Alfred was born at Wantage in 849, and there is little to connect his early life definitely with Winchester. His association in quite early days with the king’s court, so frequently held in the city, with the aged Swithun, who rarely left the city, not to mention the charter of Æthelwulf, above referred to, which bears his name, all render his early connection with Winchester more than probable. It was an active and stirring boyhood, including one, if not two, visits to Rome, and a solemn confirmation at the Pope’s own hands--events which must have profoundly stirred him, young as he was. The bent of his mind was early displayed when his mother Osberga (or, it may be, his stepmother, Judith; Asser says the latter) showed him and his brothers an illuminated volume--Anglo-Saxon poetry, very possibly the songs of Caedmon--and promised the book to the one who should first learn to repeat them. Alfred immediately sought his tutor’s help, and won the prize, which appealed so much more keenly to him than to his elder brothers. For all that it was as a warrior, prompt in action, resolute in difficulty, that he first rose to distinction. At the critical moment, while his brother, King Æthelred, delayed, he hurled himself on the Danes, and overthrew them at the fierce battle of Ashdown, in the Vale of the White Horse. It was but an episode in the continuous struggle, and the end of the year saw the death of Æthelred, and Alfred was called upon by the Witan, against his will indeed, at the age of twenty-two to mount the throne.