of territories taken from Brittany, and that the
princes of that province, Berenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of
Redon and Dol, should take the oath of fidelity to him. When matters had
been arranged on this basis, "the bishops told Rollo that he who
received such a gift as the duchy of Normandy was bound to kiss the
King's foot. 'Never,' quoth Rollo, 'will I bend the knee before the
knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.' At the solicitation of
the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to kiss the King's foot.
The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of the King's foot,
raised it to his mouth, and so made the King fall backward, which caused
great bursts of laughter and much disturbance among the throng. Then the
King and all the grandees who were about him, prelates, abbots, dukes,
and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic faith, that they would
protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his members, and his folk, and
would guarantee to him the possession of the aforesaid land, to him and
his descendants forever; after which the King, well satisfied, returned
to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke Robert for the town of
Rouen."

The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied;
but the great political question which, a century before, caused
Charlemagne such lively anxiety was solved; the most dangerous, the most
incessantly renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen,
ceased to threaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to
cultivate and defend; the Northmen were becoming French.

CAREER OF ALFRED THE GREAT

A.D. 871-901

T. HUGHES

J.R. GREEN

(Alfred the Great was the grandson of Egbert, King of the West Saxons,
who during a reign of thirty-seven years consolidated in the Saxon
heptarchy the seven Teutonic kingdoms into which Anglia or England had
been divided, since the expulsion of the Britons by the Saxons about
585. In the latter part of Egbert's reign the Danish Northmen appeared
in the estuaries and rivers of England, sacking and burning the towns
along their banks. Ethelwulf who had been made King of Kent in 828, and
succeeded his father Egbert as King of Anglia in 837, was early occupied
in resisting and repelling attacks along his coasts, and by several
successful pitched battles with the Danish invaders obtained comparative
freedom from their visits for eight years. Ethelwulf had married
Osburga, the daughter of Os