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Bust of Alfred the Great in the Temple of British Worthies
This bust of Alfred was built in 1735 at Stowe Gardens, Buckinghamshire. It is one of 16 busts comprising "The Temple of the British Worthies". The "Temple" venerates eight great Britons for their ideas and another eight for their deeds. Amongst the first group are William Shakespeare, the philosopher John Locke, and Isaac Newton. In the second group are Queen Elizabeth I (reign 1558-1603), the great general of the Hundred Years’ War, Edward, the Black Prince, and Alfred. Above his bust reads, “King Alfred: The mildest, justest, most beneficent of kings; who drove out the Danes, secured the seas, protected learning, established juries, crushed corruption, guarded liberty, and was the founder of the English constitution.”
Alfred’s inclusion amongst such an esteemed group demonstrates that the Georgians and Whigs (the political party supported by the Temple family who built the gardens) thought of him as one of the great British figures of their past and the founder of much of what they came to cherish: liberty, the navy, constitutional kingship, justice and good education - even if some of this is based on Alfredian myths.
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