A Short Introduction to the Vikings (Illustrated) by Allen Mawer

Author:Allen Mawer [Mawer, Allen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
Publisher: Didactic Press
Published: 2014-04-12T07:00:00+00:00

King Svein and King Knut

After the fall of the Northumbrian kingdom in 954 England had peace for some five-and-twenty years, especially under the strong rule of Edgar, but with the weak Aethelred II troubles were renewed and from 980 onwards the whole of the English coast was open to attack. These raids were the result of a fresh outburst of Viking activity over the whole of the British Isles. Danes and Norsemen united under one banner and their leader was the famous Olaf Tryggvason. In 991 after ravaging the east coast Olaf engaged Brihtnoth, the ealdorman of East Anglia, near Maldon. The struggle was heroic and gave occasion to one of the finest of Old English poems, but Brihtnoth fell, and an ignominious peace was made whereby for the first time since the days of Alfred ‘Danegeld’ was paid to buy off Viking attacks. Svein Forkbeard now united forces with Olaf and together they besieged London in 994: the siege was a failure, but all southern England was harried and once more a heavy Danegeld had to be paid. In 995 Olaf went to Norway hoping to gain the kingdom by the overthrow of the tyranny of Earl Hakon, while Svein returned to Denmark. The raids continued but England saw nothing more of King Svein until he returned in 1003 to avenge the ill-advised massacre of St Brice's day. Year after year the kingdom was ravaged, Danegeld after Danegeld was paid, until in 1013 Aethelred fled to Normandy and Svein became King of all England. A few months later he died suddenly at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire (February 1014). His English realm went to his younger son Knut. On the death of Aethelred in 1016, his son Edmund Ironside offered so stout a resistance that for a few months, until his death by treachery, he compelled Knut to share the realm with him. Knut then ruled alone, firmly and well until his death in 1035, having succeeded to the Danish throne also in 1018. On his death the succession was not settled but, after some difficulty, Harold Harefoot succeeded his father in England. He was succeeded in 1040 by his brother Harthacnut (O.N. Hardacnútr), but neither king was of the same stamp as their father and they were both overshadowed by the great Godwin, Earl of Wessex. When Harthacnut died in 104 the male line in descent from Knut was extinct and, though some of the Danes were in favor of choosing Knut's sister's son Svein, Godwin secured the election of Edward the Confessor, who had been recalled from Normandy and highly honored by Harthacnut himself. With the accession of Edward, Danish rule in England was at an end, and never afterwards was there any serious question of a Scandinavian kingship either in or over England.

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