as the winter set in. It was impossible to get away from this untiring pursuer, and in the next spring the “Great Army” broke up in despair: “some returned to East Anglia and some to Northumbria, and those that were moneyless got themselves ships and went south over sea to the Seine. Thanks be to God, the army had not broken up the English race” (896). These splendid campaigns, known to us, alas! only in outline, are the finest testimony to Alfred’s powers of organisation that could be given. Wherever the Vikings appeared they were at once met by a sufficient force and held in check. Their strong camps could not defend them as of old: sometimes the palisades were stormed, sometimes blockade did the work, and the host had to depart in order to save itself from starvation. Three years of perpetual disaster tired out at last even the obstinacy of the battle-loving Northmen. They dispersed and sought other scenes of activity and enemies less formidable than the great king of Wessex. For the last four years of his life Alfred was undisturbed save by trifling raids of small squadrons, which he brushed off with ease by means of the new fleet of “great ships” which he had built. The work of defence was done: Wessex was saved, and with Wessex the English nationality. In a few years the king’s gallant son, Edward the Elder, was to take the offensive against the old enemy, and to repay on the Danelagh all the evils that England had suffered during the miserable years of the ninth century. That such triumphs lay within his power was absolutely and entirely the work of his great father, who had turned defeat into victory, brought order out of chaos, and left the torn and riven kingdom that he had inherited transformed into the best organised and most powerful state in Western Europe. ALFRED AS A GEOGRAPHER BY SIR CLEMENTS MARKHAM ALFRED AS A GEOGRAPHER