 | Alfred |  |
5
The ARGUMENT.
After the Danes had made themselves masters of Chippenham, the strongest city in the Kingdom of Wessex; Alfred was at once abandoned by all his subjects. In this universal defection, that Monarch found himself obliged to retire into the little isle of Athelney in Somersetshire; a place then rough with woods and of difficult access. There, habited like a peasant, he lived unknown, for some time, in a shepherd's cottage. He is supposed to be found in this retreat by the Earl of Devon; whose castle, upon the river Tau, was then besieged by the Danes.
| Alfred | |