Both had their faces shaven smooth.

Ethelred wore his hair parted in the middle, and falling low on each side of the face, but Alfred's was closely cut.
On the table near the younger brother stood a silver harp.
Edmund looked with great curiosity and interest on the young prince, who was famous throughout England for his great learning, his wisdom, and sweetness of temper.

Although the youngest of the king's brothers, he had always been regarded as the future King of England, and had his father survived until he reached the age of manhood, he would probably have succeeded directly to the throne.

The law of primogeniture was by no means strictly observed among the Saxons, a younger brother of marked ability or of distinguished prowess in war being often chosen by a father to succeed him in place of his elder brothers.
Alfred had been his father's favourite son.

He had when a child been consecrated by the pope as future King of England; and his two journeys to Rome, and his residence at the court of the Frankish king had, with his own great learning and study, given him a high prestige and reputation among his people as one learned in the ways of the world.
Although but a prince, his authority in the kingdom nearly equalled that of his brother, and it was he rather than Ethelred whom men regarded as the prop and stay of the Saxons in the perils which were now threatening them.
One after another, persons advanced to the table and laid their complaints before the king; in cases of dispute both parties were present and were often accompanied by witnesses.