London and the Kingdom - Volume I | Page 9

the only charge of which Ethelred was guilty. To this must be added treachery and murder. In the year 1002, when he married the daughter of the Duke of Normandy, hoping thereby to win the Duke's friendship and to close the harbours on the French coast against Sweyn, Ethelred issued secret orders for a massacre of all Danes found in England. In this massacre, which took place on the Festival of St. Brice (13th Nov.), perished Gunhild, sister of Sweyn. Under these circumstances, it can scarcely be wondered at, that thenceforth the Danish invasions became more frequent, more systematic, and more extensive than ever.
For four years they continued their depredations "cruelly marking every shire in Wessex with burning and with harrying." Then they were again bought off with a sum of ��36,000, and two years' respite (1007-8) was gained.(41) It was a respite and no more. As soon as they had spent their money, they came again, and in 1009 made several assaults on London--"They often fought against the town of London, but to God be praise that it yet stands sound, and they have ever fared ill."(42) Every year they struck deeper into the heart of the country, and carried their plundering expeditions from Wessex into Mercia and East Anglia.
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In 1011 Canterbury was taken and sacked, Alphage, the Archbishop, being made prisoner, and carried away by the Danish fleet to Greenwich. Finding it impossible to extort a ransom, they brutally murdered him (19th May, 1012), in one of their drunken moods, pelting him in their open court or "husting" with bones and skulls of oxen.(43) The worthy prelate's corpse was allowed to be removed to London where it was reverently interred in St. Paul's. A few years later, Cnut caused it to be transferred with due solemnity to the Archbishop's own metropolitan church of Canterbury.
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In the following year, Sweyn was so successful in reducing the Northumbrians and the inhabitants of the five boroughs,(44) as well as the towns of Winchester and Oxford, taking hostages from each as he went, that he thought he might venture once more to attack London itself; hoping for better success than had attended him on previous occasions. He was the more anxious to capture London, because Ethelred himself was there, but he again met with such determined resistance, and so many of his followers were drowned in the Thames that for the fourth time he had to beat a retreat.(45)
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Leaving London for a while, Sweyn proceeded to conquer that part of England which still held out against him, and having accomplished his purpose, was again preparing to attack the one city which had baffled all his attempts to capture, when the Londoners themselves, finding further opposition hopeless, offered their submission and left Ethelred to take care of himself.(46) This he did by betaking himself to Normandy, where he remained until Sweyn's death in the following year (3rd Feb., 1014).
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Upon this event taking place, the crews of the Danish fleet assumed the right of disposing of the English crown, and elected Sweyn's son, Cnut, to be king. The English, however, compelled as they had been by superior strength to submit to the father, were in no mood to accept without a struggle the sovereignty of his son. The whole of the Witan at once declared in favour of sending for Ethelred, with the assurance "that no lord was dearer than their natural lord," if only he would promise to govern them more justly than before.(47) Ethelred sent word by Edmund his son that "he would be to them a kind lord, and amend all the things which they eschewed, and all the things should be forgiven which had been done or said to him, on condition that they all, unanimously and without treachery, would turn to him." Pledges were given and taken on either side, and thenceforth a Danish king was to be looked upon as an outlaw.(48)
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When Ethelred arrived in England, he was accompanied according to an Icelandic Saga,(49) by King Olaf, of Norway, who assisted him in expelling the Danes from Southwark, and gaining an entrance into the city. The manner in which this was carried out, is thus described. A small knot of Danes occupied a stronghold in the City, whilst others were in possession of Southwark. Between the two lay London Bridge--a wooden bridge, "so broad that two waggons could pass each other upon it"--fortified by barricades, towers, and parapets, and manned by Danes. Ethelred was naturally very anxious to get possession of the bridge, and a meeting of chiefs was summoned to consult how it could be done. Olaf promised to lay his fleet alongside the bridge if the English would do the same. This was agreed upon. Having covered in the decks of the vessels with a wooden roof