It was a thankless and, as it would seem, hopeless task that the youthful king had before him. The last thirty years had changed the face of the land; bit by bit the Danes had made good their footing; province after province had fallen into their possession. Edmund, the saintly king of East Anglia, had died a martyr’s death at their hands; Alfred’s three brothers had mounted the throne one by one, but, bravely as they had struggled, they had merely been able to retard, not to prevent the resistless advance. As he looked round on the blackened ruins of the capital in which he had just been crowned, his heart might well have sunk within him. Nor was it merely the fate of England which then hung in the balance; that of northern Christendom equally depended on the issue of the conflict. It is not generally recognized that during the early years of Alfred’s reign the heroic determination of the youthful king, and the loyal devotion of the sorely dismembered little kingdom of Wessex--for all else in England was lost--were all that stood between northern Europe and an ever-advancing tide of pitiless and savage heathenism, which, had it not been stemmed, would have engulfed the whole northern continent, with little hope of Christian enlightenment and development, it may have been for centuries. We may well be proud of the part that Winchester, as the capital of Wessex, played in the course of civilization during those dark days; and when, as indeed happened 150 years after, Winchester did see the Danish kingdom realized and herself the capital of it, it was a Christian and civilizing kingdom, and not one of violence and unbridled slaughter, over which she was called to preside. Well was it that Alfred was One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. It is to Alfred, to the men of Wessex, and in part to Winchester that the cause of civilization owes the deliverance from this impending danger. For seven years the conflict went on, but it was a conflict almost of despair, though Alfred met all attacks with unfailing heart and resourcefulness. At length in 878 all seemed lost. Alfred was surprised at Chippenham during the Twelfth Night festivities, and forced to take refuge in the morasses of Somersetshire. The story is too well known to need retelling here; suffice it that in less than six months Alfred had reasserted himself, had conquered the Danes, had made peace, and had divided the realm with them. 878, with the refuge in Athelney and the peace of Wedmore, was the turning-point in the struggle and in the fate of the whole nation.