Page:Will of King Alfred.djvu/13

Rh Alfred, that the survivor should give to the children of the other, 1. All such lands as they two themselves should have acquired; and 2, All such as Ethelwolf their father had given to them two in Ethelbald's life-time; but not, 3, Those which he had bequeathed by Will to the three; which, together with the personal estate of him of the two that should die first, was to go to the survivor.

“That finally, therefore, this third sort of lands, viz. such as King Ethelwolf the father had devised by Will to the three brothers and the survivor of them, and which had now devolved on Alfred, was the subject of the following bequest: which, in the Witena-gemot at Langden (King Ethelwolf's Will being first produced and read) it was unanimously agreed that Alfred had undoubted authority to make: and which the nobility there assembled pledged themselves to see carried into execution."

Independently of the wish to render generally accessible an important illustration of English history, and to supply a deficiency in the book market occasioned by the scarcity of the first edition, regard has been had, in the present publication, to the general interest that has been recently awakened to every thing connected with the