Well I don’t know who it is, but its not Alfred.
Everybody thinks it is, don’t get me wrong. They have trusted this statue in Winchester, England to be King Alfred The Great for 114 years.
But for all I know, sculptor Hamo Thornycroft dashed out into the Kensington streets, grabbed a tramp settling down with a bottle of whisky, and ushered him back to his studio, a suit of chain mail and a very big sword.
But of course, that’s ludicrous. For who would give a large pointy sword to a tipsy tramp one has only just met?
No. He must have known the tramp quite well.
They erected the statue at the far end of Winchester High Street, close to the East Gate, to commemorate one thousand years of King Alfred The Great. Alfred was quite important to Winchester. He laid out its street system, the same system which we have to negotiate gingerly as a one-way system today. Winchester was his capital, one of his ‘burghs’ or fortified towns. He designated the south-east quarter as ecclesiastical, the judicial quarter in the south-west, and the tradesmen’s quarter in the north-east. And largely, everyone has kept to their stations ever since.
So of course, when he was a thousand years old, everyone felt a party was in order.
Hamo – or Sir William – Thornycroft, the darling of the ‘New’ sculptors, was chosen to bring Alfred to life in a statue to commemorate the event. Hamo is a key player: he did Cromwell outside Parliament, and General Gordon on the Embankment, not to mention Sir Daniel Dixon outside Belfast City Hall.
But Hamo was no historian.
He clearly felt Alfred should have a beard.
Now I know all men have beards at one point or another. I know tiny ones grow during high days and holidays. And I know there will have been times when Alfred sported a bit of fashion grizzle.
But for official portraits, the man wished himself portrayed clean-shaven.
I know because of the Alfred Jewel.
Photo via Wikipedia
Made of enamel and quartz encased in gold, it bears the inscription: ‘Alfred ordered me made.’
It is thought to be the holding end of some kind of staff, possibly sent out to each bishop in his kingdom with a book by the pope of the day. It’s at the Ashmolean in Oxford, should you ever be in the vicinity; and turn it another way and you get a perfect stately picture of the great king himself:
Picture via Oxonart.org
See a beard?
Me neither.
But in 1899, when the new bearded Alfred was ceremonially unveiled in Winchester, there was a great town procession, and a huge knees-up, and articles graced newspapers as far away as the illustrious New York Times.
So: shall we draw straws for who tells the good Mayor and Corporation of Winchester that they have a well-dressed stranger wielding a very sharp sword in their midst?
Kate Shrewsday 
I guess he forgot his iPhone charger.
They have a shaving app now, Lou? 😀
But he just wouldn’t look kingly enough without that perfectly shaped beard now, would he? Interesting post, made me laugh!
🙂 No, I’ll agree his beard carries an unmistakeable air of authority…thanks for reading, Stevie!
It’s a stately statue of . . . a well-dressed stranger wielding a very sharp sword. 😀
It is what it is, as you say. And it would be a shame to take him down after 114 years.
I love the way that the enamel Alfred appears to be looking, nervously, at someone to his right. It may well have been his wife mentioning “If you hadn’t spent all morning shaving, to look like a ponce for your portrait, rather than watching the oven, as I asked, we might have had some decent cakes for tea…prat”.
😀 It is quite amazing to me what the artist chooses to leave out in these circumstances Roger….thanks for the belly laugh.
A pedant replies: There’s no guarantee that this is a contemporary portrait of Alfred, despite the ALFRED HAD ME MADE inscription — it could have been of an allegorical figure, or a portrait of the dedicatee if it was a gift from the king to, say, an ecclesiastic or noble.
Pooh to pedants! It would be nice to think this was of Alfred. If we look at the Bayeux Tapestry, for example — granted, it was from nearly two centuries later — the custom seems to be for clean-shaven men, but I can’t think of any illustrated MSS of around the 9th century showing images with beards apart from biblical figures. Perhaps the Victorian idea of Dark Age figures was derived from their opponents the Vikings, such as the bearded head from the 9th-century Oseberg cart (though that was only discovered at the beginning of the 20th century).
Ah, Chris, I knew someone would come back with that, which is why I stoked away a little extra ammunition. Here;s a coin from Alfred’s reign:contemporary and undeniably portraying Alfred: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=k146191.jpg&retpage=17542; and another: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Alfred_the_Great_silver_coin.jpg
Beard? I don’t think so.
Weird, one looks like Keith Richards with a sweat band and the other has John Lennon specs … sure you’ve got the right coins?!
Seriously (!) I suspect these are modelled on Roman coins via Continental intermediaries — for example here’s one of a 7th century Lombard ruler http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Cunincpert_tremissis_612190.jpg — or less likely contemporary Byzantine coins (these were often full face). Alfred is shown as an idealised imperial ruler along the lines of the ancient Caesars.
It’s still very likely — maybe even probable — that he was clean-shaven.
Perhaps like our beloved canines and other animals, Alfred grew a little extra “fur” for winter.
Anything is possible, PT. Perhaps all the portraits I have dug up are Summer portraits.
I love those old portraits, Kate. But, I’d have to agree with you… there’s no beard there, unless it’s faded over the years.
There’s a thought. What if the mineral used to paint beards on is not so long lived as the others? Maybe it faded: and he had a huge long beard which would have provoked the envy of Rasputin 😀
[giggling but not able to manage anything more coherent] 😉
That’s ok, IE, I’m losing coherence with every hour which passes….
Just found this discussion, Kate, which — amazingly — largely confirms my suspicions (I say ‘amazingly’ because I’m usually wrong): http://www.ogdoad.force9.co.uk/alfred/alfimages.htm
And here is an 18th-century image in the NPG — clearly of a generic medieval king — which may have influenced the Winchester statue design: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw123009/King-Alfred-The-Great
Sorry, I’m like a polecat with a rabbit with this one. Apologies, it’s late I know.
Some epic research, Chris. The coins may be based on a Roman model, but are they really going to put some complete stranger on it? The tradition of having the ruler on the coin has been a thread throughout history. Alfred dying in 899, a statue which appears 400 or so years later is in no way a contemporary source as the jewel is. The message the clean shaven images give is that important people are unhairy in ninth century Wessex. If you asked Alfred how he would like to be portrayed I’d say he’d opt for the clean shaven look.
I am smiling at the inscription, “Alfred ordered me made.” I have never seen an inscription worded in that way and I find that quite unique. Perhaps it isn’t, but new to me. Historical perception and the proliferation of lore is always intriguing. I think maybe we really do gravitate to fable and story more than truth much of the time, we just don’t always know that’s what we’ve done. I’d say don’t tell the good Mayor. He might become so deflated!
I felt exactly the same!
In truth, the good people of Winchester will be very familiar with the arguments I have put forward today. And in England, when one challenges the establishment, people usually just respond by retrenching and getting cross. So, I think your course of action does sound wise indeed, Debra and Huntmode.
Well, Kate, it looks like a hand mirror to me – the one with Alfred looking off to his right. I’m for the clean shaven Alfried, myself. Maybe the artist thought he had a weak jaw and needed the strength and virility of beard?
I think the Victorians liked the bearded look. Look at Dickens, And Darwin. And Charles Pooter.
Along with not having the vote, women had not yet gained the clout to tell their men to shave them off. Immediately.
Before reading this post, I thought this might be an episode about Big Al hijinks with shaving cream … My vote goes to you to break this news to the good Mayor and Corporation of Winchester that their statue needs a shave.
I wonder how well it would be received, Virginia?
The statue looks rather like Charlton Heston to me.
Perhaps he’s bawling “You blew it all up! You blew it all to Hell!”
A “selfie” on his Iphone would have put this whole scandal to rest. Great detective work, Kate.
If only he had thought to take one, Judy. *sigh*
I hesitate to weigh in on this storm of controversy surrounding Al’s facial shrubbery, but Kate: Hamo Thornycroft? Did you make that all up to guide reader’s to you splendid blog?
Nope: this is him, Old Hand 🙂 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamo_thornycroft00.jpg
Thanks for commenting today!
Not necessarily a stranger. As every English schoolboy knows Alfred was exhausted after fighting the Danes and stumbled into the hut of a woodcutter where the woman of the house took pity on the bedraggled fellow and said she would feed him if he watched her cakes. Returning later she found that the king had fallen asleep and let the cakes burn so she turned him out of the hut without any dinner. The king thought that if his beard had been any longer he might have also set fire to himself and thus jeopardized the fate of the country. Consequently he decided to shave his beard off to prevent this from ever happening. So, you see, they were probably one and the same person.
Ah, yes, Malcolm, but we all have beardy wierdy days. Of course a King of Wessex might not bring his barber along on campaign. But for state portraits: for a kingly statue in the city he designed: no beard, surely?
My sister was at Winchester and in rag week they painted silver footprints from the statue of Alfred to the gents’ loo across the road and back again. As mid-teenager i found that hilarious.
Hello this is a very interesting post!!!!
He’s beardy Alfred to enhance the idea of his masculinty; Victorians were obsessed with whiskers and male facial hair!
The trend seems to be back, Carin: beards everywhere, young men looking like Dickens….. thanks for commenting and apologies for my tardy response 🙂