These troubles, and the military preparations and movements to which they would naturally give rise, would seem to have been sufficient to have occupied fully all the powers of his mind, and to have prevented him from doing any thing effectual for the internal improvement of his kingdom.
Then, besides, there was another difficulty with which Alfred had to contend, which one might have supposed would have paralyzed all his energies.

He suffered all his life from some mysterious and painful internal disease, the nature of which, precisely, is not known, as the allusions to it, though very frequent throughout his life, are very general, and the physicians of the day, who probably were not very skillful, could not determine what it was, or do any thing effectual to relieve it.

The disease, whatever it may have been, was a source of continual uneasiness, and sometimes of extreme and terrible suffering.
Alfred bore all the pain which it caused him with exemplary patience; and, though he could not always resist the tendency to discouragement and depression with which the perpetual presence of such a torment wears upon the soul, he did not allow it to diminish his exertions, or suspend, at any time, the ceaseless activity with which he labored for the welfare of the people of his realm.
Alfred attached great importance to the education of his people.

It was not possible, in those days, to educate the mass, for there were no books, and no means of producing them in sufficient numbers to supply any general demand.

Books, in those days, were extremely costly, as they had all to be written laboriously by hand.