Is all that enough for him to be known as ‘the Great’? Demonstrably it is. Still it’s not quite Napoleonic. It’s more the regal equivalent of rescuing the fortunes of a struggling regional chain of family-owned shoe shops. If ‘Great’ monarchs have parties in the afterlife, I reckon Catherine of Russia and Alexander of Macedon are going to be raising their eyebrows behind Alfred’s back in the same way St Peter and St Mary Magdalene do when St Edward the Confessor walks into the reception for saints and starts troughing on the special canapés reserved for martyrs. These mediocre Brits get
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