For I
durst not venture to set down in writing over many of my own,
since I knew not what among them would please those that should
come after us. But those which I met with either of the days of
me, my kinsman, or of Offa, King of Mercia, or of Aethelbert, who
was the first of the English who received baptism thse which
appeared to me the justest I have here collected, and abandoned
the others. Then I, Alfred, King of the West Saxons, showed these
to all my Witan, and they then said that they were all willing to
observe them." Laws of Alfred, translated by R. Price, prefixed
to Mackintosh's History of England, vol. l. 45 Lardner's Cab. Cyc.
"King Edward * * projected and begun what his grandson, King
Edward the Confessor, afterwards completed, viz., one uniform
digest or body of laws to be observed throughout the whole
kingdom, being probably no more than a revival of King Alfred's
code, with some improvements suggested by necessity and
experience, particularly the incorporating some of the British,
or, rather, Mercian customs, and also such of the Danish
(customs) as were reasonable and approved, into the West Saxon
Lage, which was still the ground-work of the whole.
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