The Saxon Chronicle says that Alfred was sent to Rome in the year 853, at which time he was a little boy. This statement naturally suggests that he was sent to reside at the English College in Rome for the benefit of his education. But this is blurred in Asser by the further statement that he went to Rome a second time in the very next year; which has the effect of reducing his travels to mere excursions. The second journey to Rome is not in the Chronicle, and it looks rather like an artifice, designed to parry the natural inference that the journey to Rome was for a prolonged and educational residence. Perhaps the author of “Asser’s Life” was minded to make his hero a prodigy, and to this end the picture-book story must by all means be protected and maintained. These variations had the effect of shaking the credibility of the narrative, and raising doubts as to whether Alfred ever went to Rome at all. The statement in the Chronicle got involved in that cloud of unreality which overshadows so much of Alfred’s history. Happily this particular point is now quite cleared up. A letter has been discovered, written by Leo IV., the reigning Pope in the year 853, and addressed to King Æthelwulf, the father of Alfred, announcing the safe arrival of the boy. This discovery has added a new confirmation to the Chronicle, and has established it once for all as a firm historical fact, that Alfred was sent to Rome in the year 853. If now we interpret this step in the most natural manner, as designed by his father to send the child out of the way in dangerous times, and to occupy his tender years with liberal studies, we find the course of Alfred’s literary development well and reasonably accounted for. Indeed, it seems in every way most probable that Alfred enjoyed the best opportunities for study that the times afforded, and that he used them so far as was compatible with the vocation of a warrior. How many years he spent in Rome is not known; in the reign of Æthered he was at home and he made a conspicuous military figure while yet in his teens, and this seems to indicate that he had never in his book-learning forgotten that he would have to fight for his country against the northern invaders.