Of the two other children of Alfred, we know only that Ethelgiva was early dedicated to the monastic life, becoming Abbess of Shaftesbury; and that Ethelweard, the youngest of the family, was a pupil in a court school founded by his father, probably in imitation of the similar institutions founded by Charlemagne, in which the sons of the nobility and some others were taught to read books both Latin and Anglo-Saxon, and also learned to write. Ethelweard (who must not be confounded with his kinsman of the same name, author of a chronicle) seems to have specially profited by this training, and was probably the most learned member of his family. An obscure statement of Asser’s with reference to Alfred’s marriage reveals to us the fact that the great king’s life was in some mysterious way one long battle with disease. From early boyhood he suffered from some malady which caused him grievous pain. In his twentieth year, just about the time of his marriage, this malady left him, but was succeeded by another which caused him at intervals yet sharper pain, and always kept him in terror of its recurrence. This affliction endured from his twentieth till his forty-fifth year, if not longer.[139] These hints, obscure as they are, heighten our admiration of the heroic spirit with which Alfred, often suffering from acute bodily pain, with the ever-present fear of attacks either by disease or by the Danes, set himself to fulfil his duties towards his subjects in the wide and comprehensive sense in which he understood them. Of his wisely planned and efficient schemes for the defence of his realm from hostile invasion something will be said in the next chapter. We are now concerned with his earnest endeavours to dispel the intellectual darkness which brooded over his country, yet of which only the king himself and a few chosen friends were fully conscious.