A great Saxon king and an ill-fated count

I’m behind schedule again; sorry about that. October 26, 899 was the death date of the only English king to be honored with the sobriquet Great—the Saxon king, Alfred. He is currently one of the co-stars in the BBC America series, The Last Kingdom, based on Bernard Cornwell’s wonderful Saxon series. In the books, Uthred is not Alfred’s friend, more of an adversary, but in the course of their often troubled relationship, Uhtred does develop a grudging respect for the Saxon ruler. I admit I was not too fond of BC’s fictional Alfred, but he is being played by a very interesting actor on the BBC series and whenever he is on screen, I want to see what he is going to do next. The series has not caught me the way the books did, but the last episode was the best one so far, at least IMHO. What do you guys think of the series so far? Do you agree with me about the actor playing Alfred?
October 27th, 1156 was the birthdate of one of history’s unfairly maligned men, the ill-fated Raimond de St Gilles, Count of Toulouse, who had a brief happy marriage to the Lionheart’s sister Joanna, and ended up as the most prominent victim of the power-grab known to history as the Albigensian Crusade. Raimond deserves a society to rehabilitate his slandered name and honor as much as Richard III, but Richard was luckier in that respect.