We speak of the king as “Alfred the Great,” but then he was known as “England’s Darling.” Alfred came to the crown in 872, and died in 900. How soon after his accession he summoned Plegmund to his side to be his tutor and instructor we cannot say, but that the relations between them were very close and intimate and mutually advantageous, we can have no doubt. In the year 890 the see of Canterbury was vacant, and, having been declined by Grimbald, was offered by the King to Plegmund, a step which was received with general approbation, for the entry in the Saxon Chronicle runs thus: “This year 890 Plegmund was chosen of God and of all the people Archbishop of Canterbury.” Plegmund was consecrated at Rome by Pope Formosus, but as some doubt and discredit was thrown upon the actions of this pontiff, he paid a second visit to Rome, and was re-consecrated by Pope Stephen, thus submitting to a rite of more than questionable propriety. He cordially seconded the King in his endeavours to establish a learned priesthood. Some justification has been alleged for the fact that several sees and posts were for a time kept vacant, in the consideration that men of sufficient learning and education were not to be found for them. At anyrate Plegmund, scholar and theologian as he was, did all that lay in his power to remove the reproach which was fastening upon the Church that it had an ignorant and illiterate clergy. In conjunction with the King, he published _The Pastoral Care_ of Gregory the Great, a copy of which was sent to every English bishop, with a noteworthy preface from the King himself, in which the sovereign acknowledged what he had “learned of Plegmund my Archbishop, and of Asser my bishop, and of Grimbald my presbyter, and of John my presbyter.” It is interesting to know that the copy addressed to Plegmund is still preserved, as well as those addressed to the Bishops of Worcester and Sherborne. It is reasonable to conclude from this that Alfred would find in _his_ Archbishop a zealous assistant in all his efforts to promote sound and religious learning, and that the two would heartily co-operate in endeavours to secure an educated clergy. Whether he ever visited the scene of his former labours, it is impossible to say; but the late Mr. Thomas Hughes, F.S.A., in a fancied description of the laying of the foundation of St. John’s, Chester, writes thus: “First there were Ethelred and Ethelfleda, the joint founders--near them might stand their Royal Ward, Athelstan, the Etheling, heir to his father’s throne. Prominent among the group would be Plegmund, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a native of Mercia, and but a few years before a modest recluse at the hermitage in that island of Chester.” We cannot give a detailed account of Plegmund’s episcopate, which lasted for twenty-four years; but we are sure that, as he assisted his royal master when at his Court and before he became Archbishop in promoting