In the Days of Alfred the Great.(1900) by Eva March Tappan (Children's Classics)

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