Æthelred by Levi Roach

Author:Levi Roach
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300196290
Publisher: Yale University Press

The ‘Palace Revolution’, 1005–6

If the Massacre of St Brice’s Day was meant to alleviate the kingdom’s problems, it seems to have had if anything the reverse effect. In 1003–4 Swein Forkbeard returned, apparently for the first time in almost ten years, devastating the eastern coast of the kingdom. William of Malmesbury was later to connect the Danish king’s reappearance with the events of the previous year: he reports that amongst the victims of the massacre had been Swein’s sister, Gunhild, and her husband the powerful ‘jarl (comes) Palling’.42 Though historians have often taken William at face value, there are reasons for caution. He was heavily influenced here by the account of William of Jumièges, which itself was written from a very particular Norman perspective in the 1050s.43 There is, moreover, no earlier evidence for the existence of a sister of Swein called Gunhild. With Palling we can make better headway: he could conceivably be the turncoat mentioned in the A-version of the Chronicle under 1001, though this would require us to presume that he had been allowed to rejoin the king’s forces after accepting tribute in 1002. All indications are that William of Malmesbury was struggling to make sense of difficult and disparate materials here and one should note that he also reports that this Palling was executed by Eadric Streona, who only seems to have risen to prominence some years later.44

Although William’s testimony is problematic, the association he draws between the massacre and Swein’s reappearance is harder to dismiss. If the massacre was indeed directed at elements of the Danish force settled in 994, then one imagines that Swein would have been acquainted with many of the victims. Still, it is unlikely that revenge was the Danish king’s primary motive; more important were probably recent developments in Scandinavia. As we have seen, Swein’s dominance over Norway had been challenged by Olaf Tryggvason in 995 and he spent much of the following years seeking to reassert his claims over the region, efforts which were crowned with success in 999 when Olaf was finally defeated and killed.45 Allowing a year or two to re-establish control, it may well have been 1003 before Swein was in a position to return to his raiding ways. He was clearly picking up where he had left off. However, while in the 990s Swein was only one of many viking leaders, now he was alone; buoyed by recent successes, his prestige and power had apparently reached a point at which he could embark on such undertakings independently. The Danish king certainly returned with a vengeance, storming Exeter (whose reeve, Hugh, an appointee of the new queen, is singled out for blame) before heading inland. This may have been designed as a strike against Æthelred’s Norman alliance: by sacking a centre associated with the new queen, he might hope to weaken her position at court. In any case, local forces from Wiltshire and Hampshire came out to meet him as he proceeded inland, but were apparently undermined

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