Chronicle, he left to his successors the maxin that "he who would be secure on land must be supreme at sea."
Mercian ascendancy presently made way for West Saxon, under Egbert, and West Saxon influence, though much hindered by continual incursions of the Danes, as well as by Anglo-Saxon feuds, and by British irreconcilableness, gradually increased, particularly under Alfred and Edward the Elder, until it became no longer West Saxon but English; and so, for the first time, England was, in some sort, a state.
But the unity of England was still little more than nominal. Alfred came to the throne of a country which had been ravaged and despoiled in all directions by Danish raiders, operating with the sea as their base, and which was impoverished to the last degree. Had he been a Briton and not a Saxon, he must surely have despaired of his ragged inheritance. But he did not despair for a moment. When he could employ force, he employed it; when his only available weapons were gold and diplomacy, he employed them. He was never inactive, nor did he ever lose sight of Offa's maxim. Steadily, even in his darkest days, he applied himself to the creation of a naval force. He seems indeed to have realised the nature of sea power in something like a scientific manner.[1] He continually put in force the principle of offensive defence as being the best, and in fact, the only sound one. Whenever it was possible, he sought his enemy at sea, instead of waiting for him to attack or to land. Nor was he content to employ merely such ships as had been employed by his ancestors. He invented new types. His "long ships" embodied improvements upon any war vessels that had previously been seen in England. Says the Saxon Chronicle:—"They were full twice as long as the others; some had sixty[2] oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others; they were shaped neither like the Frisian nor the Danish, but so as it seemed to him that they would be most efficient." Moreover, he paid much attention to the selection and seasoning of his materials, to the victualling, and to the supply of arms, as well as to the training of his seamen; and, being in desperate straits, and regarding the Danes as pirates, he forbade the granting to them of quarter.[3]
