A man I admire is Alfred, King of the Saxons and commonly known as Alfred the Great. Born into a noble family around 849, he was sickly child (he probably had Crohn’s disease), and so he had little choice but to put his considerable brains before his puny brawn. Where the Vikings were formidable warriors, he was a formidable tactician. Where the Vikings put plunder and womanising at the top of their list of requirements, he put virtue and Christianity. He lost many battles. But his tenacity, his determination and absolute belief that he was fighting to save the Christian world from the barbarity of Paganism, won the day.

Seeing that most of his nobles and people were illiterate, he created schools of learning, teaching for the first time in English. This act saved written history from the obscurity it had fallen into under Danelaw. He earned a reputation for being a learned and merciful leader, improving the legal system and people’s quality of life. Above all, he knew that knowledge, morality and fairness were the foundations of a civilised society. The Vikings would only be driven from the British Isles in 1066, nearly two centuries after his death in 899, but his wisdom and bravery ensured that England survived at all. The story of him burning the cakes is probably apocryphal, but that it is told about him, tells me he was a humble man, a man of the people, and a great King.