rebuilt University College, published in his Oxonia Illustrata (1675)Google Scholar, shows the outer face of the gate-tower with two niches for statues, both then empty; see The Encyclopedia of Oxford, ed. Hibbert, C. (London, 1988), p. 475.Google Scholar

179 Clark, , Life and Times of Wood III, 35. Alfred was later replaced over the gate tower by Queen Anne, who remains in situ.Google Scholar

180 See the account of his career in the DNB, and the references cited above, nn. 170 and 177. In 1687–8 Walker published a number of Catholic tracts from a printing-press at Univ (Clark, , Life and Times of Wood III, 209, 218, 221Google Scholar), under an imprint with included King Alfred's head; see Carter, , History of the OUP, pp. 118–19Google Scholar, and Tyacke, N., ‘Religious Controversy’, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke, , pp. 569–619, at 610 and 614, with pl. 28.Google Scholar

181 A photograph of the statue in the rockery, taken in 1915 (Oxfordshire Photographic Archive, Central Library, Oxford), is reproduced in Rhodes, J., Oxford: the University in Old Photographs (Stroud, 1988)Google Scholar. See also VCH Oxon III, 77. The statue was still there in the 1940s, but is alas there no more.Google Scholar

182 Life of Alfred, ed. Hearne, , p. 190Google Scholar. The ancient stained glass in the west window has not survived; but for an account of it in the early seventeenth century, see Jackson, T. G., The Church of St. Mary the Virgin Oxford (Oxford, 1897), pp. 124 and 213–14.Google Scholar

183 The representations of King Alfred and King Æthelstan were engraved for Spelman, Life of Alfred, ed. Walker, , pl. II.Google Scholar The windows, which would appear to have originated c. 1600, were described by Hearne in 1724; see Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , VIII, 225Google Scholar. For their later history, cf. VCH Oxon III, 186–7.Google Scholar

184 Parker, M., Early History of Oxford, pp. 52–3.Google Scholar

185 There are engravings of the bust in Spelman, Life of Alfred, ed. Walker, , pl. I, and in Wise's edition of Asser (p. 1)Google Scholar. The portrait (given to the college in 1769) showed Alfred in a ‘red and ermine mantle over blue dress’, holding a partly unrolled scroll in his left hand (Poole, Lane, Catalogue of Portraits II, 243)Google Scholar; cf. below, n. 312. I am grateful to Mrs Elizabeth Boardman, College Archivist, Brasenose College, and Ms Maria Chevska, curator of pictures, for apprising me of its unfortunate fate.

186 For an excellent study of the wider context, see Fairer, D., ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, History of the University of Oxford: the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, and Mitchell, , pp. 807–29.Google Scholar

187 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 12 (S.C. 5124), 53 (S.C. 5165) and 70 (S.C. 5181). See also Stanley, E. G., ‘The Sources of Junius's Learning as Revealed in the Junius Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library’, Franciscus Junius F.F. and his Circle, ed. Bremmer, R. H. Jr, Stud. in Lit. 21 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA, 1998), 159–76, at 166–7, 169 and 170.Google Scholar

188 For an assessment of Thwaites's contribution, see Fairer, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, pp. 812–20.Google Scholar

189 Gibson, E., Chronicon Saxonicum (Oxford, 1692)Google Scholar. Gibson, Edmund (1669–1748)had entered The Queen's College in 1686Google Scholar. He also edited Reliquiœ Spelmannianœ (Oxford, 1698).Google Scholar

190 An. Manl. Sever. Boethi Consolations Philosophiae Libri V, Anglo-Saxonice redditi ab Alfredo, inclyto Anglo-Saxonum rege, ed. Rawlinson, C. (Oxford, 1698)Google Scholar. See Fairer, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, pp. 813–14Google Scholar. Rawlinson (1677–1733) entered The Queen's College in 1695, and worked with assistance from Thwaites.

191 For Elstob's Orosius, see Fairer, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, pp. 822–3Google Scholar, and Letters of Wanley, ed. Heyworth, , p. 46 n. 4. William Elstob (1673–1715) entered The Queen's College in 1691, and became a fellow of University College in 1696.Google Scholar

192 One of three notebooks containing the material gathered by the Elstobs for their edition of the laws is now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lang. c. 11 (S.C. 40391). For the Elstobs, see Gretsch, M., ‘Elizabeth Elstob: a Scholar's Fight for Anglo-Saxon Studies’, Anglia 117 (1999).Google Scholar

193 For Thwaites and his Orosius, see Fairer, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, p. 812Google Scholar. For the ‘Pastoral Care’, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawl. D. 377, fols. 86–7. See also A Chorus of Grammars, ed. Harris, R. L., Pub. of the Dictionary of Old English 4 (Toronto, 1992), 108.Google Scholar

194 For the ‘Benefactors’ Book’, see Darwall-Smith, , University College: the First 750 Years, pp. 5–6, with illustration showing the treatment of Alfred the Great and William of Durham on the opening page. I am informed by Dr Darwall-Smith that the last (? original) entry in the book is dated 1695, followed by two undated records which refer to Arthur Charlett, after which the book is blank.Google Scholar

195 For Wanley, see The Blackmell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Lapidge, M. et al. , (Oxford, 1999), pp. 466–7Google Scholar, and references; see also Gillam, S., ‘Humfrey Wanley and Arthur Charlett’, Bodleian Lib. Record 16.5 (1999), 411–29. One wonders whether Wanley might have had a hand in the production of the ‘Benefactors’ Book'.Google Scholar

196 Wanley to Hickes, 18 Feb. 1698 (Letters of Wanley, ed. Heyworth, , pp. 85–6Google Scholar); see also Fairer, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’, pp. 807–8.Google Scholar

197 Hickes, G. and Wanley, H., Antiquœ literaturœ septentrionalis libri duo (Oxford, 1703–1705), comprising Hickes's Linguarum vett. septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archœologicus (in vol. I) and Wanley's Librorum vett. septentrionalium, qui in Angliæ biblioth. extant, catalogus historico-criticus (in vol. II).Google Scholar

198 Hearne, T., The Life of Alfred the Great, by Sir John Spelman Kt (Oxford, 1709)Google Scholar. The sketch of Alfred which looms out of the page in Spelman's autograph manuscript (above, n. 137) was elaborated and engraved by Burghers for the frontispiece to Hearne's edition; but this portrait of the king made little impression on later Alfredian iconography. To judge from Hearne's own account (Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , II, 179–83, 184–5 and 438)Google Scholar, he prepared his edition c. 1705, and intended it as an expression of his gratitude to University College for kindnesses received; yet Dr Charlett, Master of Univ, was obstructive, in part because Hearne's edition was not dedicated to him, but also because he objected to the portrait (ibid. VIII, 39), evidendy preferring the one in his own Lodgings, later engraved for Wise's edition of Asser (above, pp. 261–2, and below, p. 271)Google Scholar. See also Harmsen, T., ‘Bodleian Imbroglios, Politics and Personalities, 1701–16: Thomas Hearne, Arthur Charlett and John Hudson’, Neophilologus 82 (1998), 149–68, at 153 and 155–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

199 For his diaries, and a digest of his correspondence, see Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , described, with his other papers, in the Bodleian Library Summary Catalogue, under the Rawlinson collection. For Hearne's letters to James WestGoogle Scholar, see A Catalogue of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum II (London, 1819), 174–81Google Scholar. For a catalogue of his library, see Antiquaries, ed. Piggott, S., Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons 10 (London, 1974), 201–402Google Scholar. For his publications, see Carter, , History of the OUP, pp. 263–9.Google Scholar

200 Hearne, , Life of Ælfred the Great, pp. 144, n. 1 and 177 [–80], n. 4.Google Scholar

201 Keynes, S., ‘The Discovery and First Publication of the Alfred Jewel’, Somerset Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. 136 (1993 for 1992), 1–8Google Scholar; MacGregor, A. G. and Turner, A. J., ‘The Ashmolean Museum’, History of the University of Oxford: the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, and Mitchell, , pp. 639–58, at 649Google Scholar; and S. Piggott, ‘Antiquarian Studies’, ibid. pp. 757–77, at 771. For the history of Alfred at Oxford in the later eighteenth century, see further below, pp. 322–4.Google Scholar

202 On the emergence of ‘British’ identity in the eighteenth century, see Colley, L., Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992)Google Scholar; see also O'Gorman, F., The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688–1832 (London, 1997), pp. 96–101Google Scholar, and Hastings, A., The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge, 1997), esp. pp. 35–65 (‘England as Prototype’), at 61–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

203 Keynes, S., ‘England, 700–900’, The New Cambridge Medieval History, II: c.700–c.900, ed. McKitterick, R. (Cambridge, 1995), 18–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Encyclopaedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al. , p. 74.Google Scholar

204 Above, pp. 247–8.Google Scholar For further discussion, see Hill, , ‘The Norman Yoke’, pp. 95–9Google Scholar; Horsman, R., ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850’, Jnl of the Hist. of Ideas 37 (1976), 387–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Newman, G., The Rise of English Nationalism: a Cultural History 1740–1830 (London, 1987), pp. 183–91 and 229–30Google Scholar; and Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, esp. pp. 98–102.Google Scholar

205 Wilkins, D., Leges Anglo-Saxonicœ ecclesiasticæ & civiles (London, 1721). Wilkins was of Prussian origin (born Wilke), and is said to have been blessed with ‘a width of erudition purchased with a certain want of accuracy’ (DNB).Google Scholar

206 Smith, J., Historiae ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum libri quinque, auctore Sancto & Venerabili Baeda (Cambridge, 1722).Google Scholar

207 Wise, F., Annales rerum gestarum Ælfredi Magni, auctore Asserio Menevensi (Oxford, 1722).Google Scholar Wise (1695–1767) was a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. For his suggestion, made in 1738, that the White Horse of Uffington commemorated the English victory at Ashdown in 871, see Piggott, , ‘Antiquarian Studies’, History of the University of Oxford: the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, and Mitchell, , pp. 757–77, at 765–70.Google Scholar

208 For a portrait of Vertue as engraver, in the Society of Antiquaries of London, see Einberg, E., Manners & Morals: Hogarth and British Painting 1700–1760, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1987), pp. 56–7 (no. 30)Google Scholar; see also p. 93 (no. 71).Google Scholar

209 There was no spirit of friendship between Wise and Hearne. In 1719 Wise (described by Hearne as ‘a Pretender to Antiquities’) had got the post of Second Librarian (Under-Keeper) in the Bodleian Library which had been denied to Hearne because of his refusal to take the oaths (Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , VII, 81)Google Scholar. This naturally affected Hearne's feelings towards Wise. Hearne was thus bound to have a low opinion of Wise's Asser, which he thought had been done ‘purely out of opposition to me’ (ibid. VIII, 30, 39–40 and 322, and IX, 121–2 and 123–4). Wise narrowly failed to become Bodley's Librarian in 1729, to Hearne's evident pleasure (ibid. X, 207).

210 The coat of arms (a cross potent fitched at foot) is a variation of the cross patonce or cross flory which represented the kingdom of all England, and was used for kings from Egbert to Eadwig, including Alfred (above, n. 114). The cross flory returns in a later version of Vertue's portrait (pl. IIb)

211 For Rapin, see Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘A Huguenot Historian: Paul Rapin’, Huguenots in Britain and their French Background, 1550–1800, ed. Scouloudi, I. (Basingstoke, 1987), pp. 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hicks, , Neoclassical History and English Culture, pp. 146–50.Google Scholar

212 Thoyras, P. de Rapin, The History of England, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil I (London, 1728), preface.Google Scholar

213 Thoyras, P. de Rapin, Histoire d'Angleterre, 8 vols. (The Hague, 1724–1727).Google Scholar

214 Thoyras, P. de Rapin, The History of England, as well Ecclesiastical as Civil I–II (London, 1726–1728).Google Scholar Vol. I [Julius Caesar – Edward the Martyr] is dated 1728, and was dedicated to Thomas, Lord Howard, Baron of Effingham. Vol. II.i [Æthelred II – Harold II, with the dissertation on the government of the Anglo-Saxons], dated 1726, and II.ii [William I – Stephen], dated 1728, was dedicated to Sir Charles Wager. For the manner and success of the publication, see Wiles, R. M., Serial Publication in England before 1750 (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 96–7, 197 and 276–7.Google Scholar

215 Thoyras, P. Rapin de [sic], The History of England, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1732–1733)Google Scholar, originally published in weekly parts. For the folio edition, see Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, pp. 106–8 and 285. Illustradons were added by subscription, from 1733 to 1736 (below, n. 293).Google Scholar

216 Thoyras, P. Rapin de, The History of England, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1743)Google Scholar, originally published in weekly parts (Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, p. 335).Google Scholar

217 An Abridgement of the History of England; being a Summary of Mr. Rapin's History and Mr. Tindal's Continuation, from the Landing of Julius Casar, to the Death of King George I, 3 vols. (London, 1747)Google Scholar, in which the narrative was reduced to single-sentence paragraphs, with marginal dates, though retaining some extended prose on ‘The Character of Alfred the Great’ (I, 39–45).Google Scholar

218 Lockman, J., A New History of England, by Question and Answer, extracted from the Most Celebrated English Histories, particularly M. Rapin de Thoyras (London, 1729)Google Scholar, which reached its 5th ed. in 1740, its 10th in 1758, its 15th in 1768, its 20th in 1784, and its 25th in 1811. For the illustrations which first appeared in the 6th ed. (1747), see below, p. 305.Google Scholar For Lockman, (1698–1771), see the DNB.Google Scholar For a similar work by Mangnall, Richmal (1769–1820), see below, n. 514.Google Scholar

219 Butterfield, , The Englishman and his History, pp. 90–6.Google Scholar

220 Rapin, , History of England, 2nd ed. I, 90–7 (on Alfred), at 92Google Scholar, n. 6: ‘She having one Day set a Cake on the Coals, and being busied about something else, the Cake happen'd to be burnt; upon which she fell a scolding at the King for his Carelessness in not looking after the Cake, which she told him he could eat fast enough. Alfred was then sitting in the Chimney-corner, making Bows and Arrows, and other warlike Instruments. Asser. Vit. Alfr. p. 9.’). Cf. Thoyras, de Rapin, Histoire d'Angleterre I, 307.Google Scholar

221 For a contemporary assessment of Prince Frederick, albeit from an interested party, see Horace Walpole:Memoirs of George II, ed. Brooke, J., 3 vols. (New Haven, CT, 1985) I, pp. 50–5.Google Scholar

222 Extended modern studies are: Young, G., Poor Fred: the People's Prince (Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar; Edwards, A., Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales (London, 1947)Google Scholar; and De-la-Noy, M., The King Who Never Was: the Story of Frederick, Prince of Wales (London, 1996).Google Scholar See also Jones, S., Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his Circle, Exhibition Catalogue [Gainsborough's House] (Sudbury, 1981)Google Scholar; Newman, A. N., ‘The Political Patronage of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales’, Hist. Jnl 1 (1958), 68–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langford, P., A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 36–7, 47–8 and 340Google Scholar; and Colley, , Britons, p. 206.Google Scholar

223 Among contemporary portraits of Prince Frederick, several in the Royal Collection are reproduced with discussion in Lloyd, C., The Quest for Albion: Monarchy and the Patronage of British Painting, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1998).Google Scholar

224 Philippe Mercier (1689–1760), ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his Sisters making Music at Kew’, reproduced with discussion in Laing, A., In Trust for the Nation: Paintings from National Trust Houses, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1995), pp. 56–7.Google Scholar

225 MacDougall, , Racial Myth in English History, pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

226 SirBlackmore, Richard, Alfred: an Epick Poem in Twelve Books (London, 1723).Google Scholar For Blackmore's life and works, see the DNB. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 52–7Google Scholar; and Simmons, C. A., ‘The Historical Sources of Sir Richard Blackmore's Alfred’, ELN 26 (1988), 18–23.Google Scholar

227 Blackmore, , Alfred, pp. xli–xliii.Google Scholar

228 See further below, n. 293. For Vertue and Prince Frederick, see Clayton, T., The English Print 1688–1802 (New Haven, CT, 1997), pp. 172–3.Google Scholar

229 Gunnis, R., Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660–1851 (London, 1953), rev. ed. (London, 1968), pp. 333–8Google Scholar; Webb, M. I., Michael Rysbrack, Sculptor (London, 1954), pp. 145–6Google Scholar; Eustace, K., Michael Rysbrack Sculptor 1694–1770, Exhibition Catalogue (Bristol, 1982), pp. 135–7 and 173Google Scholar; and Eustace, K., ‘Stowe and the Development of the Historical Portrait Bust’, Apollo 148 [no. 437] (07 1998), 31–40, at 37.Google Scholar For Queen Caroline and the arts, see Millar, O., The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (London, 1963), pp. 27–8. The terracotta bust of Alfred (known from a photograph, reproduced in Eustace, Rysbrack, fig. 51), with others in the same series, fetched up on a shelf in the Orangery at Windsor Castle, and was destroyed when the shelf collapsed in 1906. There is an engraving, dated 1785, of a portrait of King Alfred as one of a series of royal portraits at Kensington Palace.Google Scholar

230 Millar, , The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, pp. 28–30Google Scholar; Rorschach, K., ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), as Collector and Patron’, Walpole Soc. 55 (1989–1990), 1–76Google Scholar; Rorschach, K., ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales: Taste, Politics and Power’, Apollo 134 [no. 356] (10 1991), 239–45.Google Scholar

231 Rorschach, , ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), as Collector and Patron’, esp. pp. 21–6Google Scholar; Harris, J., ‘A Carlton House Miscellany: William Kent and Carlton House Garden’, Apollo 134 [no.356] (10 1991), 251–3.Google Scholar

232 Walpole: Memoirs of King George II, ed. Brooke, I, 50.Google Scholar

233 The Octagon Temple drew architectural inspiration from Lord Burlington's Palladian villa at Chiswick, built in the 1720s, on which see The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington: his Villa and his Garden at Chiswick, Exhibition Catalogue (New Haven, CT, 1994).Google Scholar

234 According to a note in a contemporary publication, Rysbrack had finished ‘the two fine Statues, which are to be erected on two marble Pedestals in the Octagon of the Garden of his R. H. the Prince of Wales in Pall-Mall’ by July 1735 (London Mag. 07 1735, 390).Google Scholar The inscription on the pedestal of the statue of Alfred read as follows: ‘Alfredo Magno, / Anglorum Reipublicæ Libertatisque / Fundatori / Justo, Forti, Bono, / Legislatori, Duci, Regi, / Artium Musarumque / Fautori Eruditissimo, / Patriæ Patri / Posuit / F.W.P. / MDCCXXXV’ (ibid.). In 1736 Prince Frederick paid Rysbrack £105 for the marble busts of Alfred and the Black Prince; see Webb, , Rysbrack, pp. 156 and 210Google Scholar, and Eustace, , ‘Stowe and the Development of the Historical Portrait Bust’, p. 38.Google ScholarRorschach, , ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), as Collector and Patron’, pp. 24–5, suggests that the statues were by the staircase of the Octagon Temple.Google Scholar

235 For William Woollett (1735–85), appointed Engraver to King George III in 1775, see Clayton, , The English Print, pp. 210–11Google Scholar; his engraving of the garden at Carlton House is reproduced ibid. p. 164.

236 The battered and restored statue of a bearded king which stands in Trinity Church Square, Southwark, London S.E.1, is presumed by some to be Prince Frederick's Alfred, from Carlton House, but is supposed by others to be from the Palace of Westminster, c. 1400.

237 The position of the Octagon Temple, at the eastern end of Carlton House gardens, can be seen in Rocque's map of London (1746), reproduced in Rorschach, ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), as Collector and Patron’, fig. 39, and in Jones, , Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his Circle, p. 13.Google Scholar This map can be compared with maps in Carlton House: the Past Glories of George IV's Palace, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1991), inside front and back covers, showing the house and gardens in 1799 and showing the house superimposed on a modern street plan of the same area.Google Scholar

238 For Bolingbroke's text, which itself makes no reference to Alfred, see Bolingbroke: Political Writings, ed. Armitage, D. (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 217–94Google Scholar; see also Lord Bolingbroke: Contributions to the ‘Craftsman’, ed. Varey, S. (Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar For pertinent comment, see Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 57–70Google Scholar; Langford, , England 1727–1783, p. 222Google Scholar; and esp. Gerrard, C., The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725–1742 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 185–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

239 The Complete Poetical Works of James Thomson, ed. Robertson, J. L. (Oxford, 1908), pp. 107 and 378Google Scholar; Thomson, J., Liberty, The Castle of Indolence, and Other Poems, ed. Sambrook, J. (Oxford, 1986), p. 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomson, J., The Seasons and the Castle of Indolence, ed. Sambrook, J. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 77 and 225.Google Scholar

240 For Alfred: a Masque, see Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 58–62Google Scholar; Grant, D., James Thomson: Poet of ‘The Seasons’ (London, 1951), pp. 169–94Google Scholar; McKillop, A. D., ‘The Early History of Alfred’, PQ 41 (1962), 311–24Google Scholar; Alfred: a Masque written by David Mallet and James Thomson, set to Music by Thomas Augustine Arne, ed. Scott, A., Musica Britannica 47 (London, 1981), pp. xv–xxGoogle Scholar; Burden, M., ‘A Mask for Politics: The Masque of Alfred’, Music Rev. 48 (1988), 21–30, at 26–7Google Scholar; and Gerrard, , Patriot Opposition, p. 117.Google Scholar See also Cliveden, National Trust Guide (London, 1994), pp. 16–19. A CD recording of extended excerpts from the masque was published by the BBC Music Mag. in June 1997. The masque was performed by Bampton Classical Opera, in the Deanery Garden, Bampton, in July 1998.Google Scholar

241 Rorschach, , ‘Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–51), as Collector and Patron’, pp. 27–31, citing Vertue's notes in BL, Add. 19027, 80r.Google Scholar

242 See Gerrard, , Patriot Opposition; esp. pp. 102–7 and 116–21Google Scholar, and O'Gorman, , The Long Eighteenth Century, pp. 71–86.Google Scholar

243 Lees-Milne, J., Earls of Creation: Five Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (London, 1962, new ed. London, 1986), pp. 23–8Google Scholar; see also Burke, J., English Art 1714–1800 (Oxford, 1976), p. 50Google Scholar, and McCarthy, M., The Origins of the Gothic Revival (New Haven, CT, 1987), p. 27Google Scholar and pl. 21. The place where King Alfred stayed on the eve of the battle of Edington in 878, formerly identified as ‘Oakley Wood’ (among other places), is now identified as Iley Oak, near Warminster, Wilts. (Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’, ed. Stevenson, , pp. 270–2Google Scholar; Keynes, and Lapidge, , Alfred the Great, p. 249).Google Scholar

244 Eustace, , ‘Stowe and the Development of the Historical Portrait Bust’Google Scholar; Webb, , Rysbrack, pp. 135–6Google Scholar; Clarke, G., ‘Grecian Taste and Gothic Virtue: Lord Cobham's Gardening Programme and its Iconography’, Apollo 97 (06 1973), 566–71Google Scholar; Bevington, M., Stowe: the Garden and the Park, 2nd ed. (Stowe, 1995), pp. 37–8 and 94–6Google Scholar; and Robinson, J. M., Temples of Delight: Stowe Landscape Gardens, National Trust (London, 1990; new ed., 1994), pp. 90–3Google Scholar, with illustrations. See also Stowe Landscape Gardens, National Trust Guide (London, 1997), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

245 See Descriptions of Lord Cobham's Gardens at Stowe (1700–1750), ed. Clarke, G. B., Buckinghamshire Record Soc. 26 (Aylesbury, 1990), 11, 75, 90, 107, 116 and 138.Google Scholar

246 Samuel Johnson: Poems, ed. McAdam, E. L. with Milne, G., Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson 6 (New Haven, CT, 1964), 45–61, at 60–1.Google Scholar

247 Boswell: Life of Johnson, ed. Chapman, R. W., 3rd ed., rev. Fleeman, J. D. (Oxford, 1970), p. 128.Google Scholar In 1781 Thomas Astle sent Johnson some notes on King Alfred's will: see Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, , p. 77.Google Scholar

248 George, Lord Lyttelton, The History of the Life of Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he Lived, in Five Books: to which is prefixed, A History of the Revolutions of England from the Death of Edward the Confessor to the Birth of Henry the Second, 3 vols. (London, 1767–1771), esp. II, 165 (navy), 175–6 (trade), 257 (slavery), 259 (view of Frankpledge) and 322 (learning).Google Scholar

249 The painting is now in the Frick Collection, New York. See Uglow, J., Hogarth: a Life and a World (London, 1997), pp. 363–5Google Scholar, and Eustace, , ‘Stowe and the Development of the Historical Portrait Bust’, p. 39.Google Scholar

250 For the Jacobite jingle (‘Here lies poor Fred, who was alive and is dead …’), see Young, , Poor Fred, pp. 219–24.Google Scholar Prince Frederick's death was marked by the publication of numerous odes; and it is represented also by a pottery figure ‘Britannia mourning for Frederick, Prince of Wales’ (British Museum), reproduced in Jones, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his Circle, p. 27.Google Scholar See also Langford, , England 1727–1783, pp. 220–1.Google Scholar

251 Guthrie, W., A General History of England, from the Invasion of the Ramans under Julius Cœsar, to the Late Revolution in MDCLXXXVIII, 4 vols. (London, 1744–1751)Google Scholar, originally published in weekly parts (Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, pp. 148 and 339)Google Scholar. The plates are in the form of engraved portraits, for rulers from William I onwards. For Guthrie (1707–70), see Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 55–6Google Scholar, and Hicks, , Neoclassical History and English Culture, pp. 155–8.Google Scholar

252 Bernard, J. P. et al. , A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical in which a New and Accurate Translation of that of the Celebrated Mr. Boyle is Included, 10 vols. (London, 1734–1741) I, 493–505 (on Alfred)Google Scholar; Biographia Britannica: or, The Lives of the Most Eminent Persons who have Flourished in Great Britain and Ireland, from the Earliest Ages, down to the Present Times, 6 vols. in 7 (London, 1747–1766) I, 45–57 (on Alfred)Google Scholar. See also Ryland, J., The Life and Character of Alfred the Great (London, 1784), said to have been ‘drawn from the more ample view of him in the first volume in folio of the Biographia Britannica, with other authors’, which I have not seen.Google Scholar

253 For the complex bibliography of this work, see Jessop, T. E., A Bibliography of David Hume and of Scottish Philosophy (London, 1938), pp. 27–33Google Scholar. For an exposition of Hume's historical writing, see Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 74–84Google Scholar, and Hicks, , Neoclassical History and English Culture, pp. 170–209.Google Scholar

254 Smollett, T., A Complete History of England, 4 vols. (London, 1757–1758), republished in weekly parts as 2nd ed. (London, 1758)Google Scholar. On the popularity of this work, see Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

255 Hume, D., The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 6 vols. (London, 1759–1762), new ed. in 8 vols. (London, 1778), reset in 6 vols.Google Scholar, with a Foreword by Todd, W. B., Liberty Classics (Indianapolis, IN, 1983) I, 63–81Google Scholar. An abridged edition of Hume's, History (Chicago, 1975), which does not include coverage of the Anglo-Saxon period, has an Introduction by R. W. Kilcup.Google Scholar

256 E.g. Hume, , History of England [1983] 1, 168–9 and 185Google Scholar. See also Skinner, , ‘History and Ideology’, pp. 155 and 177.Google Scholar

257 The Sovereignty of the Law: Selections from Blackstone's ‘Commentaries on the Laws of England’, ed. Jones, G. (London, 1973), pp. 46–8, 176 and 209–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Blackstone, see also Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 91–4.Google Scholar

258 See, in general, Miles, , King Alfred in LiteratureGoogle Scholar; Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’Google Scholar; Frank, R., ‘The Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet’, Bull. of the John Rylands Univ. Lib. of Manchester 75 (1993), 11–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pratt, L., ‘Anglo-Saxon Attitudes?: Alfred the Great and the Romantic National Epic’, Literary Appropriations of the Anglo-Saxons from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Scragg, D. and Weinberg, C., CSASE 29 (Cambridge, 2000), 138–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Miles, (pp. 2–3)Google Scholar cites Arnold, J. Loring, ‘King Alfred in English Poetry’, PhD Dissertation, Univ. of Leipzig (Meiningen, 1898), which I have not seen.Google Scholar

259 See Colley, L., ‘Radical Patriotism in Eighteenth-Century England’, Patriotism: the Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, ed. Samuel, R., 3 vols. (London, 1989) I, 169–87, at 172–3, for an almanac issued by one of the Anti-Gallicans in 1750–1, featuring a print which listed the pre-Conquest rulers of England.Google Scholar

260 Alfred the Great, Deliverer of his Country: a Tragedy (London, 1753)Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 63–5Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 432–3.Google Scholar

261 [Chatterton, T.], Poems, Supposed to have been Written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, and Others, in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1777)Google Scholar; see also Chatterton, T., The Rowley Poems 1794 (Oxford and New York, 1990).Google Scholar

262 The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton: a Bicentenary Edition, ed. Taylor, D. S. with Hoover, B. B., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1971) I, 72Google Scholar (Battle of Hastings II, lines 135–8Google Scholar) and 273 (draft of a letter to Horace Walpole, April 1769).

263 An Historical Essay on the English Constitution: or, An Impartial Inquiry into the Elective Power of the People, fromthe First Establishment ofthe Saxons in this Kingdom, wherein the Right of Parliament, to Tax our Distant Provinces, is Explained, and Justified (London, 1771), esp. pp. 22–33Google Scholar. For exposition of this work, see Newman, , The Rise of English Nationalism, pp. 185–9Google Scholar, and Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 100–2.Google Scholar

264 Bicknell, A., The Life of Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1777)Google Scholar. See Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, p. 419.Google Scholar

265 Bicknell, A., The Patriot King: or Alfred and Elvida. An Historical Tragedy (London, 1788)Google Scholar, soon adapted for performance in Germany and provided with incidental music by Joseph Haydn (Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, p. 423, n. 47)Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfredin Literature, pp. 69–71.Google Scholar

266 [Home, L.], Alfred A Tragedy. As Performed at the Theatre-Royal, in Covent-Garden (Dublin, 1777; London, 1778)Google Scholar. For a synopsis of the plot, see Miles, , KingAlfred in Literature, pp. 66–9.Google Scholar

267 Holmes, R., Alfred. An Ode. With Six Sonnets (Oxford, 1778).Google Scholar

268 Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, National Trust Guide (London, 1988, rev. 1998), p. 55Google Scholar; I am grateful to Ms Jill Banks, Archivist, Kedleston Hall, for her assistance in this connection. If only to judge from the portrait, ‘Ethelred’ was modelled on a Helmet penny of Æthelred II. Medallions of Alfred and Ethelred were among the items sold at the sale of the effects of a sculptor called Bridges in 1775 (Gunnis, , Dictionary of British Sculptors, p. 61).Google Scholar

269 The painting, made in 1776 by Antonio Zucchi (1726–95), shows Britannia, enthroned between Faith and Justice, being presented by Fame with portraits of Alfred the Great and Elizabeth I. Zucchi was working for Robert Adam, on behalf of Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Home. See Whinney, M., Home House: No. 20 Portman Square (Feltham, 1969), pp. 39–40Google Scholar, with plate on p. 94, and Croft-Murray, , Decorative Painting in England II, 298. The portrait of Alfred was based on the image devised by Vertue.Google Scholar

270 An inscription on a tablet in the wall read as follows: ‘To the Memory of / Alfred the Great / The Wise, the Pious and Magnanimous / The Friend of / Science, Virtue, Law, and Liberty / This Monument /Jeremiah Dixon of Allerton / Gledhow caused to be erected / A.D. MDCCLXIX.’ I am grateful to Chris Solomon for drawing my attention to ‘Alfred's Castle’; to Vivien Cartwright (Local Studies Library, Central Library, Leeds) for providing me with presscuttings (and a photograph of part of the structure taken shortly before it was demolished in May 1946); and to Brett Harrison (The Thoresby Society, Leeds) for providing me with a photograph of the inscription (from a lantern slide made in 1888). Jeremiah Dixon (1726–82) was High Sheriff of the county in 1758, and was made an FRS in 1773; he had bought the Gledhow estate in 1764. For the inscription on his tomb in the parish church of Leeds, see Whitaker, T. D., Loidis and Elmete; or, An Attempt to Illustrate the Districts Described in those Words by Bede (Leeds, 1816), p. 57Google Scholar, with pedigree of Dixon at pp. 130–1. See also Taylor, R. V., The Biographia Leodiensis; or, Biographical Sketches of the Worthies of Leeds and Neighbourhood, from the Norman Conquest to the Present Time (London, 1865), pp. 181–3.Google Scholar

271 Six Odes Presented to that Justly-Celebrated Historian, Mrs. Catharine Macaulay, on her Birth-Day, and Publicly Read to a Polite and Brilliant Audience, Assembled April the Second, at Alfred-House, Bath, to Congratulate that Lady on the Happy Occasion (Bath, [1777]), esp. pp. 17–19, 35–8 and 39–45Google Scholar. For ‘Alfred House’, built c. 1772, see Ison, W., Georgian Buildings of Bath from 1700 to 1830, rev. ed. (Bath, 1980), pp. 7, 27, 97–9, 156–7 and 198Google Scholar (showing the bust of Alfred, displaying all the features of its Vertue/Rysbrack model, over the Adamesque doorcase). For an account of her writings, see Hill, B., The Republican Virago: the Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian (Oxford, 1992), esp. pp. 31–2 and 79–80.Google Scholar

272 d'Arnaud, F. T. M. Baculard, Délassements de l'homme sensible, ou anecdotes diverses, 6 vols. (Paris, 1783) I.i, 1–16Google Scholar (with no indication of source). See Dawson, R. L., Baculard d'Arnaud: Life and Prose Fiction, 2 vols., Stud. on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 141–2 (Banbury, 1976) II, 474–518 (Baculard's medievalism) and 677–9Google Scholar (Délassements); see also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, p. 111Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 427–8.Google Scholar

273 See further below, pp. 300–1.

274 ‘The Story of Alfred and Ethelwitha: with an Interesting Scene, Designed by Stothard’, Universal Mag. of Knowledge and Pleasure (January, 1784), pp. 29–32.Google Scholar

275 For example, in Alfred: an Historical Tragedy (London, 1789)Google Scholar, on which see Miles, , King Alfredin Literature, pp. 71–2Google Scholar, and in Fuller's novel (next note); also cited in Observations on the Life and Character of Alfred the Great (1794), on which see further below.

276 Fuller, A., The Son of Ethelwolf: an Historical Tale (London, 1789)Google Scholar, Preface: ‘Heaven has restored to you a father, to England a sovereign, worthy of the tears that were recendy shed for him, and of the happiness that his recovery now inspires.’ For an effective discussion of the novel, see Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 427–31.Google Scholar

277 Lessons to a Young Prince, on the Present Disposition in Europe to a General Revolution (London, 1790).Google Scholar

278 The author of the tract was the Welsh radical David Williams (1738–1816). For his use of Alfred, see Jones, W. R. D., David Williams: the Anvil and the Hammer (Cardiff, 1986), esp. pp. 73Google Scholar (in A Plan of Association on Constitutional Principles (1780)), 109–12Google Scholar (in Lesson to a Young Prince (1790)), and 151Google Scholar (in Egeria, or Elementary Studies on the Progress of Nations in Political Oeconomy, Legislation, and Government (London, 1803)).Google Scholar

279 For further discussion, see Horsman, R., Race and Manifest Destiny: the Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA, 1981), pp. 9–24Google Scholar; Hauer, S. R., ‘Thomas Jefferson and the Anglo-Saxon Language’, PMLA 98 (1983), 879–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Frantzen, A. J., Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990), esp. pp. 204–7.Google Scholar

280 Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, 8 vols. (Washington, DC, 1959–1981) I, 28. I owe my knowledge of the Alfred's, existence to the kindness of Professor Richard Abels, of the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.Google Scholar

281 von Haller, A., Alfred König der Angel-Sachsen (Göttingen and Bern, 1773)Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 109–11Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 417–18.Google Scholar

282 von Haller, A., Alfred, roi des Anglo-Saxons (Lausanne, 1775).Google Scholar

283 Penn, J., The Battle of Eddington; or, British Liberty. A Tragedy (London, 1792), 2nd ed. (London, 1796)Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 73–4Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, p. 424, n. 48.Google Scholar

284 [Anon.], Observations on the Life and Character of Alfred the Great (London, 1794)Google Scholar. The tale of Alfred and Ethelwitha was derived from Baculard d'Arnaud (above, n. 275). For the publisher, see the DNB, and Davis, M. T., ‘“That Odious Class of Men Called Democrats”: Daniel Isaac Eaton and the Romantics 1794–1795’, History 84 (1999), 74–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

285 O'Keeffe, J., Dramatic Works, 4 vols. (London, 1798) IV, 195–267Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfredin Literature, pp. 74–6Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 424, n. 49, 426–7 and 437.Google Scholar

286 For an account of this performance, see Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

287 Diary of Joseph Farington [below, n. 443] III, 1055–6.

288 Cartwright, J., An Appeal, Civil and Military, on the Subject of the English Constitution (London, 1799)Google Scholar. For Cartwright, see the DNB, and Osborne, J. W., John Cartwright (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; see also Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 137–9Google Scholar, and Simmons, , Reversing the Conquest, pp. 36–9.Google Scholar

289 On the popularity of history in the eighteenth century, see Langford, , England 1727–1783, pp. 96–9Google Scholar, and Brewer, , Pleasures of the Imagination, pp. 181–2Google Scholar. The Universal History mentioned by Langford had first appeared (part by part) in 7 folio volumes (1736–44), ranging widely across the ancient world (though including an account of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in VII.1, 438–55). An edition ranging across the modern world first appeared in 44 octavo volumes (1759–66), but did not cover Great Britain. A revised edition of the modern part, in 42 octavo volumes (1780–84), gave belated coverage to England, Scotland and Ireland (XXXIX–XLII); and Anglo-Saxon England is given relatively short shrift (XXXIX, 1–47, at 14–19 (Alfred)). See Abbattista, G., ‘The Business of Paternoster Row: Towards a Publishing History of the Universal History (1736–65)’, Publishing Hist. 17 (1985), 5–50.Google Scholar

290 Above, n. 213. The portraits include King Egbert (opp. p. 213), King Alfred (opp. p. 301), and King Cnut (opp. p. 406). The portraits were probably derived from the plates in Walker's edition of Spelman's ‘Life’ (1678), whether of the coins (for Egbert and Cnut) or of the painting at University College (Alfred). The headpieces include Vortigern and Rowena (p. 91), St Augustine preaching before King Æthelberht (p. 147), the three Anglian kings of Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia paying their respects to King Egbert (p. 277), the beheading of Swein's sister in the presence of King Æthelred (p. 383), and a meeting of the Witenagemot during the age of the Heptarchy (p. 475).

291 Above, n. 214, vols. I, opp. pp. 293Google Scholar(Egbert) and 323 (Alfred), and Il.i, opp. title-page (Cnut).Google Scholar

292 Above, n. 215, vol. I, 3Google Scholar(a pastoral scene), 9Google Scholar(Romans building), 30Google Scholar(Rowena catching the eye of Vortigern), 45Google Scholar(St Augustine before King Æthelberht), 82Google Scholar(the three Anglian kings of Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia acknowledging the sovereignty of King Egbert), 117Google Scholar(execution of Gunnhild on the orders of King Æthelred in 1002), and 147 (government by heptarchy).Google Scholar

293 Vertue, G., The Heads of the Kings of England Proper for Mr Rapin's History, Translated ty N. Tindal, M.A. (London, 1736)Google Scholar. Publication of the portraits began in December 1733, and was not completed until the summer of 1736; see Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, pp. 285, 294 and 310Google Scholar, and Lippincott, , Selling Art in Georgian London, pp. 149–50 and 190Google Scholar, n. 57. See also Haskell, F., History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven, CT, 1993), p. 289, with fig. 168 (showing Vertue's portrait of Richard II).Google Scholar

294 For the image, see above, pp. 261–2 and 265; for the coat of arms, see above, nn. 65 and 114.

295 The illustrations in the 3rd ed. of 1743, essentially the same as in the 2nd ed. of 1732–3, are said to be the best (DNB). They comprise the decorative headpieces, Vertue's symbolic portraits, drawings of particular monuments, and some additional portraits in vol. 2.

296 Erdman, D. V., Blake: Prophet Against Empire. A Poet's Interpretation of the History of his own Times, 3rd ed. (Princeton, NJ, 1977), p. 66.Google Scholar

297 For royal portraiture of the period, see Granger, James, Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Creat to the Revolution (1769)Google Scholar; and for engraved portraits of Alfred, among others, see O'Donoghue, F. and Hake, H. M., Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits … in the British Museum, 6 vols. (London, 1908–1925) I, 34–5Google Scholar. For Baziliologia (1618)Google Scholar, see above, n. 117.

298 For the wider contexts of history painting, see Waterhouse, E., Painting in Britain 1530–1790, 5th ed. (New Haven, CT, 1994), pp. 271–84Google Scholar; Burke, , English Art 1714–1800, esp. pp. 239–71Google Scholar; Brewer, J., The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1997), esp. ch. 5 (pp. 206, 217, 245 and 246)Google Scholar; and The Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, J., 34 vols. (London, 1996) XIV, 581–9Google Scholar. Haskell, , History and its Images, is concerned mainly with the use of art as historical evidence; but for the depiction of historical events in art, see esp. pp. 287–9Google Scholar. For ‘English’ history painting in particular, see Sunderland, J., ‘Mortimer, Pine and Some Political Aspects of English History Painting’, Burlington Magazine 116 (1974), 317–26Google Scholar; Strong, R., And when did you last see your father? The Victorian Painter and British History (London, 1978)Google Scholar, focusing attention on the nineteenth century; Sunderland, J., ‘John Hamilton Mortimer: His Life and Works’, Walpole Soc. 52 (1986), esp. 12–22 and 70–5Google Scholar; The Painted Word: British History Painting, 1750–1830, ed. Cannon-Brookes, P. (Woodbridge, 1991)Google Scholar; and Allen, B., ‘Rule Britannia? History Painting in 18th-Century Britain’, Hist. Today 45 (06 1995), 12–18Google Scholar. See also Rochelle, M., Historical Art Index, A.D. 400–1650: Peoples, Places, and Events Depicted (Jefferson, NC, 1989)Google Scholar. For other important aspects of the subject, see Lippincott, L., Selling Art in Georgian London: the Rise of Arthur Pond (New Haven, CT, 1983)Google Scholar, and Lippincott, L., ‘Expanding on Portraiture: the Market, the Public, and the Hierarchy of Genres in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, The Consumption of Culture: Word, Image, and Object in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Bermingham, A. and Brewer, J. (London, 1995), pp. 75–88.Google Scholar

299 See Alexander, D., ‘Print Makers and Print Sellers in England, 1770–1830’, The Painted Word, ed. Cannon-Brookes, , pp. 23–9Google Scholar, and Clayton, , The English Print, esp. pp. 235–60.Google Scholar

300 The British Museum's ‘Catalogue of Prints and Drawings Illustrating English History, Unrevised and Unpublished’ (1882), which reached page-proofs, but which was never published (BM, Dept of Prints and Drawings [hereafter P&D], O.3.5), lists material with ‘Anglo-Saxon’ subjects on pp. 19–110, including separate prints as well as plates removed from printed books. It contains much useful information, which has to be used with caution. The portfolios of English history prints in BM, P&D, of their nature contain no more than a small and random selection.Google Scholar

301 Edwards, E., Anecdotes of Painters who have Resided or been Born in England (London, 1808)Google Scholar, repr. with an Introduction by Lightbown, R. W. (London, 1970). For Edwards, see further below, p. 310.Google Scholar

302 Whitley, W. T., Artists and their Friends in England 1700–1799, 2 vols. (London, 1928)Google Scholar, and Brewer, , Pleasures of the Imagination, pp. 218–51.Google Scholar

303 Edwards's treatment, in his Anecdotes of Painters, of Gainsborough (pp. 129–43)Google Scholar and Reynolds, (pp. 184–212)Google Scholar should be compared with his treatment of, e.g., Blakey, (pp. 3–4)Google Scholar, Casali, (pp. 22–4)Google Scholar, Mortimer, (pp. 60–5)Google Scholar, Wale, (pp. 116–18)Google Scholar, Chamberlin, (pp. 121–2)Google Scholar, Pine, (pp. 171–3)Google Scholar, Wheatley, (pp. 268–70)Google Scholar, and Hamilton, (pp. 272–5), all of whom are mentioned below among painters who depicted subjects drawn from Anglo-Saxon history.Google Scholar

304 For details of this venture, see Alexander, D. and Godfrey, R. T., Painters and Engravers: the Reproductive Print from Hogarth to Wilkie (New Haven, CT, 1980), pp. 23–4 (no. 35)Google Scholar; Lippincott, , Selling Art in Georgian London, pp. 156–8Google Scholar; Allen, B., Francis Hayman (New Haven, CT, 1987), pp. 146–8 (no. 78)Google Scholar; Allen, , ‘History Painting’, pp. 14–15 and 18Google Scholar; and Clayton, , The English Print, pp. 92–3 and 258Google Scholar. For the Knaptons, see Pope's Literary Legacy: the Book-Trade Correspondence of William Warburton and John Knapton, ed. Nichol, D. W. (Oxford, 1992), pp. li–lx.Google Scholar

305 Edwards, , Anecdotes of Painters, p. 4.Google Scholar

306 Reproduced by Lippincott, , Selling Art in Georgian Landon, p. 157.Google Scholar

307 Reproduced by Allen, , ‘History Painting’, p. 18.Google Scholar

308 Reproduced by Allen, , Francis Hayman, p. 147Google Scholar, and Allen, , ‘History Painting’, p. 18.Google Scholar

309 Reproduced by Clayton, , The English Print, p. 97. See further below, n. 332.Google Scholar

310 BM, P&D, 1877–6–9–1707; reproduced here from an impression in a private collection. Another impression in the BM (P&D, 1953–11–7–4) gives the tide in English and French.

311 History of England [2nd ed.], I, 92: ‘The news of this Defeat [at Kinwith Castle in Devon], and the Death of the Danish General [Hubba], having reached Alfred in his retreat, he immediately considered how to turn this lucky Blow to his Advantage.’

312 A portrait of Alfred engraved by Cole, B. for the New Universal Magazine (1752) shows the king with a sceptre in his right hand, a partly unrolled scroll in his left hand, and the raven banner draped over the frame. The banner was used again by Samuel Wale in the 1760s (see further below).Google Scholar

313 Reproduced by Allen, , Francis Hayman, p. 148Google Scholar. It should be noted that (quite apart from the remarkable armour) the composition displays no influence from the Bayeux Tapestry (of which engravings were first published in 1729–30, though not published in England until 1750), and is to be compared in this respect with later representations of King Harold's death at the battle of Hastings, of which there are several.

314 Smollett, , A Complete History of England (above, n. 254), 2nd ed. I, opp. pp. 27 (Caesar), 54 (Caractacus), 111 (Druids), 125 (Vortigern), and 371 (Hastings)Google Scholar. We also find engraved ‘portraits’ of Egbert (Miller), Alfred (Benoist) and Cnut (Benoist), evidently suggested by the images in Rapin's History.

315 The engravings were reworked and republished by R. Sayer and J. Bennett, dated 12 Oct. 1778. ‘Alfred in the Isle of Athelney’ (BM, P&D, 1855–6–9–1829) was furnished with a six-line explanation of the historical background.

316 Wood, H. Trueman, A History of the Royal Society of Arts (London, 1913), esp. pp. 151–61 and 226–34Google Scholar; Hudson, D. and Luckhurst, K. W., The Royal Society of Arts 1754–1954 (London, 1954), esp. pp. 35–40.Google Scholar

317 A complete (extra-illustrated and annotated) set of the catalogues of exhibitions at the Society of Artists, from 1760 to 1791, is in BM, P&D, presented by J. H. Anderdon in 1869. See also Graves, A., The Society of Artists of Great Britain 1760–1791 / The Free Society of Artists 1761–1783. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from the Foundation of the Societies to 1791 (London, 1907), with appendixes on the history of these organisations.Google Scholar

318 For a list of the premiums bestowed for historical pictures from 1760 to 1773, see Dossie, R., Memoirs of Agriculture, and Other Oeconomical Arts, 3 vols. (London, 1768–1782) III, 431–2Google Scholar. See also Sunderland, , ‘Political Aspects of English History Painting’, pp. 321–2 and 325–6 (citing Minutes of the Society of Arts).Google Scholar

319 For Casali, see Edwards, , Anecdotes of Painters, pp. 22–4, and Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner.Google Scholar

320 Society of Artists 1760 (2). The original painting was acquired by the Constable family, of Burton Constable Hall, nr Hull, East Yorkshire, where it remains; photograph in the file for the artist in the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 16 Bedford Square, London. The painting was engraved by Casali, c. 1760, entitled: ‘The Champion; or Innocence Triumphant. The Empress Gunhilda being accused of Adultery, and her Innocence being to be tried by single Combat, the Champion for the Accusation (a Man of Gigantic Stature) is slain by her Page.’ Casali's source was Guthrie, General History of England, pp. 292–3Google Scholar. An engraving by S. F. Ravenet was published by John Boydell in 1761, entitled: ‘Gunhilda, Empress of Germany, daughter of Canute King of England, having been accused of adultery and treated as guilty by the Emperor, is defended by her Page, who in a public combat slays her accusers, after which she refuses to be reconciled to her Husband, & determines to retire into a Monastery.’ There are impressions of both in BM, P&D.

321 Free Society 1761 (15); he exhibited a sketch on the same subject at the Society of Artists in 1778 (32). The painting was at Fonthill House, and was sold in 1801 to Jeffrey (Croft-Murray, E., Decorative Painting in England 1537–1837, 2 vols. (London, 1962–1970) II, 182Google Scholar), and is now untraced; it does not appear to have been engraved. The story of King Edgar and Ælfthryth (Elfrida) was derived ultimately from William of Malmesbury, Gesta regam ii.157 (ed. Mynors, et al. , pp. 256–8)Google Scholar, and was given due attention by Rapin, (History of England [2nd ed.] I, 109)Google Scholar, Hume, and others. Its popularity may, however, reflect that of the various dramatic works on the same theme, e.g. Thomas Rymer's Edgar (1678, 1693; above, n. 148), but esp. William Mason's Elfrida (1752 onwards). The subject was depicted again by Wale c. 1770 (below, p. 308), by Kauffman in 1771 (below, p. 299), by Hamilton in 1774 (below, p. 299), and by Rigaud in 1796 (below, n. 334), among others.

322 Free Society 1761 (20). A preliminary sketch for this composition was sold at Christie's, 15 Feb. 1974 (Lot 80); photograph in the Mellon Centre. The finished painting was acquired by the Constable family, of Burton Constable Hall, East Yorkshire, where it remains; photograph in the Mellon Centre. The painting was engraved by Casali c. 1761 (BM, P&D, 1867–12–14–387); cf. his drawing (BM, P&D, 1964–4–11–3). It was engraved again by S. F. Ravenet in 1767, and published by John Boydell in 1773 (BM, P&D, 1873–8–9–582); see below, p. 313. The subject had been depicted by Wale in 1747 (below, p. 305), and was depicted again by Wale in 1764 (below, p. 306), by Edwards in 1776 (below, p. 310), by Hamilton before 1786 (below, p. 313), and by Smirke in 1806 (below, p. 316), among others.

323 Free Society 1763 (159); also shown at the Society of Artists 1768 (89). The original painting is untraced; but the composition is known from an early copy (Sunderland, ‘Political Aspects of English History Painting’, fig. 48), and from an engraving made by F. G. Aliamet (BM, P&D, 1899–7–13–69), also published in 1772 by John Boydell. The subject had featured in the lower part of Vertue's portrait of Cnut, made in 1733 for the second (folio) edition of Rapin's History (above, p. 292), and had been depicted by Wale in 1747 (below, p. 305). The subject was depicted again by Edwards in 1777 (below, p. 310), by Hamilton (collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire; photograph in the Mellon Centre), and by Smirke in the 1790s (below, p. 316), among others. A mid-nineteenth-century view of Cnut and the waves, by John Martin (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne), is illustrated in Humble, R., The Saxon Kings (London, 1980), pp. 164–5.Google Scholar

324 Free Society 1763 (142). An oil sketch for the picture is in the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, CA; see Sunderland, , ‘Mortimer: His Life and Works’, pp. 16–19 and 122–3 (no. 8) and fig. 24Google Scholar. The original painting appeared at auction in 1878 (ibid. p. 122), but is now untraced. The picture seems not to have been engraved. The story is told by Rapin, , History of England [2nd ed.] I, 131, among many others, and is ultimately from One. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1043.Google Scholar

325 Free Society 1764 (30). Chamberlin, said to be of Stewart Street, Spittalfields, won a half-share of the second premium of 50 guineas for a history painting at the Society of Arts in 1764, for ‘King Alfred at the Cottager's’ (Dossie, , Memoirs of Agriculture III, 432). The subject was depicted again by Edwards in 1776 (below, p. 310), by Wheadey in 1792 (below, pp. 315–16), and by Wilkie in 1806 (below, pp. 317–18), among others (below, pp. 339 and 340–1).Google Scholar

326 See further below, p. 314. The mezzotint may have been first published some years earlier, and republished in 1794.

327 The word ‘handboc’ is inscribed on the outer cover. The book was described as such in Savile's edition of William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum (Rerum Anglicarum Scripteres Post Bedam praecipui, p. 24)Google Scholar; cf. Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. Mynors, et al. , p. 192Google Scholar, textual note g. For Alfred's ‘Handbook’, see Keynes, and Lapidge, , Alfred the Great, p. 268.Google Scholar

328 Hutchison, S. C., The History of the Royal Academy 1768–1986, 2nd ed. (London, 1986), pp. 15–22 and 23–32Google Scholar; Brewer, , Pleasures of the Imagination, pp. 228–36.Google Scholar

329 A complete (extra-illustrated and annotated) set of the catalogues of exhibitions at the Royal Academy, from 1769 to 1849, is in BM, P&D, presented by J. H. Anderdon in 1867. See also Graves, A., The Royal Academy of Arts: a Complete Diaionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, 8 vols. (London, 1905–6).Google Scholar

330 For the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ subjects represented in the Royal Academy exhibitions, in the wider context of all subjects drawn from British history, see Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 155–68, at 155–7.Google Scholar

331 Roworth, W., Angelica Kauffmann: a Continental Artist in Georgian England (London, 1993); Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, .Google Scholar

332 Royal Academy 1770 (116). The original painting is at Saltram House, Devon (National Trust); photograph in the Mellon Centre. The subject had featured in one of the head-pieces in Rapin's History (above, nn. 290 and 292), and was depicted by Blakey in 1750 (above, p. 295) and by Fuseli in 1769; it was depicted again by Ryland (after Kauffmann) in 1772 (cf. photograph in the Mellon Centre), Mortimer in 1779 (Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 19–20Google Scholar; Sunderland, , ‘Mortimer: His Life and Works’, pp. 74–5 and 193)Google Scholar, Rigaud in 1788 (photograph in the Mellon Centre), and Hamilton in 1795 (below, p. 315), among others.

333 Royal Academy 1771 (113). The original painting is at Saltram (National Trust); photograph in the Mellon Centre. It was engraved by William Wynne Ryland and published in 1786 by Mary Ryland.

334 Royal Academy 1774 (114). It seems that this composition should be distinguished from Hamilton's rendition of ‘Edmund Ironside and Algitha’, engraved by Bartolozzi and published in 1786 (below, p. 313), with which it is easily (and has been) confused. For John Francis Rigaud's painting, entitled ‘The first interview of King Edgar and Elfrida’ and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796, see ‘Facts and Recollections of the XVIIIth Century in a Memoir of John Francis Rigaud Esq., R.A., by Stephen Francis Dutilh Rigaud’, ed. Pressly, W. L., Walpole Soc. 50 (1984), 1–164, at 17–18, with pl. 66. For Hamilton's ‘Edgar and Elfrida’, first published in 1793, and again in 1802, see below, n. 447.Google Scholar

335 For West and George III, see von Erffa, H. and Staley, A., The Paintings of Benjamin West (New Haven, CT, 1986), p. 51Google Scholar; he became President of the Royal Academy in 1792. See also Abrams, A. U., The Valiant Hero: Benjamin West and Grand-Style History Painting (Washington DC, 1985)Google Scholar; and Solkin, D. H., Painting for Money: the Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT, 1993), pp. 180–90 and 206–13Google Scholar. West is generally treated with studied contempt by art historians, not without reason: ‘The monarch who could give lavish commissions to Benjamin West while neglecting Reynolds must have been sadly wanting in taste’ (Whitley, , Artists and theirFriends in England, I, 170).Google Scholar

336 Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 211–16 (nos. 93–100)Google Scholar; McNairn, A., Behold the Hero: General Wolfe and the Arts in the Eighteenth Century (Liverpool, 1997), esp. pp. 109–64. General Wolfe was killed at Quebec in 1759.Google Scholar

337 Royal Academy 1778 (331).

338 The Itineraries of John Leland the Antiquary, ed. Hearne, T. (Oxford, 1710–1712) VIII, 58; 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1744–1745) VIII, 25; 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1768–1770) VIII, 26Google Scholar; The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535–1543, ed. Smith, L. Toulmin, 5 vols. (London, 1907–1910) V, 148. It is possible that the book in question survives at Belvok Casde, though it is not immediately identifiable in the reports made by the Historical Manuscripts Commission.Google Scholar

339 For the family history, see Nichols, J., The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicestershire, 4 vols, in 8 (London, 1795–1811) II.i, 22–68, at 24Google Scholar. The original painting was recorded at Belvoir Casde in 1792 (ibid. pp. 69–73, at 73), but was destroyed there in the fire of 1816. It is known from an engraving by J. B. Michel, published by Boydell in 1782 (below, p. 313). See Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 186–7Google Scholar (no. 47). A small outline drawing of the picture is in Hamilton, G., The English School: a Series of the Most Approved Productions in Painting and Sculpture Executed by British Artists from the Days of Hogarth to the Present Time, 4 vols. (London, 1831–1832) IV, no. 56.Google Scholar

340 See above, p. 287.

341 Bicknell, , Alfred the Great, pp. 149–51Google Scholar. For the subject, see above, n. 15. For the possibility that West's ‘Alfredian’ pictures were made in connection with a grander scheme, first formulated in 1778, see below, p. 313.

342 Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 188 (no.49).Google Scholar

343 Royal Academy 1779 (341). Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 187–8 (no. 48).Google Scholar

344 For the engraving, see further below, p. 313; and for Hamilton's drawing of the same subject, see below, p. 310. Boydell became Alderman for Cheapside in 1785.

345 Royal Academy 1784 (81). Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 480–1 (no. 575)Google Scholar, in the Royal Collection. For a reproduction in colour, see Hibbert, C., George III: a Personal History (London, 1998), pl. 16.Google Scholar

346 Pressly, W. L., The Life and Art of James Barry (New Haven, CT, 1981), pp. 86–122 (murals), at 113–19, and 233–4 (no. 27) and 294–8.Google Scholar

347 Barry, J., An Account of a Series of Pictures, in the Great Room of the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, at the Adelphi (London, 1783).Google Scholar

348 Ibid. pp. 130–1, citing the Alfredian inscription on the statue of Fame at the Earl of Radnor's estate at Longford Castle.

349 Pressly, , Life and Art of James Barry, pp. 263 and 274 (no. 22).Google Scholar

350 Ibid. pp. 275–6 (no. 24); Pressly, W. L., James Barry; the Artist as Hero (London, 1983), no. 36.Google Scholar

351 Butlin, M., The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols. (New Haven, CT, 1981) I, no. 60, and II.pl. 178.Google Scholar

352 Butlin, , Paintings and Drawings of Blake I, no. 57, and II, pl. 53, with pp. 16–25.Google Scholar

353 Keynes, G., Blake: Complete Writings (Oxford, 1957), pp. 207–8.Google Scholar

354 Ibid. pp. 208–9.

355 Butlin, , The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, I, no. 59, and II, pl. 177.Google Scholar For Wale's earlier drawing of the same subject, see below, p. 307. For discussion, see Erdman, , Blake: Prophet Against Empire, pp. 45–7Google Scholar, and Sunderland, , ‘Political Aspects of English History Painting’, pp. 321–2.Google Scholar

356 Butlin, , Paintings and Drawings of Blake IGoogle Scholar, no. 94 (‘King Alfred and the swineherd's wife (?)’), and II, pl. 101. The drawing is obviously a study for no. 93, described more appropriately as ‘A woodland encounter’.

357 For a more ‘political’ (anti-monarchical) interpretation of the pictures of Cnut and Edward the Confessor, see Sunderland, , ‘Political Aspects of English History Painting’, pp. 321–2Google Scholar, and ‘Mortimer: His Life and Works’, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar Cf. Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 17–18.Google Scholar

358 [Goldsmith, O.], An History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, 2 vols. (London, 1764), Letter VII, pp. 37–42Google Scholar (on Alfred); Goldsmith, O., The History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II, 4 vols. (London, 1771) I, 71–84Google Scholar (on Alfred), drawing on Hume; Goldsmith, O., An Abridgement of the History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Casar, to the Year M.DCCXC, new ed. (Bath, 1795); etc.Google Scholar

359 Above, n. 289. For the success of serial publication of history in the first half of the eighteenth century, see Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, esp. pp. 4–6, 96 and 108Google Scholar; and see also the pertinent remarks on lists of subscribers, Ibid. pp. 229–31.

360 Mortimer, T., A New History of England, 3 vols. (London, 1764–1766), published in parts by Wilson, J. and Fell, J.Google Scholar, of Paternoster Row, London. The list of over 400 subscribers shows that it reached deep into the professional middle classes throughout the country.

361 Mountague, W. H., A New and Universal History of England, 2 vols. (London, 1771–1772), published by J. Cooke, of Paternoster Row, London.Google Scholar

362 Sydney, T., A Nem and Complete History of England (London, 1773), published in 70 parts by J. Cooke, of Paternoster Row, London, with a list of over 400 subscribers.Google Scholar It would appear that one or two of the plates were issued with each part, in an order which bore no relation to the progress of the narrative. Instructions to the binder indicated where the plates were to be placed.

363 Russel, W. A., A New and Authentic History of England (London, 1777–1779), published in 80 parts by J. Cooke, of Paternoster Row, London.Google Scholar

364 Raymond, G. F., A New, Universal, and Impartial History of England (London, 1777–1790), published in 60 parts by J. Cooke [later C. Cooke], of Paternoster Row, London.Google Scholar

365 Barnard, E., A New, Comprehensive, and Complete History of England (London, 1783), published in 70 weekly parts by Alexander Hogg, with a list of over 800 subscribers.Google Scholar

366 Spencer, G. W., A Nem, Authentic, and Complete History of England … to the Year 1795 (London, 1794), published in parts by Alexander Hogg.Google Scholar

367 Ashburton, C. A., A New and Complete History of England (London, 1791–1793), published in 80 weekly parts by W. and J. Stratford, with a list of over 1000 subscribers; reissued in 1795. It would appear that one engraved plate was issued with each part, in an order which bore no relation to the progress of the narrative. Instructions to the binder indicated where the plates were to be placed.Google Scholar

368 Lyttleton, G. C., The History of England, from the Earliest Dawn of Authentic Records, to the Ultimate Ratification of the General Peace at Amiens in 1802; and the Subsequent War in 1803, 3 vols. (London, 1802–1803), published in multiple parts by J. Stratford, with a list of nearly 2,500 subscribers.Google Scholar

369 Camden, T., The Imperial History of England, 2 vols. (London, 1810–1813), published by J. Stratford.Google Scholar

370 E.g. Johnson, R. [alias Cooper], A New History of England (London, 1780), published by F. NewberyGoogle Scholar; Baxter, J., A New and Impartial History of England (London, ?1796), published in parts by H. D. Symonds. One hardly dares think how many more there may have been.Google Scholar

371 See entries on Wale in the DNB; Waterhouse, E., The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters in Oils and Crayons (London, 1981)Google Scholar; and Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner. See also Einberg, , Manners & Morals, p. 182Google Scholar, and Hammelmann, H., Book Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England, ed. Boase, T. S. R. (New Haven, 1975), pp. 89–96.Google Scholar

372 See above, p. 273.

373 My understanding of the successive editions of Lockman's History from 1729 to 1800 is based on entries in the Eighteenth-Century Short Tide Catalogue (ESTC), as available on the Internet (1998). The fifth edition (1740) was seemingly not illustrated. The sixth edition, published in weekly parts (1747), is the first said to be ‘adorn'd with thirty-two copper-plates’; see also Wiles, , Serial Publication in England, pp. 41, 46 and 352.Google Scholar There is a set of the engravings in the portfolio of prints after Wale, in BM, P&D, dated 1746 or 1747, removed from a copy of the sixth or later edition. The original engravings were subsequently replaced by some inferior (or even worse) engravings based on the same drawings, found already in the fifteenth edition (1768).

374 See below, n. 323.

375 A sketch of this subject was exhibited by Wale at the exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1769. Grignion's engraving recurs in Mountague (1771) and Sydney (1773), but was re-engraved by Debroche for Russel (1777).

376 A ‘stained drawing’ on the same theme (Alfred ‘making a code of laws, dividing the kingdom into counties, and encouraging the arts and sciences’) was exhibited by Wale at the Royal Academy in 1771 (208), now untraced. Grignion's engraving recurs in Mountague (1771), Sydney (1773), and Raymond (1777/90), but was re-engraved by White for Russel (1777).

377 Grignion's engraving recurs in Mountague (1771) and Sydney (1773).

378 Grignion's engraving recurs in Mountague (1771), Sydney (1773), and Raymond (1777/90), but was re-engraved by White for Russel (1777).

379 The engraved version of the Massacre of St Brice's Day is not inscribed (or attributed), perhaps for obvious reasons; nor was it reused thereafter. The same theme was depicted in one of the head-pieces in Rapin's History (above, nn. 290 and 292).

380 The drawing was re-engraved by Walker for Sydney (1773).

381 Grignion's engraving recurs in Sydney (1773).

382 Grignion's engraving recurs in Sydney (1773). The story was part of the mainline ‘St Albans’ tradition, and had appeared in Rapin, , History of England [2nd ed.] I, 89Google Scholar; see also Parts Added to The Mirror for Magistrates, ed. Campbell, , pp. 463–8.Google Scholar

383 Wale or Grignion erred in giving the credit to Alfred himself. Cf. ASC, s.a. 878, ‘And there was captured the banner which they called “Raven”’. The drawing was re-engraved by Taylor for Sydney (1773), and the act reattributed to Odun, Earl of Devon; used again in Russel (1777). Taylor exhibited ‘Alfred taking the Danish standard; engraved from Mr Wale’ at the Society of Artists in 1770 (247).

384 The drawing was re-engraved by Walker for Sydney (1773) and Raymond (1777/90). Cf. Rapin, , History of England [2nd ed.] I, 99.Google Scholar

385 Grignion's engraving recurs in Sydney (1773) and Raymond (1777/90); it was re-engraved by White for Russel (1777).

386 Grignion's engraving recurs in Sydney (1773); it is also found in copies of Russel (1777), and Raymond (1777/90).

387 The drawing was re-engraved by Walker for Sydney (1773). For Blake's drawing of the same subject, see above, p. 302. For the source, see Rapin, , History of England [2nd ed.] I, 131.Google Scholar

388 These events took place in 1759 and 1762 respectively. Wale's image of Wolfe was clearly based on an earlier painting by Penny (Von Erffa, and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, p. 213).Google Scholar West's famous ‘Death of Wolfe’, painted in 1770 and first exhibited in 1771, was engraved by Woollett and published in 1776, re-engraved and reissued in 1791. See also Clayton, , The English Print, pp. 238–40Google Scholar; McNairn, , Behold the Hero, p. 230Google Scholar, apropos the reuse of Grignion's engraving of Wale's drawing in Sydney (1773), as reissued in 1775; and above, n. 336.

389 Engraved by Walker; used again in Raymond (1777/90).

390 Engraved by Walker; used again in Raymond (1777/90).

391 Engraved by Grignion; used again in Raymond (1777/90). The subject had been incorporated in Vertue's symbolic portrait of Alfred (above, pp. 291–2) and was depicted again by Stothard c. 1793 (below, p. 317), Edwards (below, p. 310), Smirke (below, p. 311), and Claxton (below, p. 336), among others.

392 Engraved by Rennoldson; used again in Raymond (1777/90).

393 Engraved by Grignion.

394 Engraved by Walker.

395 One of the copies in the BL (L.23.b.3) is signed ‘Wm Wright 1777’ on the recto of the frontispiece, and continues to 1786 (p. 610); it was used as a register of births, marriages, and deaths in his family from the 1780s to the 1890s. The constituent parts are numbered, but not dated. A second copy in the BL (RB.31.c.153) differs from the first in so far as the text has been reset from p. 605 (1783) and continues to 1790.

398 Raymond, , History of England, p. 76 n. *.Google Scholar

397 The leaders and kings are grouped as follows: (1) A Roman Commander, a Saxon Chief, a Danish General, and a Norman; (2) Egbert, Ethelwolf, Ethelbald, Ethelbert; (3) Ethelred, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan; (4) Edmund, Edred, Edwy, Edgar; (5) Ethelred II, Edward the Martyr, Edmund II, Canute the Great; (6) Harold I, Canute II, Edward the Confessor, Harold II. Cf. below, n. 408.

398 To judge from the entries in ESTC, Mortimer was the most widely circulated of these works; but it may be that the works issued originally in parts did not have the same chance of preservation. For remarks on Mountague, Russel, and Raymond (without reference to Mortimer and Sydney), see Boase, T. S. R., ‘Macklin and Bowyer’, Jnl of tie Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26 (1963), 148–77, at 171–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the activities of the Paternoster Row publishers, and their ilk, in a different field, see Adams, B., London Illustrated 1604–1851: a Survey and Index of Topographical Books and their Plates (London, 1983).Google Scholar

399 McNairn, , Behold the Hero, pp. 125–43.Google Scholar

400 Strutt, J., Horda Angel-cynnan; or, A Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits, &c. of the Inhabitants of England, from the Arrival of the Saxons, till the Reign of Henry the Eighth, 3 vols. (London, 1774–1776)Google Scholar, with numerous plates, in a rude and uncorrected state. Followed by Strutt, J., The Chronicle of England; or, A Compleat History, Civil, Military and Ecclesiastical, of the Ancient Britons and Saxons, from the Landing of Julius Cœsar in Britain, to the Norman Conquest, with a Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arts, Habits, &c. of Those People, 2 vols. (London, 1779)Google Scholar, with numerous plates, with improvements. On the significance of Strutt, see Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 50–2Google Scholar, and Haskell, , History and its Images, pp. 292–5.Google Scholar

401 For his Anecdotes of Painters, published posthumously in 1808, see above, n. 301. See also Hammelmann, , Book-Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

402 The Copper-Plate Magazine; or a Monthly Treasure for the Admirers ofthe Imitative Arts was published by G. Kearsly, 46 Fleet Street, London. The title-page continues: ‘In each Number of which will be given, A Portrait of some celebrated Personage, some interesting Historical Subject, and some curious Perspective View. Executed By the most capital Artists of Great Britain, and calculated to enrich the Cabinets of the Curious, or to ornament the Apartments of Persons of Real Taste.’ The only set of the Copper-Plate Magazine in the British Library which dates from the 1770s contains portraits, with accompanying explanatory text.

403 The portfolio of prints after Edwards in BM, P&D, contains loose impressions of these three compositions, with four others (also dated 1776–7) depicting later historical events, engraved by Hall or by Grignion.

404 For further details, see Lightbown's Introduction to the reprint of Edwards, , Anecdotes of Painters [above, n. 301], pp. xiii and xxiv.Google Scholar

405 Barnard's History was presumably published in competition with the series of histories illustrated by Wale and published by the Cookes.

406 For Hamilton, , see above, p. 299Google Scholar, and Hammelmann, , Book-Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England, p. 48.Google Scholar

407 The drawing of Alfred dividing his loaf was evidently inspired or influenced by Benjamin West's earlier (1779) painting of the same subject (above, p. 301), an engraving of which had been published in 1782.

408 The kings are grouped as follows: (1) Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, Alfred; (2) Edward, Athelstan, Edmund, Edred; (3) Edwy, Edgar, Edward the Martyr, Ethelred; (4) Swein, Olaus, Edmund, Canute; (5) Harold, [Hartha]cnut, Edward, Harold. Cf. above, n. 397.

409 The illustrations are derived from the plates of coins in Walker's edition of Spelman's ‘Life of Alfred’ (above, n. 173), with several erroneous identifications.

410 The subjects chosen were St Augustine preaching to Æthelbert and Bertha, Alfred dividing England into counties, Athelstan ordering the Scriptures to be made public, Leolf stabbing King Edmund at Pucklechurch, and the landing of William the Conqueror at Pevensey.

411 The Wale drawings now attributed to Hamilton include those mentioned in the previous note, as well as Alfred in the Danish camp, and Edgar on the river Dee. Among the new images we find Woodruff's ‘Canute reproving the servile flattery of his courtiers’, engraved by Tomlinson.

412 Other subjects include ‘The treachery of Elfrida’ [murder of Edward the Martyr], ‘The exposure of Prince Edwin’ [with reference to the events of 933], and ‘Canute reproving the flattery of his courtiers’. Smirke's drawings of Edward the Martyr and of Cnut differ in composition from his paintings engraved and published in 1806 as part of Bowyer's ‘Historic Gallery’. Preliminary sketches for all of these compositions are to be found in the album of Smirke's drawings sold at Christie's, 11 July 1989, Lot 5. I am grateful to Dr Jane Cunningham for drawing this album to my attention.

413 Histoire d'Angleterre, représentée par figures, accompagnées de discours, 3 vols. (Paris, 1784–1800)Google Scholar, is a pictorial history of England constructed around a series of illustrations by various hands, engraved by François-Anne David, with explanatory text by P. P. F. Le Tourneur. The series includes 22 engravings of drawings of Anglo-Saxon subjects. One, engraved by David after Gois, is entided ‘Alfred abandonné de ses sujets, s'engage au service de son vacher en 875’, showing Alfred in a farmyard at Athelney, without a burnt cake in sight.

414 Brewer, , Pleasures of the Imagination, pp. 456–8 and 461Google Scholar; Clayton, , The English Print, passim. I am grateful to David Alexander (York), Norman Blackburn (printseller), Timothy Clayton (Worcester College, Oxford), Dafydd Davies (Grosvenor Prints, London), Craig Hartley (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), and Anthony Griffiths (BM, Dept of Prints & Drawings), for their guidance in connection with this material.Google Scholar

415 DNB; Bruntjen, S. H. A., John Boydell, 1719–1804: a Study of Art Patronage and Publishing in Georgian London (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Griffiths, A. and Williams, R., The Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: User's Guide (London, 1987), p. 88Google Scholar; Dictionary of Art, ed. Turner, .Google Scholar

416 Griffiths, A., ‘A Checklist of Catalogues of British Print Publishers c. 1650–1830’, Print Quarterly 1 (1984), 4–22.Google Scholar

417 An Alphabetical Catalogue of Plates, Engraved by the Most Esteemed Artists, After the Finest Pictures and Drawings of the Italian, Flemish, German, French, English, and Other Schools, which Comprise the Stock of John and Josiah Boydell, Engravers and Printsellers, No. 90, Cheapside, and at the Shakespeare Gallery, Pall Mall (London, 1803), pp. xv–xviiGoogle Scholar, followed by an alphabetical catalogue of Boydell's entire stock (pp. 1–60) from which the prints in his ‘Collection’ were selected. There are copies of this catalogue in the BL (787.k.13), and elsewhere. See also Bruntjen, , John Boydell, pp. 40–4Google Scholar; Brewer, , Pleasures of the Imagination, pp. 220 and 456Google Scholar; and Clayton, , The English Print, esp. pp. 177, 196, 198 and 209–10.Google Scholar

418 The painting (presented to the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers) was copied by Josiah Boydell (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). The copy was engraved by W. Sharp, and the engraving was published by John Boydell in 1782. The engraving is reproduced in The Painted Word, ed. Cannon-Brookes, , p. 65 (no. 32)Google Scholar, and in Clayton, , The English Print, p. 237.Google Scholar I am grateful to Miss Jane Munro (Fitzwilliam Museum) for her help in this connection.

419 From ‘Proposals’ issued by West, Woollett and Hall in 1778 and 1783, cited by Clayton, , The English Print, pp. 240 and 306.Google Scholar

420 Above, pp. 300–1.

421 Above, p. 299.

422 The original painting is untraced.

423 The original painting is untraced. The subject (Rapin, , History of England [2nd ed.] I, 122Google Scholar) is derived ultimately from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 1015. When Birchall died, in 1795, Two half-sheet (squares), by Bartolozzi, of Edward the Mattyr and Elfrida, and Prince Edmund and Algitha’, with 2 coloured and 438 plain impressions, were sold for £73 (Clayton, , The English Print, pp. 220Google Scholar, citing a catalogue of Birchall's effects, and 229).

424 BM, P&D, 1950–11–11–99, entided ‘Alfred the Great in the Neatherd's Cottage’ [with an explanation in English and French], painted by Mason Chamberlin R.A., engraved by Charles Townley (styled Engraver to the King of Prussia), dedicated by permission to the Earl of Derby by John P. Thompson, and published on 1 Jan. 1794 by Darling & Thompson (Printsellers, &c, to their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York), Great Newport St., & Mason Chamberlin [the Younger], 51 Great Russel St. A drawing of ‘King Alfred and the burnt cakes’, signed and dated ‘H. S. 1794’, appeared in a sale at Christie's, 11 February 1987, Lot 132.

425 The BL copy of Bowyer's, Prospectus of the General Design and Conditions for a Complete History of England superbly embellished (London, 1791)Google Scholar was destroyed by enemy action during World War II. Bowyer, puts his case in Elucidation of Mr Bowyer's Plan for a Magnificent Edition of Hume's History of England (London, 1795), pp. 7–14Google Scholar, with a spirited statement of the desirability of delineating ‘the most striking events of history’, and a remark to the effect that ‘till the present reign historical painting has been almost unknown in the British dominions’. For further discussion, see Boase, , ‘Macklin and Bowyer’, pp. 169–76Google Scholar, and Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, p. 21.Google Scholar

426 Exhibition of Pictures painted for Bowyer's Magnificent Edition of the History of England (London, 1793)Google Scholar, provides a list of paintings, with pertinent extracts from Hume. The Catalogue of Pictures painted for Mr Bowyer's Magnificent Edition of Hume's History of England (London, ? 1800)Google Scholar, registered in the BL catalogue, was destroyed during the war.

427 Hume, D., The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution of 1688, 5 vols. (London, 1806)Google Scholar, printed by T. Bensley for Robert Bowyer, of which I have seen only the copy in the British Library (classmark 749.f.1), with its plates bound in a separate (sixth) volume.See Jessop, , Bibliography of Hume, p. 31Google Scholar; and David Hume and the Eighteenth Century British Thought: an Annotated Catalogue (Tokyo, 1986), pp. 135–6.Google Scholar The fact that Bowyer's edition was published only by subscription means that copies may have found their way more easily into the private libraries of the well-to-do than into the public domain. A set sold at Sotheby's in July 1993 came from the library of the 1st Marquess of Buckingham, , at Stowe, ‘with Bowyer's autograph receipt in ink pasted to front endpaper of volume I (dated 1799)’Google Scholar;. Another set, from Noseley Hall in Leicestershire, was sold at Sotheby's in September 1998.

428 Gentleman's Mag. 86.1 (1806), 430–1Google Scholar; Burke, , English Art 1714–1800, p. 256.Google Scholar The paintings were sold by Peter Coxe on 29–30 May 1807: see Lugt, F., Répertoire des catalogues de ventes Publiques, 3 vols. (The Hague, 1938–1964) I [1600–1825], no. 7260, of which there are copies in the Courtauld Institute and in the Victoria and Albert Museum.Google Scholar

429 For the scarcity of surviving paintings from Bowyer's ‘Historic Gallery’, see Boase, , ‘Macklin and Bowyer’, pp. 176–7, though the records kept by the Mellon Centre make it much easier now (than it can have been c. 1960) to identify survivors from the series as a whole.Google Scholar

430 The original painting was sold at Sotheby's, 12 July 1989 (Lot 98); photograph in the Mellon Centre. It was engraved for the Historic Gallery by Delatre, and published in 1795.

431 The painting (untraced) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1795, engraved for the Historic Gallery by A. Smith, and published in 1794.

432 The original painting was in the possession of Thos. Agnew and Sons in 1973; photograph in the Mellon Centre. It was engraved for the Historic Gallery by J. Stow, and published in 1794.

433 The original painting was sold at Christie's, New York, 4 October 1996 (Lot 57); photograph in the Mellon Centre. It was engraved for the Historic Gallery by W. Bromley, and published in 1795. See also Webster, M., Francis Wheatley (London, 1970), pp. 90–1 and 92 (fig. 129)Google Scholar; and Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, p. 21.Google Scholar

434 The painting (untraced) was engraved for the Historic Gallery by W. Bromley, and published in 1798.

435 Engraved by A. Skelton, and published in 1797. The portrait differs from the ‘standard’ image which originated in the engraving published in Spelman, , Life of Alfred, ed. Walker, and may in fact have been based on an engraving of the portrait in the Bodleian Library.Google Scholar

436 The painting was sold at Christie's, 3 May 1985 (Lot 83); it was acquired by Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston, Texas, and can be seen on the Foundation's website. It was engraved for the Historic Gallery by I. Taylor, and published in 1794; reproduced in Hammelmann, , Book Illustrators, fig. 32. Cf. Wale's earlier drawing of the same subject (above, p. 306).Google Scholar

437 The painting (untraced) was engraved for the Historic Gallery by W. Bromley, and published in 1806. Cf above, n. 412.

438 The painting (untraced) was engraved for the Historic Gallery by G. Noble, and published in 1806. Cf above, n. 412.

439 The painting (untraced) was engraved for the Historic Gallery by W. Bromley, and published in 1804.

440 The painting, now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, was engraved for the Historic Gallery by G. Noble, and published in 1797. See Erffa, von and Staley, , Paintings of Benjamin West, pp. 188–9 (nos. 50–1).Google Scholar

441 Graves, A., The British Institution 1806–1867: a Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from the Foundation of the Institution (London, 1908).Google Scholar

442 BM, P&D, Oo.3–12. See also Binyon, L., Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin working in Great Britain, preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum IV (London, 1907), p. 321 (no. 16)Google Scholar; and Smith, G., ‘Watercolour: Purpose and Practice’, in S. Fenwick and G. Smith, The Business of Watercolour: a Guide to the Archives of the Royal Watercolour Society (Aldershot, 1997), pp. 1–34, at 12, with fig. 11.Google Scholar

443 Royal Academy 1800 (423). Cf. Pye, H. J., Alfred; an Epic Poem, in Six Books (London, 1801), p. 132Google Scholar: ‘Alfred is said to have first caught the spirit both of poetry and heroism, from hearing his step-mother recite poems on the heroic actions of his ancestors. There is an excellent picture on the subject by Westall.’ Joseph Farington reported in his diary that Westall's ‘Alfred’, and a companion drawing, were bought by West for Mr Udney for 100 guineas each, and that he would have given him double that sum: The Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. Garlick, K. et al. , 16 vols. (New Haven, CT, and London, 1978–1984)Google Scholar, with Index, ed. Newby, E. (New Haven, CT, 1998) IV, 1395–6.Google Scholar

444 At the Royal Academy in 1801 (569), Westall exhibited ‘a print in imitation of a drawing’, with the same tide as the watercolour.

445 British Institution 1806 (29).

446 Diary of Joseph Farington, ed. Garlick, et al. , IV, 1409 and 1410Google Scholar (said to be about 14 feet by 10), identified in the index as the Swedish painter Elias Martin (1739–1818), but (as David Alexander points out to me) more likely to be the English historical painter William Martin (1752–c. 1831). Martin is known to have presented a picture of Alfred to the Bodleian Library in 1796: A à Wood, , The History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford II, ed. Gutch, J. (Oxford, 1796), 893.Google Scholar

447 BM, P&D, 1849–7–21–1412, a stipple engraving published by Rudolph Ackermann in May 1802. For the publisher, see Ford, J., Ackermann 1783–1983: the Business of Art (London, 1983).Google Scholar The full set, first published by J. R. Smith, in 1793, and listed among ‘Miscellaneous Prints’ in Ackermann, R., A Catalogue of Various Prints, Adapted for Furniture, Ornaments, etc. (London, 1802))Google Scholar comprised, Metz, ‘Boadicea haranguing the Britons'; Hamilton, ‘Vortigern and Rowena’; Stothard, ‘Alfred disguised as a harper in the Danish camp’; and Hamilton, ‘Edgar and Elfrida’. In iconographic terms, Stothard was following Wale (above, p. 308) and Edwards (above, p. 310). A drawing of ‘King Alfred the Great’, attributed to Stothard, appeared at Bonham's, London, in their sale on 12 December 1991, Lot 219.

448 For this painting, now in a private collection, see Miles, H. A. D. and Brown, D. B., Sir David Wilkie of Scotland (1785–1841) (Raleigh, NC, 1987), pp. 22–3, 26–7 and 123–7 (no. 6), with figGoogle Scholar; the reference to the existence of a related drawing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, seems to be erroneous. For a reproduction in colour, see Yorke, B., ‘The Most Perfect Man in History?’, Hist. Today 49.10 (1999), 8–14, at 12.Google Scholar

449 The painting was engraved by James Mitchell, and published in 1828 by Boys & Graves (BM, P&D, 1836–11–24–3). It was engraved again by G. A. Periam, for the Wilkie Gallery (1848–50); and a small outline engraving by Normand fils was published in Hamilton, , The English School I, no. 66Google Scholar. Versions of the same composition, based on one or other of the engravings, were made by the American artists J. Hall in 1840 and Thomas Sully in 1854. For the latter, see Biddle, E. and Fielding, M., The Life and Works of Thomas Sully (1783–1872) (Charleston, SC, 1969), p. 335 (no. 2085)Google Scholar. Sully's ‘renowned’ painting of Alfred appeared in a sale at Philadelphia in December 1914. I am grateful to Lance Humphries, of Baltimore, MD, for valuable guidance in connection with Sully.

450 British Institution 1807 (77).

451 Royal Academy 1814 (352); British Institution 1815 (60).

452 For eighteenth-century historical panegyrics on Alfred, including Voltaire's, see Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 413–17.Google Scholar

453 See Woodbridge, K., Landscape and Antiquity: Aspects of English Culture at Stourhead 1718 to 1838 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 51–70, at 52–6Google Scholar, with the text of Hoare's letter to his son-in-law, dated 18 November 1762; see also Woodbridge, K., The Stourhead Landscape, Wiltshire, National Trust Guide (London, 1982), pp. 25–7 and 60.Google Scholar

454 For Rysbrack's bust of Alfred, see Webb, , Rysbrack, p. 116Google Scholar, and fig. 46; Eustace, , Rysbrack, pp. 171–3 (no. 79)Google Scholar, with illustrations; and Kenworthy-Browne, J., ‘Portrait Busts by Rysbrack’, National Trust Stud. (1980), pp. 67–79, at 77–9.Google Scholar See also Stourhead, National Trust Guide (London, 1981, rev. 1997), p. 13.Google Scholar

455 A number of small oval reliefs of King Alfred, in ivory (12 cm by 9 cm), presumed to date from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, are attributed to Vanderhagen after Rysbrack on the strength of the reference to Lord Radnor's commission; e.g. Sotheby's, 6 July 1995, Lot 151.

456 See Webb, , Rysbrack, p. 137Google Scholar; Eustace, , Rysbrack., pp. 182–4Google Scholar; and Matilda, Helen, Countess of Radnor, and Squire, W. B., Catalogue of the Pictures in the Collection of the Earl of Radnor, 2 pts (London, 1909) I, 43–6.Google Scholar One of the roundels on the base carries the inscription (in Latin): ‘Whoever you may be, lover of liberty or letters, regard with reverent eyes the Portrait of this Man, who, when his Country was threatened by the Foe from abroad and struggling under Barbarian and shameful ignorance within, did raise it up by Arms, temper it by Laws, and embel lish it by Learning. If you be a Briton, you may be proud, also, that the military prowess of Romulus, the politick Wisdom of Numa, and the philosophick Nobility of Aurelius, are uniquely comprehended in the name of BRITTANIC ALFRED.’ The inscription subsequently found its way onto the engraved membership card of the University College Club, established by Jacob Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor, in 1792, on which see further below, n. 468.

457 I am grateful to Dr Jane Cunningham (Librarian, Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art) for bringing this drawing to my attention, and for her assistance in other connections. For Jacob Bouverie, see Countess of Radnor and Squire, Catalogue of the Pictures I, 76–9.Google Scholar

458 Letter from Henry Hoare to his daughter Susanna, 28 April 1770 (Woodbridge, , Landscape and Antiquity, p. 61).Google Scholar

459 Ibid. pp. 61 and 65; McCarthy, , The Origins of the Gothic Revival, p. 31 and pl. 24.Google Scholar In its final (abbre viated) form, the inscription reads as follows: ‘Alfred the Great AD 879 on this summit erected his standard against the Danish invaders. To him we owe the origin of juries, the establishment of a militia, the creation of a naval force. Alfred, the light of a benighted age, was a philosopher and a Christian; the father of his people, the founder of the English monarchy and liberty.’ (Woodbridge, , The Stourhead Landscape, p. 60.)Google Scholar On ‘Alfred's Tower’ as one of the proposed locations of ‘Egbert's Stone’, see Peddie, J., Alfred the Good Soldier: His Life and Campaigns (Bath, 1989), pp. 128–34.Google Scholar

460 Carr, , University College, pp. 172–6Google Scholar, and Darwall-Smith, , University College, p. 18.Google Scholar

461 Smith, W., The Annals of University-College, Proving William of Durham the True Founder; and Anstvering all their Arguments who Ascribe it to King Alfred (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1728).Google Scholar For Smith himself, see the entry on him in the DNB and Carr, , University College, pp. 176–9Google Scholar; see also Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, p. 413, n. 19.Google Scholar

462 TH to JW, 17 July 1728 (BL, Lansdowne 778,95r). See also Remarks and Collections, ed. Doble, et al. , X, 27–9 and 33.Google Scholar

463 Petter, H. M., The Oxford Almanacks (Oxford, 1974), pp. 59–60Google Scholar (and fig.). A preliminary drawing for the composition is in the Ashmolean Museum: Brown, D. B., Ashmolean Museum Oxford. Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings, IV: The Earlier British Drawings / British Artists and Foreigners workingin Britain born before c. 1775 (Oxford, 1982), p. 641.Google Scholar

464 Petter, , The Oxford Almanacks, p. 67Google Scholar (and fig.). For Wale's later work, see above, pp. 305–9.

465 The portrait was painted presumably in the first half of the eighteenth century, and was given to the college by Dr Samuel Wanley (DD 1752). The college commissioned Robert Edge Pine to make a copy, executed in 1774 and described by a contemporary as ‘a most shocking perfor mance’. It seems not to be clear whether the portrait which now hangs in the library is the orig inal, or Pine's copy. See Poole, , Catalogue of Portraits III, 258–9.Google Scholar I owe my knowledge of the portrait at Worcester College to the kindness of Dr Timothy Clayton; and I am grateful to Dr J. H. Parker (Librarian, Worcester College) and to Dr Jane Cunningham (Courtauld Institute) for their help in the same connection.

466 The Alfredian bas-relief was encased within an elaborate gothic chimneypiece; see VCH Oxon III, 80, and pl. opp. 76 (showing the Hall in 1814).Google Scholar Newdigate was an undergraduate at Univ in the late 1730s, and from 1750 to 1780 politically active as MP for the University. He was the founder of the Newdigate Prize for poetry, first awarded in 1806.

467 For the picture in the Bodleian, see above, p. 263. There is a very similar painting, without the inscription naming Skeffington, in the Master's Dining Room.

468 The bust is by Joseph Wilton (1722–1803), and was evidently modelled on the statue by Rysbrack at Stourhead (above, p. 321). It was removed to the Library in 1938, where it remains (looking down the library towards the enormous statue of Lord Eldon, on whom see below); for a reproduction of it, see Lees, , Alfred the Great, opp. p. 464.Google Scholar In 1791 Jacob Bouverie, who had succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Radnor in 1776, proposed the foundation of a University College Dining Club, established in 1792, and gave it a strong sense of Alfredian identity; see Mitchell, L., ‘The First Univ. Dining Club?’, University College Record 1970, 351–8, with pl. I.Google Scholar I am most grateful to Christine Ritchie for her assistance in connection with the various items of Alfrediana at University College.

469 John Scott is better known as George III's Lord Chancellor, created Baron Eldon in 1799 and 1st Earl of Eldon in 1821. For the story of his Oxford examination, see Petterson, D., ‘Hebrew Studies’, History of the University of Oxford: the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sutherland, and Mitchell, , pp. 535–50, at 546.Google Scholar

470 The Historical Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford., 1888), p. 137. I owe this reference to the kindness of Dr John Pickles.Google Scholar

471 The ‘Liber Vitae’ (BL Stowe 944) is first recorded in the possession of Walter Clavell (1676–1740), in 1710. It is next recorded in the hands of the Revd George North (1710–72), who remarked on its importance in a letter to the Revd William Cole, 25 Sept. 1748 (BL, Add. 5993,78r), and later passed it on to Dr Michael Lort (1725–90), who gave it to Astle in 1769 or 1770. See Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, . pp. 73–7.Google Scholar

472 The Will of King Alfred (Oxford, 1788), p. iii.Google Scholar It emerges from an earlier version of the preface that the publication had been superintended by Herbert Croft, of the Oxford Museum, ‘out of Reverence for the Founder of University College, where I [sc. Croft] had the honour to be edu cated’. Astle suppressed this part of the preface, and elsewhere altered ‘Royal Founder’ to ‘Royal Patron’ but the Press seems to have been determined to retain the reference to Alfred as ‘Founder’ of the University. For further details, see Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, , pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

473 James, W. P., King Alfred Surveying Oxford University at the Present Time: a Prize Poem, Recited in the Theatre, Oxford, June 4th, 1856 (Oxford, 1856).Google Scholar For the Newdigate Prize, see The Historical Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1888), p. 147.Google Scholar

474 (Sir) Edwin Arnold's poem is printed in University College Record 1961, 106–9.Google Scholar

475 For the speeches made on this occasion, by the Master of University College, the Dean of Westminster, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others, see the report in the Guardian, 19 June 1872, pp. 808–9Google Scholar; see also Parker, , Early History of Oxford, p. 62Google Scholar, and Carr, , University College, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar The Regius Professor of Modern History is said to have presented the college with a parcel of burnt cakes; see Encyclopœdia of Oxford, ed. Hibbert, , p. 474.Google Scholar

476 Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, , pp. 17, 43, 47 n. 308, and 81 (with references to the first reburial of Alfred's ‘ashes’ in the New Minster).Google Scholar

477 Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, , pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

478 For the wider context of Milner's particular interest in Alfred, see Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 128–31.Google Scholar

479 Carter, J., Specimens of the Ancient Sculpture and Painting, now Remaining in this Kingdom … (London, 1780–1794) II, 19–22, with plate.Google Scholar

480 Milner, J., The History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester, 2 vols. (Winchester, 1798–1801), 2nd ed. (1809), opp. I, 374, and II, 239.Google Scholar

481 Howard, H., ‘Enquiries Concerning the Tomb of King Alfred, at Hyde Abbey, Near Winchester’, Archaeologia 13 (1798), 2nd ed. (1807), 309–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, written in the form of a letter from Howard to George Nayler, dated 26 Feb. 1798, and communicated to the Society of Antiquaries on 29 March 1798.

482 Below, p. 351. For an illustration, see Bogan, P., ‘Where is King Alfred Buried?’, Winchester Cathedral Record 55 (1986), 27–34, at 28 (pl. 1)Google Scholar; see also Tweddle, D., Biddle, M. and Kjølbye-Biddle, B., South-East England, Corpus of AS Stone Sculpture 4 (Oxford, 1995), 341.Google Scholar A plaster cast of the stone was preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in the early nine teenth century (Way, A., Catalogue of Antiquities … (London, [1847]), p. 29).Google Scholar For further investi gations into the burial-place of King Alfred, see below, pp. 345–6 and 352.

483 The Winchester stone might be compared in this respect with the stone seen by William of Malmesbury, which commemorated Alfred's presumed foundation of the burh at Shaftesbury in 880; see Keynes, , ‘King Alfred the Great and Shaftesbury Abbey’, p. 38.Google Scholar

484 Keynes, S., ‘George Harbin's Transcript of the Lost Cartulary of Athelney Abbey’, Somerset Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. 136 (1993 for 1992), 149–59, at 151.Google Scholar

485 The inscription on the monument is as follows: ‘King Ælfred the Great, in the year of our Lord 879, having been defeated by the Danes, fled for refuge to the forest of Athelney, where he lay concealed from his enemies for the space of a whole year. He soon after regained pos session of the throne; and in grateful remembrance of the protection he had received, under the favour of Heaven, he erected a monastery on this spot, and endowed it with all the lands contained in the Isle of Athelney. To perpetuate the memory of so remarkable an incident in the life of that illustrious prince, this edifice was founded by John Slade, Esq., of Maunsel, the proprietor of Athelney, and lord of the manor of North Petherton, A.D. 1801.’

486 N&Q 9th ser. 2 (1898), 373Google Scholar; Spinage, , King Alfred: Myths and Mysteries, pp. 27–8.Google Scholar Francis Wise had suggested in 1738 that the White Horse at Uffington marked the site of the English victory at Ashdown in 871; see above, n. 207. For other ‘Alfredian’ sites in Berkshire and else where, see Knott, P., ‘Alfred's Wayte’, Berkshire Old and New 7 (1990), 14–23Google Scholar, and Peddie, , Alfred the Good Soldier.Google Scholar

487 Finan, Watkins & Limm (The Square, Mere, Wiltshire), 5 April 1997, Lot 369.

488 Turner, S., A History of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1799–1805), 7th ed., 3 vols. (London, 1852), esp. I, 458–517, and II, 1–142.Google Scholar See also Burrow, J. W., A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 116–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacDougall, , Racial Myth in English History, pp. 92–5Google Scholar; Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, p. 135Google Scholar; and Simmons, , Reversing the Conquest, pp. 53–60.Google Scholar

489 For such public celebrations during the reign of George III, see Colley, L., ‘The Apotheosis of King George III: Loyalty, Royalty and the British Nation 1760–1820’, Past and Present 102 (1984), 94–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also M. Chase, ‘From Millennium to Anniversary: the Concept of Jubilee in Late Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England’, ibid. 129 (1990), 132–47; and Quinault, R., ‘The Cult of the Centenary c. 1784–1914’, Hist. Research 71 (1998), 303–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

490 On the rise of ‘racial Anglo-Saxonism’, in England and in America, see Horsman, , ‘Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism in Great Britain before 1850’Google Scholar; Horsman, , Race and Manifest DestinyGoogle Scholar; MacDougall, , Racial Myth in English History, esp. pp. 89–124Google Scholar; and Frantzen, , Desire for Origins.Google Scholar

491 On the Anglo-Saxons in the nineteenth century, see Anderson, O., ‘The Political Uses of History in Mid Nineteenth-Century England’, Past and Present 36 (1967), 87–105, esp. 99–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It would be interesting to know more of the incidence of ‘Alfred’ as a given name, in relation to other ‘Anglo-Saxon’ names and in relation to all personal names, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See further Dunkling, L., The Guinness Book of Names, 7th ed. (Enfield, 1995), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

492 Wu, D., ‘Cottle's Alfred: Another Coleridge-Inspired Epic’, Charles Lamb Bull, ns 73 (01 1991), 19–22.Google Scholar For an impression of Coleridge's views on Alfred, see Coleridge, S. T., On the Constitution of the Church and State According to the Idea of Each [1830], ed. Barrell, J. (London, 1972), pp. 9, 41 and 82 n.Google Scholar; see also Smith, , The Gothic Bequest, pp. 153–6.Google Scholar

493 Cottle, J., Alfred: an Epic Poem in Twenty-Four Books (London, 1800), repr. in facsimile, with an intro duction by Reiman, D. H. (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; see also Cotttle, J., Alfred: an Heroic Poem, in Twenty-Four Books, 4th ed. (London, 1850), accompanied by Cottle's essay on ‘The Heresiarch Church of Rome’, pp. xix–cxvi.Google Scholar For discussion of the poem, see Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 99–103Google Scholar; Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 435–7Google Scholar; and Pratt, , ‘King Alfred in Mid-Late 18th Century Poetry’.Google Scholar

494 Gentleman's Mag. 70 (1800), 975–6Google Scholar; but one suspects that the reviewer's tongue was firmly in his cheek.

495 Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their Writers, ed. Morley, E. J., 3 vols. (London, 1938) II, 663.Google Scholar

496 Pye, H. J., Alfred: an Epic Poem in Six Books (London, 1801), republished in a different format (London, 1808).Google Scholar See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 96–8.Google Scholar

497 Fitchett, J., King Alfred: a Poem, ed. Roscoe, R., 6 vols. (London, 1841–1842).Google Scholar It would appear from Roscoe's preface (I, viii) that a few copies of the first volume were privately printed, in 1808, only to be recalled afterwards by the author. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 104–6Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of King Alfred’, p. 422.Google Scholar

498 Letter from Sir Walter Scott to Richard Sainthill Jones, 12 March 1813, in The Letters of Sir Walter Scott. III: 1811–1814, ed. Grierson, H. J. C. (London, 1932), pp. 234–5. I owe my knowl edge of this letter to the kindness of Stewart Lyon.Google Scholar

499 The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth IV, ed. de Selincourt, E. and Darbishire, H. (Oxford, 1947), 91–2.Google Scholar

500 Ibid. III, ed. E. de Selincourt and H. Darbishire (Oxford, 1946), 354.

501 Knight, R. P., Alfred; a Romance in Rhyme (London, 1823).Google Scholar

502 Collingwood, G. L. Newnham, Alfred the Great: a Poem (London, 1836).Google Scholar

503 zu Stolberg, F. L., Leben Alfred des Grossen, Königes in England (Münster, 1815), 2nd ed. (Münster, 1836)Google Scholar; with a portrait frontispiece derived from Vertue. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 118–19Google Scholar, and Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of Alfred’, pp. 438–9.Google Scholar

504 See also Stanley, , ‘The Glorification of King Alfred’, p. 423, n. 47Google Scholar; Frank, , Search for the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet, p. 22, n. 63.Google Scholar

505 Smaczny, J., ‘Alfred: Dvořák's First Operatic Endeavour Surveyed’, Jnl of the R. Musical Assoc. 115 (1990), 80–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

506 Ashbrook, W., Donizetti and his Operas (Cambridge, 1982), esp. pp. 292 (‘There is little that mere music could do to introduce credibility into the unlikely meetings and furious confrontations that are liberally sprinkled through the tedious plot’) and 537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

507 The painting was sold at Sotheby's, 23 November 1988, Lot 481 (with illustration). I owe my knowledge of this item to Miss Jane Munro (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

508 E.g. The Alfred and Westminster Evening Gazette, continued as The Alfred (London, 1810–1811)Google Scholar; The Alfred: West of England Jnl and General Advertiser (Exeter, 1815–1831)Google Scholar; The London Alfred, or The People's Recorder (London, 1819)Google Scholar; The Alfred (London, 1831–1833)Google Scholar. For further details, see Langenfelt, , Historic Origin of the Eight Hours Day, pp. 119–22.Google Scholar

509 On Alfred's contribution to labour legislation, see Langenfelt, , Historic Origin of the Eight Hours Day, pp. 122–39Google Scholar, and Hill, , ‘The Norman Yoke’, pp. 96–7 and 117.Google Scholar

510 See Robinson, J. M., Arundel Castle (Chichester, 1995), pp. 28 and 35, with fig. 31.1 am grateful to Dr Mark Goldie for drawing the sculpture to my attention.Google Scholar

511 For the sculpture at Buckingham Palace, see Crook, J. M. and Port, M. H., The History of the King's Works, VI: 1782–1851 (London, 1973), 263–302, at 298 and 301Google Scholar; and Busco, M., Sir Richard Westmacott, Sculptor (Cambridge, 1994), p. 58Google Scholar. Some of Flaxman's original designs were sold at Christie's, 24 March 1981, Lots 92–7, including ‘King Alfred publishes his Laws’ (Lot 96, with illustration). The friezes are just visible in Harris, J. et al. , Buckingham Palace, 2nd ed. (London, 1968), pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

512 Knowles, J. S., Alfred the Great; or, The Patriot King. An Historical Play (London, 1831)Google Scholar. For a synopsis of the plot, see Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 80–5.Google Scholar

513 For the mug, see Hallinan, L., British Commemorative: Royalty, Politics, War and Sport (Woodbridge, 1995), p. 57Google Scholar, with pl. 97. Briggs (below, n. 576) alludes to a William IV plate bearing the king's head and the inscription ‘The first radical monarch since Alfred’.

514 [Graham, M.], Little Arthur's History of England, 2 vols. (London, 1835) I, 46–55, with a woodcut of the young Alfred at his mother's knee (p. 48)Google Scholar; repr. many times, and reissued in a Century Edition in 1936. Mangnall's, RichmalHistorical and Miscellaneous Questions for the Use of Young People (1798) was also influential at the same level throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.Google Scholar

515 Craik, G. L. and Macfarlane, C., The Pictorial History of England, being a History of the People, as well as a History of the Kingdom, 6 vols. (London, 1841) I.i, 138–356, covering the period 449–1066.Google Scholar

516 ‘Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History’, Punch 3 (1842), 29–30Google Scholar, repr. in Thackeray, W. M., Miscellaneous Essays, Sketches and Reviews and Contributions to “Punch” (London, 1886), pp. 367–416, at 379–81. The lectures continue with some pastiche in the form of poems on Æthelred and Cnut.Google Scholar

517 For ‘Anglo-Saxon’, and specifically Alfredian, subjects in Victorian history painting, see Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 114–18 and 155–7.Google Scholar

518 Allderidge, P., The Late Richard Dadd 1817–1886, Exhibition Catalogue (London, 1974), pp. 16 and 54 (nos. 36 and 40).Google Scholar

519 The Art-Union 2 (1840), 77Google Scholar; see also ibid. 5 (1843), 267–71.

520 Dadd showed first signs of mental illness while travelling abroad in 1842, and killed his father soon after his return to England in 1843; whereupon he was certified insane, and passed the remainder of his life at Bethlem Hospital in London and at Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.

521 For the new building, see Crook, and Port, , History of the King's Works VI, 573–626Google Scholar, and Boase, T. S. R., ‘The Decoration of the New Palace of Westminster, 1841–1863’ Jnl of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 17 (1954), 319–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also The Houses of Parliament, ed. Port, M. H. (New Haven, CT, 1976), pp. 238, 240 (sculptures of Saxon kings) and 268–81 (painting);Google Scholar and Works of Art in the House of Lords, ed. Bond, M. (London, 1980).Google Scholar

522 ‘[First] Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in Parliamentary Papers [hereafter PP] 1842 xxv, at 7.

523 For the cartoons exhibited in 1843, see Clarke, H. G., A Hand-Book Guide to the Cartoons now Exhibiting in Westminster Hall (London, 1843)Google Scholar, and The Book of Art: Cartoons, Frescoes, Sculpture and Decorative Art, as Applied to the New Houses of Parliament, ed. Hunt, F. K. (London, 1846), pp. 79–112Google Scholar. For a review of the exhibition, see The Art-Union 5 (1843), 207–12Google Scholar; and for a depiction of the scene, see Strong, R., The Spirit of Britain: a Narrative History of the Arts (London, 1999), p. 555.Google Scholar

524 Nos. 83 ([?], ‘Alfred in the camp of the Danes’Google Scholar), 102 (James, and Foggo, George, ‘Alfred the Great generously releases the wife and children of Hastings, the Danish invader’, 103Google Scholar(Claxton, Marshall, ‘Alfred in the camp of the Danes’), 104Google ScholarBridges, John, ‘Alfred the Great submitting his code of laws for the approval of the witan’Google Scholar), and 105 (Cope, C. W., ‘The first trial by jury’).Google Scholar

525 Reduced drawings of the original cartoons were made by John, James and William Linnell, engraved on stone, and published by Longman in The Prize Cartoons; being the Eleven Designs to which the Premiums mere Awarded by the Royal Commissioners on the Fine Arts in the Year 1843 (London, 1847), dedicated to the commissioners as ‘the first fruits of their exertions to develop a high branch of art hitherto uncultivated in this country’.Google Scholar

526 BM, P&D, 1854–12–11–135. Reproduced from the lithograph in Temple, A. G., England's History as Pictured by Famous Painters (London, 1896–1897), p. 17Google Scholar; see also Boase, , ‘New Palace of Westminster’, p. 328 and pl. 46c. A lithograph of the cartoon, engraved by H. S. Sadd, was published by Fishel, Adler & Schwartz, 373 Fifth Avenue, New York (BM, P&D, 1912–10–14–276).Google Scholar

527 BM, P&D, 1854–12–11–142. Reproduced from the lithograph in Temple, , England's History as Pictured by Famous Painters, p. 31Google Scholar. For a description of the composition, identifying the figures (including Grimbald, Asser, and others), see The Book of Art, ed. Hunt, , p. 104.Google Scholar

528 Claxton's ‘Alfred in the Camp of the Danes, A.D. 880’ (BM, P&D, 1852–6–12–421) was one of a set of smaller lithographs of the ten additional prize-winning cartoons, made by Frank Howard and published by T. McClean. It is described in this form as ‘Prize Cartoon no. 103’, being its number in the exhibition in 1843 (above, n. 524).

529 ‘Second Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1843 xxix, at 70.

530 For the various items exhibited in 1844, see Clarke, H. G., A Hand-Book Guide to the Cartoons, Frescoes, and Sculpture…now Exhibiting in Westminster Hall (London, 1844)Google Scholar, and The Book of Art, ed. Hunt, , pp. 114–47Google Scholar. For a (scathing) review of the exhibition, see The Art-Union 6 (1844), 211–19Google Scholar; see also ibid. p. 293, for its popularity.

531 Nos. 27 (Christie, Alexander, ‘Alfred the Great’Google Scholar), 35–6 (Stanley, Harold John, ‘Alfred compiling his laws, assisted by his friend Asser’Google Scholar), 50 (Selous, Henry C., ‘Alfred submitting his code of laws to the wittena-gemot’Google Scholar), 59 (Claxton, Marshall, ‘The Building of Oxford University’).Google Scholar

532 Martin's, John ‘The Trial of Canute’Google Scholar was suggested by a passage in Turner, , History of the Anglo-Saxons II, 293. For his painting of Cnut and the waves, see above, n. 323.Google Scholar

533 Nos. 117 (Archer, Frederick S., ‘Alfred the Great with the Book of Common Law’Google Scholar), 120 (Westmacott, James Sherwood, ‘Alfred the Great’Google Scholar) and 173 (Stephens, Edward B., ‘Alfred the Great propounding his Code of Laws’Google Scholar). Of these, Westmacott's was very highly praised (The Art-Union 6 (1844), 215Google Scholar), and Stephens's is illustrated in The Book of Art, ed. Hunt, , p. 140; see also below, nn. 535 and 560.Google Scholar

534 ‘Third Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1844 xxxi, at 9 and 25.

535 For the various items exhibited in 1845, see The Book of Art, ed. Hunt, , pp. 169–89Google Scholar. For a review of the exhibition, see The Art-Union 7 (1845), 103–4 (sculpture) and 253–9Google Scholar (cartoons). The statuettes of Alfred exhibited in 1845 were by Westmacott, James Sherwood, Stephens, Edward B. (‘Alfred the Great as Legislator’)Google Scholar, and John Henning; those by Westmacott and Stephens had been exhibited in 1844. See Gunnis, , Dictionary of British Sculptors, pp. 198, 372 and 422.Google Scholar

536 ‘Fourth Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1845 xxvii, at 9. To judge from further sections of the same report, the commissioners had it in mind to accord Alfred a special place in the central Hall at Westminster.

537 ‘Third Report’, p. 10;Google Scholar‘Fourth Report’, pp. 16–17;Google Scholar also announced in the ‘Fifth Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, and in the ‘Sixth Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1846 xxiv.Google Scholar

538 For a review of the exhibition of paintings in 1847, incorporating a complete list of the 123 exhibited entrants, see The Art-Union 9 (1847), 265–72Google Scholar; and ibid. pp. 334 and 361, for the great success of the exhibition.

539 For another Alfredian picture by Salter, see below, p. 338.

540 For Watts's painting, which still hangs at Westminster, see Archer, T., Pictures from Royal Portraits Illustrative of English and Scottish History (London, 1878)Google Scholar; Temple, , England's History as Pictured by Famous Painters, p. 26Google Scholar; Boase, , ‘New Palace of Westminster’, pp. 342–3 and 354Google Scholar; and esp. Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, pp. 114–15Google Scholar (fig. 131). For the prizes, see ‘Seventh Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1847 xxxiii, at 19.

541 ‘Seventh Report of the Commissioners on the Fine Arts’, in PP 1847 xxxiii, at 9–15. See also Boase, , ‘New Palace of Westminster’, pp. 341–2Google Scholar. Cf. Gullick, T. J., A Descriptive Handbook for the National Pictures in the Westminster Palace (London, 1865).Google Scholar

542 Royal Academy 1852 (122), now in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. See Ormond, R., Daniel Maclise (1806–1870) (London, 1972), pp. 97–8 (no. 102)Google Scholar, and Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, p. 117 (fig. 135). The cartoon is at Stamford High School.Google Scholar

543 Sotheby's sale, 6 Nov. 1991, Lot 219.

544 British Institution 1848 (335), 5 ft 8 in by 7 ft 0 in.

545 Art-Union of London, Seven Designs in Outline, Reproduced from Cartoons Submitted in Competition for the Premium of Five Hundred Pounds Offered by the Society for an Historical Picture (London, 1847)Google Scholar, and Gleanings from History, Illustrative of the Engravings Issued by the Art-Union of London, in 1847, ed. Steward, J. (London, 1847)Google Scholar; cf. the strangely hostile remarks in The Art-Union 8 (1846), 92Google Scholar. The subject of Salter's cartoon was suggested by a passage in Turner, , History of the Anglo-Saxons II, 105–6Google Scholar (from the so-called ‘Proverbs of Alfred’). For the wider context of this and other Art-Union competitions, see King, L. S., The Industrialisation of Taste: Victorian England and the Art Union of London (Ann Arbor, MI, 1985), pp. 72–7.Google Scholar

546 George, E., The Life and Death of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, 1786–1846, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar; Clarke, O., Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter (Athens, GA, 1952)Google Scholar; Brown, D. B. et al. , Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1786–1846: Painter and Writer, Friend of Wordsworth and Keats, Exhibition Catalogue (Grasmere, 1996)Google Scholar. The major primary sources are The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, ed. Pope, W. B., 5 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1960–1963Google Scholar), and Haydon, F. W., Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table-Talk, 2 vols. (London, 1876).Google Scholar

547 George, , Haydon, pp. 263–78Google Scholar; Diary, ed. Pope, , V, 293–308Google Scholar; Haydon, , Correspondence I, 218–24, and II, 57–8 (letter to Wordsworth).Google Scholar

548 Diary, ed. Pope, III, 326–7Google Scholar (the scheme in 1828, including ‘Blessings of Law (Alfred establishing Trial by Jury)’), and V, 399 and 405–6 (inception of the new series in 1844). See also George, , Haydon, pp. 274–5, 280 and 282–3.Google Scholar

549 Diary, ed. Pope, , V, 516–51Google Scholar (working on Alfred) and 553 (suicide); Haydon, , Correspondence and Table-Talk I, 465Google Scholar (advice on AS architecture), 467 (letter to his son, 4 May 1846, enclosing a sketch of ‘Alfred’), and 230–7 (last days). Haydon's study for the head of Alfred, dated 1846, was sold at Sotheby's, 19 Nov. 1981, Lot 44. See also Hayter, A., A Sultry Month: Scenes of London Literary Life in 1846 (London, 1965), pp. 80–1 and 108–10.Google Scholar

550 George, , Haydon, p. 392.Google Scholar

551 British Institution 1842 (153), 6 ft 4 in by 6 ft 10 in.

552 The picture was exhibited at the New Society of Watercolours and engraved in the Illustrated London News, 30 May 1846, p. 349.Google Scholar

553 British Institution 1841 (158), 4 ft 6 in by 5 ft 5 in.

554 Royal Academy 1842 (491); British Institution 1844 (60), 4 ft 6 in by 5 ft 4 in.

555 Royal Academy 1850 (451).

556 British Institution 1836 (37), 5 ft by 4 ft 2 in.

557 Towndrow, K. R., The Works of Alfred Stevens in the Tate Gallery (London, 1950), p. 67 (no. 72)Google Scholar; Strong, , The Victorian Painter and British History, p. 117 (fig. 134).Google Scholar

558 Royal Academy 1850 (1299).

559 The picture was engraved in the Illustrated London News, 30 June 1855, Supplement, p. 657, accompanied by a poem, by E. L. Hervey, in which Alfred exhorts the children to good deeds.Google Scholar

560 ‘Alfred the Great in the neatherd's cottage’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1863 (1060), and took its place in the Mansion House, London; see James, T. Beaumont, English Heritage Book of Winchester (London, 1997), p. 43 (fig. 20). Other statuettes of Alfred were exhibited at the Academy in 1859 (by H. Armstead) and 1863 (by D. D. Ducker).Google Scholar

561 E.g. Punch 5 (1843), 22, etc.Google Scholar; ibid. 13 (1847), 8–9 (Thackeray, W. M., Travels in London…and other Contributions to Punch, Harry Furniss Centenary Edition (London, 1911), pp. 280–5)Google Scholar, with allusion to the prize-winning paintings by Pickersgill (burial of King Harold) and Watts (Alfred and the Danes), and with reference to a projected painting of Alfred and the cakes. For comment on the predictability of subjects exhibited at the Royal Academy, see Punch 34 (1858), 209Google Scholar. For the treatment of the art exhibitions in Punch, see also Altick, R. D., Punch: The Lively Youth of a British Institution 1841–1851 (Columbus, OH, 1997), pp. 668–89, esp. 674–6.Google Scholar

562 E.g. Punch 14 (1848), 201Google Scholar (parody of Cnut and the waves); ibid. 15 (1848), 121 (parody of Alfred in the Danish camp); ibid. 43 (1862), 230–1 (‘Ballad of King Alfred and the Grecian Cakes’) and 239 (‘Alfred the Little and Alfred the Great’).

563 Thackeray, W. M., The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family, ed. Pendennis, A., Harry Furniss Centenary Edition (London, 1911), pp. 181–90Google Scholar; ed. Sanders, A., World's Classics (Oxford, 1995), p. 221.Google Scholar

564 ‘Our Street’ [1848], in The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, XII: The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh (London, 1872), at pp. 53–4Google Scholar; Thackeray, W. M., Christmas Books, Harry Furniss Centenary Edition (London, 1911), pp. 75–139, at 92.Google Scholar

565 See Sperber, J., The European Revolutions, 1848–1851 (Cambridge, 1994).Google Scholar

566 Pauli, R., König Aelfred und seine Stelle in der Geschichte Englands (Berlin, 1851)Google Scholar; Pauli, R., The Life of King Alfred, ed. Wright, T. (London, 1852)Google Scholar. See also [D.], ‘Alfred and his Place in the History of England’, Gentleman's Mag. ns 37 (1852), 115–20.Google Scholar

567 Wright, T., Biographia Britannica Literaria: or Biography of Literary Characters of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. (London, 1842–1846) 1, 405–13Google Scholar. Cf. Pauli, , Life of Alfred, pp. 6–18Google Scholar, and Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’, ed. Stevenson, , pp. xcvi–cx.Google Scholar

568 Steinitz, F., The Moderate Monarchy, or Principles of the British Constitution, Described in a Narrative of the Life and Maxims of Alfred the Great and his Counsellors (London, 1849). The double-page frontispiece juxtaposes a sub-Vertuesque portrait of Alfred, sporting sceptre, orb, and Alfred Jewel, with a portrait of Queen Victoria enthroned.Google Scholar

569 Kemble, J. M., The Saxons in England, 2 vols. (London, 1849) I, v.Google Scholar

570 See Hudson, D., Martin Tupper: his Rise and Fall (London, 1949), pp. 90–7Google Scholar; see also Philip, K., Victorian Wantage (Wantage, 1968), pp. 112–14.Google Scholar

571 Research and Reference Center, Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, x828/T8391, Album 14. I am grateful to Mrs Shirley Corke for drawing my attention in 1985 to the papers of Derek Hudson in the Guildford Muniment Room, Guildford, accumulated while writing his book on Martin Tupper, and for sending me a copy of the poster mentioned below; to Dr Nigel Ramsay for urging me to read Hudson's book; to the staff of the Guildford Muniment Room for steering me towards the Tupper archive in its present location; and to Derek Hudson himself (letter, 25 April 1998) for some further information.

572 I am grateful to Dr Boyd Hilton for alerting me to the wider historical contexts which would make the subject more interesting, and which at the same time put it beyond my own reach.

573 The wording of the poster will suffice to give a flavour of the event: ‘To all good men & true, of Wantage and its neighbourhood. A great and unprecedented honour is thrust upon you: on Thursday, the 25th [October], will be commemorated, in his native town, KING ALFRED'S 1000th BIRTHDAY. From all parts of England your countrymen, together with some foreigners and American kinsmen, are expected to Flock to this Patriotic Celebration: and you need not be reminded how kindly, nor how warmly you will welcome the Guests who seek out WANTAGE on so happy an occasion. KING ALFRED is known to all the world as, perhaps, the Greatest Man, – Certainly the Best King, – that ever lived; and in his Institutions, Character, and Fame [he] is still and ever immortal amongst us.…It is recommended to the Inhabitants of WANTAGE, that, in honour of their ILLUSTRIOUS TOWNSMAN, they decorate their streets and houses with flags, oak boughs, and such other tokens of patriotic feeling as they can muster; also, that they wear their holiday apparel, and the ALFRED MEDAL; – quantities of which, at a very cheap cost, will be in the town on Wednesday.…Men of Berkshire, of all grades! you will not be wanting to yourselves on so glorious an occa sion.’ The poster is reproduced in Hudson, Tupper, front endpaper. In addition to reports published in newspapers, there is a revealing account of the proceedings in the Wantage Parish Diaries (Reading, Berkshire Record Office, D/P148/28), ed. A. J. Verdin, Berkshire Record Soc. (forthcoming); I am grateful to Lisa Spurrier (Archivist, Berks. R.O.) for her assistance in this connection.

574 Brown, L., A Catalogue of British Historical Medals 1837–1901 (London, 1987), p. 141 (nos. 2344–5).Google Scholar

575 Giles, J. A., ed., The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great, 2 vols. (Oxford and Cambridge, 1852). Those privileged to dine on 25 October 1849 at the Alfred's Head, in Wantage, under the chairmanship of Charles Eyston, Esq. (‘a true English gentleman and both in heart and name a thorough Anglo-Saxon’), resolved on that occasion to bring forth the Jubilee Edition of Alfred's works, ‘to be edited by the most competent Anglo-Saxon scholars who might be willing to combine for such a purpose’ (Preface, pp. ix–x).Google Scholar

576 The electronic or printed catalogues of the British Library give a good impression of the amount and variety of material on Alfred generated in the second half of the nineteenth century. The material in Hawkshaw, A., Sonnets on Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1854), pp. 96–105 and 117Google Scholar, gives expression to the usual sentiments. And for the lack of attention paid to the anniversary of the battle of Hastings, in 1866, which may have reflected a certain respect for the Anglo-Saxon past, see Briggs, A., ‘Saxons, Normans and Victorians’ [1966], repr. in The Collected Essays of Asa Briggs, 3 vols. (Brighton, 1985) II, 215–35.Google Scholar

577 Doyle, J. E., A Chronicle of England B.C. 55 - A.D. 1485 (London, 1864), pp. 46Google Scholar (death of King Edmund), 50 (Alfred in the neatherd's cottage), 52 (baptism of Guthrum) and 57 (Alfred plans the capture of the Danish fleet). For the book's place in a wider context, see McLean, R., Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing (London, 1963), 2nd ed. (London, 1972), p. 184.Google Scholar

578 Freeman, E. A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1867–1879) I (2nd ed., 1870), 48–52Google Scholar. See also Skinner, , ‘History and Ideology’, p. 177Google Scholar, and Burrow, , A Liberal Descent, pp. 155–228.Google Scholar

579 Hughes, T., Alfred the Great (London, 1871), p. 5.Google Scholar

580 Ibid. pp. 3–6. The book was published in parts in 1869–71, and first issued in one volume in 1871. I am most grateful to Dr Boyd Hilton for elucidating the political context in 1869, when the preface would appear to have been written. The book's popularity is suggested by the fact that it had been reprinted nine times by 1904. It contains illustrations depicting a heroic Alfred at the battle of Ashdown, and a disgrunded ealdorman 'sedulously bent on acquiring learning’.

581 Cf. Punch 18 (1850), 159 (‘King Alfred going, going - gone!’). For the building of the bridewell in the 1780s, see above, pp. 325–6.Google Scholar

582 Letter from ‘An Antiquarian’ to the Builder, 12 Nov. 1870Google Scholar, printed in Mellor, J., The Curious Particulars Relating to King Alfred's Death and Burial, Never Before Made Public (Canterbury, 1871), pp. 21–2Google Scholar; letter from J. Mellor to the Standard, 9 Feb. 1871, not published but printed ibid. pp. 12–16. See also Draper, W. H., Alfred the Great: a Sketch and Seven Studies, 2nd ed. (1901), pp. 101–12Google Scholar; Bowker, A., The King Alfred Millenary: a Record of the Proceedings of the National Commemoration (London, 1902), pp. 62–8Google Scholar; and Liber Vitae, ed. Keynes, , pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

583 See extracts in Bogan, ‘Where is King Alfred buried?’ (above, n. 482), pp. 28–31.

584 Letter to the Morning Advertiser, 23 Nov. 1870, in Mellor, , Curious Particulars, p. 20Google Scholar; see also his letter to the Standard, 9 Feb. 1871, ibid. p. 13 (where the excavations are said to have taken place not in 1867 but in the autumn of 1870). A few years later, in August 1877, members of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society convened for their twenty-ninth Annual Meeting at Bridgwater, and were taken to Athelney by the President, Bishop Clifford; but to judge from the account in Proc. of the Somersetshire Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. 23 (1877), 15–21 and 50–1, there was little left to show for the abbey, apart from some tiles.Google Scholar

585 ‘Alfred found learning dead, and he restored it. Education neglected, and he revived it. The laws powerless, and he gave them force. The Church debased, and he raised it. The land ravaged by a fearful enemy, from which he delivered it. Alfred's name will live as long as mankind shall respect the past.’ Cf. Matt. V. 3–11 and XXV. 35–6.

586 For an illustration of the scene, see Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 21 July 1877, p. 425Google Scholar; and for the statue itself, see White Horse Hill and its Surroundings, Issued in Commemoration of the Unveiling of the Statue of Alfred the Great, at Wantage, by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, July 14th, 1877 (Wantage, [1877]), pp. 77–83Google Scholar. See also Philip, , Victorian Wantage, pp. 114–16. A marble statuette of King Alfred, by Count Gleichen, based on the Wantage statue and dated 1878, is in the Royal Collection of Sculpture at Frogmore.Google Scholar

587 For Loyd-Lindsay's military and political career, see Wantage, Harriet Lady, Lord Wantage, V.C., K.C.B.: a Memoir(London, 1907), with frontispiece, and the DNB.Google Scholar

588 Bishop Clifford was the President of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (above, n. 584), and had been vigorous in the defence of Asser, and Alfred, against the attacks launched by Henry Howorth in the Athenaeum in 1876–7 (below, n. 590). I am grateful to Thomás Kalmar for alerting me to the wider significance of Clifford's role in this context, and for much stimulating discussion of this and related matters.

589 For the proceedings at Wedmore in 1878, see An Account of the Celebration of the Thousandth Anniversary of the ‘Peace of Wedmore’, Signed by Alfred and Guthrum (Wells, 1878)Google Scholar, repr. from the Wells Jnl, 15 Aug. 1878. I am indebted to Tom Mayberry (Somerset Record Office) for providing me with a copy of this item.Google Scholar

590 The authenticity of Asser's ‘Life of Alfred’ was challenged by Thomas Wright in 1841, by Henry (later Sir Henry) Howorth in 1876–7, and by an anonymous author in The Times, in 1898. For further details, see Asser's Life of Alfred, ed. Stevenson, , pp. xcvi–cx (Wright), cx–cxxiv (Howorth, though without reference to Clifford's defence) and cxxiv–cxxv (The Times).Google Scholar

591 Stubbs, W., The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1873–1878), 4th ed. (Oxford, 1883)Google Scholar. See also Burrow, , A Liberal Descent, pp. 126–51Google Scholar, and Campbell, J., ‘William Stubbs (1825–1901)’, Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, I: History, ed. Damico, H. and Zavadil, J. B. (New York, 1995), 77–87.Google Scholar

592 Palmer, R. [1st Earl of Selborne (1812–95)], Ancient Facts and Fictions Concerning Churches and Tithes (London, 1888).Google Scholar

593 Pollock, F. and Maidand, F. W., The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols. [1895], 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1898), reissued with an introduction by S. F. C. Milsom (Cambridge, 1968).Google Scholar

594 Stubbs, , Constitutional Histoty I, 106–12 and 122–5Google Scholar (shires, etc.), 269–70 (Norman genius), and 655–8 (trial by jury); Pollock, and Maitland, , History of English Law I, 140–3Google Scholar (trial by jury) and 532–71 (shires, etc.). See also Wormald, P., ‘Jury’, Encyclopaedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al. , p. 267.Google Scholar

595 Austin, A., England's Darling (London, 1896)Google Scholar; Austin, A., Alfred the Great, England's Darling, 5th ed. (London, 1901)Google Scholar. See also Miles, , King Alfred in Literature, pp. 92–5.Google Scholar

596 A circular bound at the end of Alfred the Great, ed. Bowker, A. (London, 1899)Google Scholar, announced the ‘National Commemoration’ to be held in 1901, and invited contributions in respect of the statue by Hamo Thornycroft. Among the many other publications spawned by the millennium (registered in the electronic or printed catalogues of the British Library), Wall, J. C., Alfred the Great his Abbeys of Hyde, Athelney and Shaftesbury (London, 1900) appears to have been conceived as an antidote to the air of militaristic triumphalism symbolized by the (then projected) statue at Winchester. Sir (William) Hamo Thornycroft (1850–1925) had previously crafted the statues of General Gordon in Trafalgar Square (1888) and of Oliver Cromwell in Old Palace Yard, Westminster (1899).Google Scholar

597 Alfred the Great Millenary Exhibition, 1901 (London, 1901), being the catalogue of an exhibition held at the British Museum; unfortunately, the BM (i.e. BL) copy was destroyed by enemy action in 1942.Google Scholar

598 The publisher Elliot Stock, who published Wall's book, was also responsible for commissioning the production of fine commemorative replicas of the Alfred Jewel. See Keynes, , ‘The Discovery and First Publication of the Alfred Jewel’, p. 8, n. 21.Google Scholar

599 Brown, L., A Catalogue of British Historical Medals 1760–1960, III: The Accession of Edward VII to 1960 (London, 1995), p. 11 (no. 3726).Google Scholar

600 Bowker, A., The King Alfred Millenary: a Record of the Proceedings of the National Commemoration (London, 1902)Google Scholar. The book's cover is decorated with a coat of arms for Alfred which differs from the norm (cf. above, n. 114). See also Simmons, , Reversing the Conquest, pp. 185–91Google Scholar, and Yorke, B., The King Alfred Millenerary in Winchester, 1901, Hampshire Papers 17 (Winchester, 1999).Google Scholar

601 Plummer, C., The Life and Times of Alfred the Great, Ford Lectures 1901 (Oxford, 1902), with the text of Plummer's sermon at pp. 207–13Google Scholar. Cf. the remarks of Stenton, F. M., in PBA 15 (1929), 469.Google Scholar

602 Plummer, , Life and Times of Alfred the Great, p. 193.Google Scholar

603 See, e.g., Holdsworth, W. S., A History of English Law I–II (London, 1903)Google Scholar, on the differences between the pre- and post-Conquest polities; see also Oman, C., England before the Conquest (London, 1910), on Alfred's laws.Google Scholar

604 For Callcott, see above, pp. 333–4. For Dickens on Alfred, see Dickens, C., Master Humphrey's Clock and A Child's History of England, New Oxford Illustrated Dickens 12 (London, 1958), 144–9. I owe my knowledge of the next two items to Dr Shaun Tyas, and of the Ladybird King Alfred the Great to my mother, who gave me a copy on my birthday in 1983.Google Scholar

605 I am grateful to Mr Peter Hopton for drawing my attention to this inscription, and providing me with a photograph.

606 For a reproduction in colour, see Yorke, , ‘The Most Perfect Man in History?’, p. 14Google Scholar; see also Houses of Parliament, ed. Port, , pp. 154 (showing the mural in situ) and 280.Google Scholar

607 The cartoon was subsequently provided with a better caption (Punch, 19 July 1978, p. 114). Further study might reveal, however, that Cnut and the waves had greater political potential than Alfred and the cakes.Google Scholar

608 Cf. above, n. 482. The stone was purchased by the City of Winchester from the estate of Philip Howard, of Corby Castle; report in the Hampshire Observer, 4 Aug. 1934. I am most grateful to Dr G. T. Denford (Museums Curator, Winchester Museums Service), for his assistance in this connection.

609 The film was directed by Clive Donner, and has a musical score by Raymond Leppard. For further details, see Elley, D., The Epic Film: Myth and History (London, 1984), pp. 154–5.Google Scholar

610 Excavations co-ordinated by Winchester Museums, and directed by Kenneth Qualmann and Graham Scobie, have revealed the eastern end of the abbey, exposing the probable site of the High Altar, and thus the ground where lay the mortal remains of King Alfred the Great, and others, from c. 1110 to c. 1540. Further information is available from the Historic Resources Centre, 75 Hyde Street, Winchester SO23 7DW.

611 The primary material is assembled in Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great. See also Smyth, A., Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keynes, S., ‘On the Authenticity of Asser's Life of King Alfred’, JEH 47 (1996), 529–51Google Scholar; and Abels, R., Alfred the Great War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1998).Google Scholar

612 Keynes, , ‘England, 700–900’, pp. 39–42Google Scholar; Keynes, S., ‘England, 900–1016’, The New Cambridge Medieval History, III: c. 900–1024, ed. Reuter, T. (Cambridge, 1999), 456–84.Google Scholar

613 The vision can be understood in different ways: see, e.g., Wormald, P., ‘Engla Lond: the Making of an Allegiance’, Jnl of Hist. Sociology 7 (1994), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Campbell, J., ‘The United Kingdom of England: the Anglo-Saxon Achievement’, Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, ed. Grant, A. and Stringer, K. J. (London, 1995), pp. 31–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foot, S., ‘The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest’, TRHS 6th ser. 6 (1996), 25–49Google Scholar; and Keynes, , ‘King Alfred and the Mercians’, esp. pp. 34–9Google Scholar, and entry on the ‘kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’ in Encyclopaedia of ASE, ed. Lapidge, et al. , pp. 37–8.Google Scholar