On the one hand, the inhabitants of North, South, and West Wales were constantly rising against Wessex and Mercia; and on the other, until the accession of Alfred upon the death of his brother Ethelred, in 871, every year of the Chronicle is marked by fierce battles with the troops and fleets of the Danes on the eastern and southern coasts.
It redounds greatly to the fame of Alfred that he could find time and inclination in his troubled and busy reign, so harassed with wars by land and sea, for the establishment of wise laws, the building or rebuilding of large cities, the pursuit of letters, and the interest of education.

To give his subjects, grown-up nobles as well as children, the benefits of historical examples, he translated the work of Orosius, a compendious history of the world, a work of great repute; and to enlighten the ecclesiastics, he made versions of parts of Bede; of the Pastorale of Gregory the First; of the Soliloquies of St.Augustine, and of the work of Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae_.

Beside these principal works are other minor efforts.

In all his writings, he says he "sometimes interprets word for word, and sometimes meaning for meaning." With Alfred went down the last gleams of Saxon literature.

Troubles were to accumulate steadily and irresistibly upon the soil of England, and the sword took the place of the pen.
THE DANES .-- The Danes thronged into the realm in new incursions, until 850,000 of them were settled in the North and East of England.