The Search for Alfred The Great | BBC Documentary

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This one is really good! Love Neil Oliver!

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. LOW, EERIE MUSIC NEIL OLIVER: A cold morning in March 2013. At St Bartholomew's Church in Winchester, the rector is preparing for an unusual day. Gathering here is a team of local historians, archaeologists, and a bishop. May God's peace be in our hearts, may God's peace be with us in our homes... This group is hoping to resolve a long-standing mystery about THIS unmarked grave in their local parish church. To some, what these archaeologists are doing may seem like sacrilege... ..but this could be the culmination of an incredible story that began over a thousand years ago. I can see...a coxa, a humerus down there, there's a mandible, tibia, femora... For 150 years, it's been claimed that this unmarked grave contains the remains of one of England's greatest kings - the man who laid the foundations of the English nation - Alfred the Great. Well, that is extraordinary. Oh... Wow! Very, very moving indeed. No-one knows for sure where Alfred the Great's remains lie buried. So why does the team believe that these might be his bones? And why would they be mixed together with other skeletons in this unmarked grave? To answer these questions, I'm going to explore the story of Alfred's life... and death. I'll team up with specialists to test the bones. And we'll discover how they came to be buried in the graveyard of this modest parish church, and whether they really are the remains of King Alfred the Great. This is an extraordinary historical mystery concerning a great Anglo-Saxon king. If it hadn't been for Alfred, we would probably have a different national identity, we might even speak a different language. Alfred the Great was a hugely significant leader in our history, so it's important that we find out the truth about the remains exhumed from the unmarked grave. And if they do turn out to be those of Alfred, then they can be re-buried with all the dignity they deserve, well over a thousand years after his death. BELL TOLLS MONASTIC—STYLE CHORAL MUSIC BELL TOLLS On the 26th October 899, the people of Wessex were in mourning for the death of their king. A grand procession bore the body of King Alfred through the streets of Winchester, the royal capital of Wessex. It was a fitting tribute to the king who had forged the beginnings of the English nation. Alfred had bound his people together through the power of language, religion and military force. This is precisely the sort of place where you would expect to find a great king buried - Winchester Cathedral. But in fact, this great cathedral wasn't even built until two centuries AFTER Alfred's death. CHORAL MUSIC When Alfred was buried in 899, it was at the Anglo-Saxon Old Minster, a much smaller church. It stood on a site right next to this cathedral. If you look down there, you can see where the foundations of the Old Minster have been picked out in brick in the cathedral lawns, and you can also see that it's been orientated on a slightly different direction. But Alfred didn't rest in peace in the Old Minster for long. Before his death, Alfred had been in the process of commissioning a new monastery - the New Minster - right next door to the Old Minster. He wanted it to become a mausoleum for him and his family. It was Alfred's dying wish to be buried in the New Minster. So in honour of his father, Alfred's son Edward completed the building. And in 903, Alfred's remains were exhumed, just four years after his burial, together with those of his wife, who had died the previous year. And with great ceremony they were carried in procession from the Old Minster to the New, and there reinterred. But that was only the start of the story. Alfred's remains weren't just exhumed once, but at least three times during the course of the next thousand years. The team leading the exhumation at St Bart's Church wants to find out if this really is the final resting place of King Alfred and his family. But before any work can begin on the bones, they have to wait for the Church of England to give permission for scientific testing to go ahead. For five months, the bones are securely stored at the University of Winchester. Finally, in August 2013, permission is granted. Dr Katie Tucker can begin the process of unlocking their secrets. Today, I've been able to start washing the bones. Essentially we just use normal tap water and soft toothbrushes to wash the bones with, and just very, very gently cleaning away any soil or any mud to get them as clean as they can possibly be to look at them properly for an analysis. To be able to actually look at the bones properly for the first time, to be able to get the process under way, it's actually very exciting and it's very interesting already. There's the potential that these could be the remains from very, very important individuals in the history of this country. Alfred the Great was born in 849 in the town of Wantage, now in Oxfordshire. He was born the son of Aethelwulf, King of Wessex. As the youngest of five brothers, Alfred was never expected to become king. Today, we would scarcely recognise the England that Alfred was born into. In fact, it was a land of many kingdoms and many kings. Post-Roman Britain had been invaded by a succession of tribes from northern Europe - Jutes, Angles and Saxons. By the 9th century, there were four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England - Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria and Wessex. In the 850s, these four kingdoms would come under increasing attack from another invading force... ..the Vikings. Alfred would grow up in the shadow of the Viking threat. Alfred is the only English king to be named "the Great", but we know very little about his formative years. The information we do have comes from the writings of a monk called Asser from St David's in Wales. In later life, Alfred commissioned him to be his biographer. Asser tells us that Alfred was "ignorant of letters" throughout his childhood. And that for all of his life he regretted not having had the benefit of an education. But the story goes that his mother Osburh had a book, a treasured book of poems. And that one day she said to her sons that whichever one of them could learn the poems by heart could keep the book. So dutifully Alfred set to work. And there came the day when he was able to demonstrate that he could indeed perform all of the poems in the book, and so he kept it. This love of literature and of learning was a character trait and it contributed to the making of a great king. Another powerful influence on Alfred came not in England, but hundreds of miles away... in Rome. In the 9th century, Rome was the centre of the Western world and of the Christian faith. The Anglo-Saxons had accepted Christianity as their primary religion just 200 years earlier. But they were soon enthusiastic about making pilgrimages to Rome. Alfred's father was no exception and he sent young Alfred on two visits to the city, the first in 853 when the boy was just four years old. These visits to the most impressive and powerful city in the Western world made a huge impression on the boy who would be king. This was a city of towering stone, quite unlike the simpler buildings back home. Alfred almost certainly stayed somewhere around here in what was once a fully-fledged Saxon quarter. It was founded by Saxons who came to Rome on pilgrimage and on business, and over time it became a permanent Saxon base, which is why it's still called "Borgo" today - from the Anglo-Saxon word "burh" meaning a "fortified town". And "Sassia" - from the word "Saxon" - is still seen on street signs around here. In the 9th century, Rome suffered repeated raids by Saracen bandits. One attack had terrorised the city just a few years before Alfred's first visit. The solution was to build a network of giant walls - and this is part of them here. They were built by Pope Leo IV and in 853 - the year of Alfred's first visit to Rome - Leo initiated a tradition of bare-foot walks around the walls, praying for the protection of the city as he did so. This vivid display of Christian faith coupled with military readiness made a lasting impression on Alfred. It shaped his thinking as an adult, as a warrior, and as a king. VOICES SING MUSIC FROM RELIGIOUS SERVICE Then came the real reason for Alfred's visit - the moment that probably impressed the young boy more than any other. You have to try and imagine what it must have been like for the boy. Alfred's only four years old at this point, and ushered into the presence of the Pope himself. What an occasion. Asser tells us that the Pope "anointed the child Alfred as King, ordaining him properly, "received him as an adoptive son, and confirmed him". As Alfred's biographer, Asser was possibly being a little bit creative with the truth here to build up Alfred's legend. It seems unlikely that the Pope would have anointed Alfred as King. But we do know that a ceremony took place. In a letter to Alfred's father, Pope Leo confirms that it had diplomatic as well as spiritual significance. The Pope wrote that "we have decorated him as a spiritual son "with the dignity of the belt and the vestments of the consulate". This may have been a special ceremony to honour a son of the royal House of Wessex. It could possibly have been papal recognition of Alfred as a potential future king. Whatever it really meant, it clearly had a huge significance for young Alfred, because he was to grow into a committed, devout Christian, who absolutely believed in his divine right to be king. CHORAL MUSIC Back in the lab, Dr Katie Tucker continues her examination of the exhumed bones. I think we've got bones from adult individuals, both males and females represented, and it's looking like we've probably got five or six individuals. Mostly cranial remains and long bones, though we do have pieces of the pelvis and quite a few small bones, like quite a few ribs, bones of the hands and feet, parts of the spine, but it does seem to be largely cranial remains and long bones that we have. We do need to separate them out to try and work out which bones go with different sets of remains, to see if we can get different individuals. I have to be scientific about it and remember that all human remains are essentially the same. You have to treat them all with the same amount of respect. It will take two weeks to piece the skeletons together. If one of them turns out to be King Alfred, it will have been on an EXTRAORDINARY journey. Buried first in Winchester's Old Minster in 899, Alfred was exhumed and re-buried next door in the New Minster just four years later. But Alfred's bones would soon be disturbed for a second time. In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England. The country he captured was a valuable prize - it was one of the best-organised states in Europe, with a reliable currency and an efficient centralised legal system. This was a great triumph for William. But for Anglo-Saxon England it was a catastrophe. The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy was cut down at the Battle of Hastings. And in their place came Norman nobles, who took control of the country and crushed any opposition violently. King William stamped his authority by building stone castles all over the country, that dominated the landscape. The Normans also tore down the Saxon churches and replaced them with their own towering cathedrals, like this one at Winchester. First, the Normans demolished the Old Minster. Then in 1109, they destroyed the New Minster - the church where Alfred and his wife lay buried, along with their son Edward the Elder. The monks moved to a new home - Hyde Abbey - it was built on farmland outside the city walls. And this gatehouse is one of the last fragments of Hyde Abbey still standing. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, in 1110, in the presence of William the Conqueror's son, Henry I, and his Queen, Maud, the monks walked in procession to their new home, carrying the remains of King Alfred, his wife Ealhswith and members of the royal family. BASS VOICE SINGS CHORAL PIECE The monks carried the remains to the new Hyde Abbey. OTHER VOICES JOIN IN SONG And the journey ended here, where the high altar of Hyde Abbey used to stand. Alfred and his family were entombed in sepulchres beneath the floor and in front of the high altar. A final resting place fit for a king. Alfred's bones would lie undisturbed under the high altar of Hyde Abbey for the next four centuries. Back in 868, the young Alfred came to a very different church - a small, wooden Anglo-Saxon church - much like this one in Essex. Alfred was about to enter a diplomatic alliance with the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia. An act which would begin the process of unifying the four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In 868, Alfred, accompanied by members of his family, came to be married to a member of the nobility. Her father was a Mercian nobleman, her mother was a member of the Mercian royal family. The bride's name was Ealhswith. Alfred's marriage to Ealhswith was a diplomatic coup that would increase his power and influence. But at the wedding feast, Alfred was suddenly struck down with excruciating stomach pain. He would never fully recover. Asser said that the pain "plagued him remorselessly by day and night". Asser tells us Alfred was in so much pain his guests thought it must be witchcraft or perhaps even the devil's work. More recently, experts have suggested that the ailment that stuck him down, and affected him for years to come, might have been Crohn's disease, which is a digestive disorder that, amongst other things, causes severe stomach pain. In any event, it was so bad that Alfred wrote to rulers and physicians all across Europe in hope of a cure. Despite his chronic illness, Alfred outlived his older brothers. One by one, they became king. One by one, they died. So, in 871, just three years after his wedding, the youngest son, who was never expected to rule, took the throne of Wessex. Alfred was immediately called upon to defend his kingdom. By the time of Alfred's coronation, the Vikings had cut a swathe across the kingdoms of England. East Anglia and Northumbria were the first to fall. Mercia fell next. Then the Vikings turned their full force on the only remaining English kingdom - Wessex. Alfred was driven into hiding in a wasteland known as the Somerset Levels. Today, the Somerset Levels are dominated by farmland, flat farmland as far as the eye can see. But in the 9th century, when Alfred came to power, this was primarily marshland. And it was just after he had taken the throne that he faced one of his greatest challenges. Alfred had fought alongside his brothers so he was no stranger to the battlefield. But in the year 875, a new foe appeared on the horizon - a Viking warlord called Guthrum. And in 878, when Alfred was celebrating the Yuletide at Chippenham, Guthrum and his men mounted a surprise attack. And it was into this terrain that Alfred fled in fear of his life. This was Alfred's lowest point as king. With a core band of men, he was forced to set up a secret fortified base deep within the wetlands of Somerset. When Alfred was here, this landscape was a watery maze of rivers and little streams, marshland, ponds, reed beds and little islands. In fact, it was the perfect place to hide. Alfred found a way through the treacherous bogs and marshes. And right in the middle of it all, he made his camp... ..on a low-lying hill called the Isle of Athelney. He re-built his forces and waited for an opportunity to strike back at the Vikings. According to one of the best-known legends about Alfred, it's around here that he sought shelter from a farmer's wife and then inadvertently let her cakes burn because he was too distracted worrying about his own future. It's almost certainly a myth and possibly drawn from Norse legend. But archaeological digs up here, have found not just the remains of an abbey founded by Alfred, but also traces of iron smelting, which makes it possible that he and his men were smelting weapons while they spent time up here in a temporary camp. In May 878, Alfred decided to make his move. He rallied his forces, and Asser says he was joined by "all the inhabitants of Somerset and Wiltshire and Hampshire". The precise location of the battlefield has never been identified, but it's thought to have taken place down here on the low ground. It takes its name from the nearby village of Edington. Asser writes that Alfred "destroyed the Vikings with great slaughter "and pursued those who fled, hacking them down". At the Battle of Edington, Alfred won a stunning victory, for Wessex and for Anglo-Saxon England. According to local folklore, this white horse was cut in the 18th century to commemorate the victory. A fitting tribute. In the aftermath of the battle, Alfred persuaded Guthrum to convert to Christianity, and with Alfred acting as godfather to Guthrum, all of it taking place amid much feasting and celebration. The two soon agreed to divide the country - Alfred would keep Wessex to the southwest, Guthrum the lands the Vikings had conquered to the northeast. In battle and through diplomacy, Alfred had established himself as the "King above all the other kings" in the land. And the nation had taken a step closer to being a united "England". In Winchester, Dr Katie Tucker has finally assembled all the bones found in the unmarked grave. I must admit that my first reaction is I'm amazed by how much is here. There's a lot of bones from the individuals. Yeah. Well we have five skulls, you can see here, and then we have the remains of six post-cranial skeletons - so the rest of the skeleton that isn't the skull. Is it both sexes represented here? Yes, we do have males and females. This individual is definitely a female. Mm-hm. You can see the pelvis is very, very wide and of course they would generally tend to be smaller than males. So, it's one woman definitely? Yes. And then the likelihood that it's five males. We have a definite male here. Mm-hm. This one, probably a male, and this individual is also probably a male. So, based on that, this could be Alfred? That could be... That could be... That could be... And that's... This one definitely not. That one's definitely female, yes. When you look at these skeletons, what story do they tell about the kind of lives lived by the people? For such a small number of individuals they've got a lot going on in terms of disease. You can see the vertebrae, you can see they're all fused together into one lump. Yeah. And this is because all the ligaments that attach all the vertebrae together, and the tendons, they've all turned to bone - they've all ossified. Right. So it would have left the individual with very, very limited movement. Surely that makes it unlikely that this would be Alfred? There are historical reports that Alfred had some form of chronic health problem. It's suggested maybe it was Crohn's disease, but you probably would not be able to see that in the skeleton. So, in terms of the search for Alfred and his relatives, what is next? Well the next stage is to take some samples for radiocarbon dating, so we'll actually be able to work out the age of the bones from bone samples. By the early 16th century, we know that Alfred's remains had twice been exhumed and reburied. They were now buried with those of his family beneath the high altar of Hyde Abbey. But the story was about to take another extraordinary turn. Hyde Abbey was about to fall victim to one of the greatest acts of state vandalism England had ever seen. Vandal-in-chief in Hampshire was one Thomas Wriothesley, who built himself a hunting lodge here at Beaulieu. Thomas Wriothesley was a highly ambitious young man. At the age of just 19, he dropped out of a law degree at Cambridge to become assistant to a man who was on his way to becoming the most powerful person in the court of King Henry VIII - Thomas Cromwell. Wriothesley would rise up through the ranks, eventually becoming Lord Chancellor himself. And he made his name helping Henry resolve one of the greatest crises of his reign. In the early 16th century, a religious revolution was sweeping across northern Europe. In protest at the corruption and extravagance of the Catholic church, many people rejected Rome, turned to the Protestant faith, and embraced a simpler, more austere form of worship. When the Pope refused to grant Henry VIII a divorce from his first wife, Henry too decided to break from Rome and establish the Church of England. Men like Thomas Wriothesley were employed to close down the wealthy Catholic abbeys and monasteries. Anything that symbolised the pomp and ritual of Roman Catholicism was destroyed or stolen. Religious images were defaced, holy relics and bones were smashed to pieces. Within four years, 800 monasteries were attacked, including this one at Beaulieu. It's almost unbelievable, and it's certainly hard to imagine, that this vast, empty space was once the interior of a magnificent abbey church. You still do get a sense of the scale though, and the scale of this church would have been similar to that of Hyde Abbey church. The fragments that remain let you recreate it in your mind's eye. Each of these piles of rubble marks the footing for an enormous column, each of them about 60 or 70ft high, supporting the roof, and then all the way down at the end of this paving, in the east end, would have been the high altar. The dissolution of the monasteries meant yet another disturbance of Alfred's resting place. In 1538, Thomas Wriothesley turned his attention to Hyde Abbey, one of the richest abbeys in Hampshire. Wriothesley wrote to his boss, Thomas Cromwell, to assure him that at Hyde he was hard at work sweeping away the old bones that were known as relics. It was all about destroying for the last time the abomination of idolatry. Hyde Abbey itself was quickly demolished. It became little more than a fine stone quarry to be used for building and rebuilding all over the area. And you can sometimes see fragments of the abbey incorporated into the new. Look up there and you'll see a horned head, heavily weathered, but that was once a decorative item on the abbey. And all the while, King Alfred and his family were silently under the ground. With the abbey demolished, there was no longer any visible monument to mark the location of Alfred's remains. They now lay hidden, possibly lost for ever. By 880, King Alfred was at the height of his powers. He'd taken control of large swathes of the country. His kingdom would form the basis of what would become England. But only if he could keep it safe from attack. Alfred built new forts, protected by great defensive earthworks, like these at Wallingford in Oxfordshire. Overgrown as they are, these earthworks, are still incredibly impressive, but they're made even more so when you realise that all of this was put in place as part of a kingdom-wide system of defences that date back to King Alfred the Great himself. Now, it's about 8m deep at the moment, but in the 9th century, it would have been even bigger, probably with a timber palisade running around the top, all of it acting together to turn the town into a fortress. These earthworks surrounded the village on three sides, with a river defending the fourth. Such fort-like defences were called "burhs", from which we get the word "borough". Beginning with his capital, Winchester, Alfred chose strategic locations - intersecting roads and rivers - and commissioned 33 of these fortified towns all across southern England, from Devon to Kent and as far north as Warwick. These fortified towns were placed strategically no more than 40 miles apart, meaning Alfred's soldiers could be summoned quickly to defend the nearest town and the people could take refuge from attack. With his defences spread across this network of fortified towns, King Alfred and his kingdom became almost impossible to conquer. It was nothing less than a masterstroke. But Alfred's new defences needed another resource. An army. Instead of just rallying the men to help him, Alfred came up with a much more efficient way of doing things. He basically used a mathematical formula to enable him to calculate exactly how many men were needed to defend each town, and it came out at approximately one man for every four foot of wall. He was also careful to keep half the men in reserve, so that if half were committed, he had the rest waiting fresh to join the fray. He was organising the military in a way that hadn't been seen since the time of the Romans. A new England was emerging under his rule. Once his kingdom's defences were established, Alfred was able to realise his other great ambition. This would come to define his reign and help earn him the title "Alfred the Great". Alfred mourned the loss in England of all the culture and art and literacy that he'd enjoyed in Rome. And so he summoned, from all across Europe, some of the great scribes - John, the Old Saxon, from Germany, Grimbald from France and, significantly, Asser from Wales - and he had them teach him Latin so that he could personally supervise the translation into Old English of the "books most necessary for man to know". He was building a bridge between Anglo-Saxon England and the great minds of the classical world. MONASTIC SINGING I've come to the Bodleian Library in Oxford to see evidence of Alfred's determination to educate and unite his subjects. This is the oldest surviving book written entirely in the English language. It was translated by King Alfred in the early 890s. It's Pope Gregory's "Pastoral Care" and it's a guide explaining to the clergy how they should be looking after the people in their congregations. It's the best example of Alfred's translations. It reveals his passion not just for the language, but also for the nurturing and the care of his subjects. In the preface, he explains his wider ambition for the project. He wanted a copy of this to be sent to every bishop in his kingdom. It was for the benefit of the less well-educated clergy, those who couldn't read Latin. Hundreds of years after it was first written, the wisdom here was still regarded as ESSENTIAL reading for churchmen. This was the beginning of a new age of Anglo-Saxon literacy and knowledge. At court, Alfred established a school to instruct the children of the nobility and he required his ealdormen and reeves, the local rulers, to learn to read on pain of losing their offices. Here at the Ashmolean Museum, there's another remarkable symbol of Alfred's eagerness to celebrate the power of learning. This stunning little object is about as close to the man and his beliefs as we're likely to get. It's called the Alfred Jewel and it's the most unique item associated with King Alfred himself. And it is a wonder to behold. It's beautifully crafted - gold, cloisonne enamel. Underneath this single piece of highly polished crystal is a Christ-like image that's thought to represent learning or wisdom. It's almost certainly the handle of an aestel, which is a special pointer. There would have been a piece of ivory or wood coming out here. And it's used to point out the individual words, line by line on a page of manuscript, while reading aloud. And then worked into the outside and going all around this teardrop shape are the words, in Old English, "Alfred ordered me to be made". This isn't just about love of learning. It's more than that. It's the belief that kingship entails the responsibility to be mindful of the well-being of the people. And it had an extraordinary consequence. It unified the languages of the people, their beliefs and knowledge. Several disparate kingdoms were coming together as one. Anglia - England. Today in Oxford, Dr Katie Tucker is handing over some of the bones from the unmarked grave to Professor Tom Higham for radiocarbon dating. So, how old do you think this is? This is the big question. OK. If they're royal House of Wessex we're hoping they're, well, Saxon. That's 900AD-ish. Mm-hm. Professor Higham begins by taking a small sample of bone. He'll test it with a cutting-edge carbon-dating technique. Of all of the global carbon, a very, very small proportion of it is what we call radioactive. About one atom in a trillion atoms of carbon is radioactive carbon or radiocarbon. And all of us, all living organisms, take up in food carbon, which we use to build our bones and build our bodies. But once death occurs, the amount of radioactive carbon begins to slowly decline and disappear. The key to the dating technique is that we know how rapid this decay is and so our job is to measure how much radiocarbon there is and thereby date the bones. The tiny sample of bone is dissolved in acid and placed into an accelerator. Travelling at a speed of 15 million mph, the carbon is broken down into individual atoms, one of which is the radioactive carbon-14. Carbon-14 is what gives scientists the age of the specimen. But it'll be a couple of weeks before we get the results. We know that after Alfred's death in 899, he was buried and exhumed twice, before being laid to rest in Hyde Abbey. When the abbey was demolished in the 16th century, Alfred's coffin remained under the ground and the land returned to farming. 250 years later, the story of Alfred's bones took another dramatic turn. I've come to Hampshire Record Office to find out what happened. In the late 18th century, interest in King Alfred was growing. This pamphlet was written by an amateur historian called Captain Henry Howard. Howard came to Winchester in 1797 to try to find out what had happened to Alfred's grave. Howard provides the next piece of the jigsaw puzzle. About ten years earlier in 1788, the site of Hyde Abbey had been acquired by the county for the construction of a different sort of building altogether - Bridewell, the new town jail. According to Howard, the keeper of the jail was a man by the name of Mr Page. And Mr Page told him that in advance of the building work, the convicts themselves were brought in to prepare the ground, to clear the rubble and so forth. And while they doing that and while they were digging the foundation trenches, they also found "a stone coffin cased with lead "both within and without, and containing some bones "and remains of garments". Howard was convinced that Alfred's remains had been exhumed for the third time. Howard was appalled by what happened next. The stone coffin was broken into pieces, the lead from it was sold for two guineas and the bones were thrown around. It seemed likely to Howard that the remains "of the great Alfred, "after having been scattered about by the rude hands of convicts, "are now probably covered by a building erected "for their confinement and punishment". As well as writing this account of what had happened to Alfred's remains, Howard also drew a map, showing the foundations of the demolished abbey church. Howard marked the spot where the graves had been in front of the high altar, but he had no way of knowing what had happened to the bones after they were scattered around. To me, this is the most critical moment in the extraordinary journey of Alfred's remains after his death. Reburied somewhere within the foundations of a prison, they might have been lost now for all time. In the years after Howard wrote his pamphlet, national interest in King Alfred continued to grow. With his famous defence of country, Christianity and education, Alfred was seen by many Victorians as the perfect English king. Fuelled by growing national and imperial pride, they erected statues in his memory. By this time, the site of Alfred's grave was under the local prison, but that was demolished too in the 1840s and the area returned to farmland. This, though, was the era of great British enthusiasm for the Anglo-Saxon hero, and more and more people wanted to find his remains. One amateur enthusiast came to Winchester in 1866 determined to find Alfred. His name was John Mellor and he was captivated by Captain Howard's account of the desecration of Alfred's grave. Mellor added a new twist. He claimed that Mr Page, the keeper of the jail, had told Captain Howard that he had reburied the bones from the stone coffin in a vault beside a spring on the site. Now, Mellor was convinced enough to find the spring and here is where he started digging. This memorial garden is built on the site of the high altar of Hyde Abbey. These three stones represent the graves of Alfred, his wife Ealhswith and his son Edward the Elder. Using Captain Howard's hand-drawn map as a guide, Mellor claimed he found five skulls and their skeletons. He was convinced that these were the remains of King Alfred and his family. Mellor said he felt he'd "proved beyond the possibility of a doubt" that he'd found Alfred's remains. To record his discovery, he took THESE photographs. But even with photographic evidence, Mellor wasn't given a warm welcome in Winchester. All of this activity was scandalous to some. It was technically illegal as well as sacrilegious to disturb human remains in this way. It made the local papers. One writer, identified as Mr Q, said that he had visited the site and had seen "numerous arm bones and skulls and long bones "lying huddled together in a candle box". Mellor responded to his critics by publishing a pamphlet of his own. He insisted that he wanted to "save the bones from further mutilation "and violence and transfer them to more hallowed ground", and he invited the people of Winchester to come and view the bones of their long-lost king. But in an age before carbon dating, it was impossible for Mellor to prove that the remains were indeed Alfred's. He won little support. Maybe he was too much of an amateur to be taken seriously. Mellor went on to sell the bones for just ten shillings. That's £38 in today's money. And the buyer? The Reverend William Williams, vicar of the local parish church, this church, Saint Bartholomew's in Hyde. This small church once stood in the grounds of Hyde Abbey. It's only a few hundred metres from the site of the abbey's high altar. The Reverend Williams reburied the bones here in this unmarked grave. Ever since, it's been said that this is the last resting place of King Alfred the Great. If these were the remains of Alfred and his family, then by now they had been exhumed and reburied four times. But did Mr Page, the keeper of the jail, really put them back exactly where he found them? And did John Mellor discover them again nearly a hundred years later? The bones lay undisturbed in this unmarked grave for nearly 150 years. But three years ago, a local history group called Hyde900 began the legal process that would lead to the bones being exhumed and tested. They'd pieced together all the available historical evidence and decided to find out once and for all if the unmarked grave in their local churchyard really was the final resting place of King Alfred the Great. Well, that is extraordinary. Oh... Wow. It's very moving, actually seeing it in the flesh, so to speak. It's almost one of those slightly heart-stopping moments. Circumstantial evidence suggests it might be Alfred and his family, but, frankly, we don't know and we won't know until the scientists do their job, but I'm very excited. Six months after the exhumation, Professor Tom Higham has finally established the age of the bones from the unmarked grave. OK, Tom, the radiocarbon dates are back. You know that we're looking for a date around 900AD. What have you got? OK, so these are the results and they're in calendar years. And what you can see is that four of the five specimens are actually quite a lot later. They're in the period of 1300 to about 1420AD. So, way off? Way off, I'm afraid to say. There is one that's older but I'm afraid it's not as old as... as you'd hope. That's individual C, this single skull here, and that one is older than those. It centres on around 1100AD but I'm afraid it's still not as old as King Alfred's death date. So the earliest date we've got is a skull that went into the ground around the time of the building of the Abbey? Yeah, so around 1110 was Hyde Abbey, so there's no possibility that that could be much further... far enough back. Yeah, I'm afraid I was really disappointed when I saw the results. I was hoping, like you, that there'd be at least one in the right ballpark, but unfortunately not. So, who on earth are they then, these five, six individuals that all end up bundled together into an unmarked grave? It seems, unfortunately, these are individuals either from other graves within the church or other graves within the precincts of Hyde Abbey, rather than being from in front of the high altar, and Alfred and his family. So, it does make you wonder, where is Alfred? We now know that the mysterious unmarked grave in St Bartholomew's churchyard is NOT the final resting place of Alfred the Great. It seems that John Mellor was either mistaken or lying about the identity of the bones he excavated and sold to the church. This suggests that Alfred's remains are still lying somewhere near the site of the high altar of Hyde Abbey, where we know the convicts scattered them in the late 18th century. Just as the trail looks like it's gone cold, there's an extraordinary twist. Back in 1999, there was a community excavation of the Hyde Abbey site. They found traces of Mellor's excavation and what they thought to be animal bones. These were boxed and stored in Winchester's City Museum. While waiting for the test results from the unmarked grave, Dr Katie Tucker decided to see what else the animal bones from the 1999 dig could tell her about the history of the site. But when Katie asked the museum for permission to study them, she was told there were also two boxes of human bones. Because funding for the community excavation ran out, they hadn't been fully examined at the time. Katie decided to examine the bones to find out if THEY could be the remains of Alfred and his family. So this is more potential material that could be related to the royal House of Wessex? Yes, there's a possibility that any one of these, or more than one, could be the right date. And what have we got? These are the bones that were found closest to the site of the high altar. I can see, obviously, leg bones but is this skull material? Yeah, we have parts of single skull here that's probably an adult female. We've got another part of skull here, it might be an adult male but it's quite fragmentary. We have parts of a humerus here, so this is the upper arm. And yes, we have quite a lot of a single individual here - we've got parts of both arms, the majority of one of the legs, and part of the other leg. And then we have here a part of a male pelvis. So, in terms of looking for Alfred the Great, have you had these bones dated? Yes, we've sent a small fragment of bone from each of the groups of bone off and we're now just waiting for Tom Higham. He's abroad at the moment, but he's hopefully got the results for us and he's going to join us on the screen. Conjure him up. OK. DIALLING TONE Hi, Tom. Hi, Tom. 'Hi, Katie. Hi, Neil. How are you?' We're well. Yeah, pretty good. 'We've got some news - we've got five new dates. 'Three of them fall, once again, to the 1300s period, 'so they're consistent with the previous batch. 'There's one which is a little older bit than that, 'but there's a fifth one - which is this piece of male pelvis - 'that's older than anything we've actually done before. 'And it's actually falling into the late part of the 800s 'and into the 900s AD.' No! Really?! Fantastic. 'So very, very old indeed.' You're joking? So, it's right from the right time for Alfred and family? 'It's bang on the money.' That's fantastic, Tom. 'Great stuff.' Yeah, that's great news. Thank you very much. 'A pleasure. Bye for now.' Bye, Tom. Well, what do you make of that? That is unexpected, I would say. But, yeah, very good news. I was sceptical. What does it mean, if we add it up, what we've got here? It's this bone here, isn't it? Yeah, it's the part of the male pelvis. Um, well... the part of the pelvis that we have, it's from a male, from an adult male in their 40s, so that would tie in quite well with either Alfred or his son Edward the Elder. Um, and, basically, as far as we know, from the chronicles and from the records, the only individuals close to the site of the high altar who are of the right age when they died, and the right date when they died, would either be Alfred or Edward. So, in terms of circumstantial evidence, this is pretty good. And at the distance that we're reaching back into time to find the pelvis of a 40-something man who died around 900-ish in that location by the high altar in Hyde Abbey, the likelihood is, or the strong possibility is... Yes, there's a good chance I would say because just from the records, who else could it be? What more would you need, then, in a court of law, I suppose, to say conclusively? Well, really, because we only have that one piece, there really isn't much else we can do from that. We haven't got anybody else we could compare it with, so from that piece of bone there isn't really anything else that we could do. However, there is the possibility of going back to the site to re-excavate. So more of Alfred or his son, or both, could be there still? Yeah, there's the potential that in areas that were not excavated in the '90s, there may still be fragments of bone to be found. But imagine, even given all of that, the possibility as we stand here, is that the life and the legend of Alfred the Great comes down to this enigmatic fragment of bone. Yeah, it's quite amazing, really, yeah. This isn't quite the conclusion the members of Hyde900 had been expecting. But it's an exciting development in the 1,000-year long story of Alfred the Great's remains. I was just very thrilled. I can't tell you. In fact, I can't tell you. Words can't say. What's fantastic about it is that we've come full circle, we've come back to the site of the Hyde Abbey and we're in the right context. So I think that's really exciting and is it not by any means the end of the story. We've been excited on several occasions through this project, but it's another very important step. It's taken us where we perhaps hadn't anticipated being when we looked for bones from the churchyard, but it's nonetheless following the story through. This really is an opportunity for us, working with our partners locally, to do further excavation on this site to see what else is turned up. I think it's also important that we seize the opportunity to convey the wider message about the significance of Alfred the Great and his era. CHORAL MUSIC Alfred the Great was the king who began the unification of England... ..who fought off the Viking threat... ..and who inspired a cultural renaissance. Without him, England would be a very different place. And now we have evidence indicating where his remains might be. Our investigation has brought us back here to Hyde Abbey and it seems highly likely that Alfred's remains are still buried here, probably close by the site of the high altar. It's not clear exactly what will happen next. There may in time be a full-scale archaeological excavation of the site. And if that work turns up more of Alfred's remains, there are those who believe they should then be reburied with all the ceremony and honour that they deserve. But if history has taught us anything, it's that Alfred the Great's best memorial is probably all around us, the nation that he helped inspire - England.

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Views: 1,193,584

Rating: 4.8318248 out of 5

Keywords: bbc documentary, documentary bbc, bbc, Neil Oliver, neil oliver documentary, neil oliver history of scotland, neil oliver history of ancient britain, search for alfred the great, the search for alfred the great documentary, alfred the great, king alfred, alfred the great documentary, alfred the great vikings, alfred the great documentary bbc, alfred the great of england, bbc documentary history

Id: YZny9k-w3SY

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Length: 50min 53sec (3053 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 17 2019