Story of the life of Alfred the Great, how at twenty-two he inherited a land overrun by savage pirates,-a restless ignorant, defenseless land, and how he fought the Danes and restored the country to a condition of peace and safety. When he inherited his kingdom at twenty-two, the king was not safe in his palace, the priest in his church. There was little opportunity for agriculture; laws were not executed; schools had disappeared, the very wish to learn had disappeared; the whole land was rapidly sinking into ignorance and barbarism, and was exhausted by its sickening dread of the horrors that the next moment might bring. To restore a land in such a condition to peace and quiet and safety and freedom from fear of harm, to establish churches and schools, to make just laws, and see to it that they were justly executed-a man might well have been proud to have succeeded in doing any one of these things; and for the man who brought about all these good results, no praise can be too high. To him who, in the midst of all the fighting and the weariness and the anxiety and the temptation and the responsibility, lived a calm, simple, unselfish, blameless life, to him of all the sovereigns of England who have served their country well, may the title, "The Great," most justly be given.

Recounts the stories of the most important movements in the history of Europe during the Middle Ages and acquaints the reader with the most important figures in those scenes. The figures are grouped into seven periods: The Barbarian Invasion, The Forming of the Germanic Nations, The Teutonic Invasions, The Rise of Nationalities, The Crusades, The Time of Progress and Discovery, and The Struggles of the Nations. In the tapestry which the author weaves may be traced the history of the rise and fall of the various nationalities and the circumstances and mode of life of each.