Back Aa

Vikings

<h2>CHAPTER III THE VIKINGS IN ENGLAND TO THE DEATH OF HARTHACNUT</h2> The great development of Viking activity which took place after 855 was certainly not unconnected with the course of events in Denmark itself. Hárekr was attacked by his two nephews in 850 and compelled to share the kingdom with them. In 854 large bands of Vikings returned to their fatherland after twenty years' ravaging in Frankish territory. Trouble now arose between Hárekr and his nephew Godurm (O.N. Guðormr), one of the returned leaders. Civil war broke out and ultimately, after a great fight, the kingship fell to a younger Hárekr, a relative of the late king. A severe dynastic struggle of this kind must have been accompanied by much unsettlement and perhaps by an actual proscription. It would certainly seem that there was some definite connexion between these events and the coincident appearance of the sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók as leaders of a more extended Viking movement both in England and in France. Three of his sons—Halfdanr, Ubbi and Ívarr—took part in the first wintering in Sheppey in 855, while in the same year another son Björn Ironside appeared on the Seine. [23] The figure of Ragnarr Loðbrók himself belongs to an earlier generation, and great as was his after-fame we unfortunately know very little of his actual career. He would seem to have been of Norwegian birth, closely connected with the south of Norway and the house of Guðröðr, but like that prince having extensive interests in Denmark. He probably visited Ireland in 831, for we read in Saxo of an expedition made by Ragnarr to Ireland when he slew king Melbricus and ravaged Dublin, an event which is pretty certainly to be identified with an attack made on the Conaille district (co. Louth) by foreigners in 831 when the king Maelbrighde was taken prisoner. He led the disastrous Seine expedition in 845 (v. supra, p. 21). The next glimpse of him which we have is probably that found in certain Irish annals where he is represented as exiled from his Norwegian patrimony and living with some of his sons in the Orkneys while others were absent on expeditions to the British Isles, Spain and Africa, and a runic inscription has been found at Maeshowe in the Orkneys confirming the connexion of the sons of Loðbrók and possibly of Loðbrók himself with those islands. The expeditions would be those mentioned above and the yet more famous one made to Spain, Africa and Italy by Björn Ironside in the years 859-62 (v. infra, pp. 46-7). Ragnarr Loðbrók's later history is uncertain. According to the Irish annals quoted[24] above, his sons while on their expedition dreamed that their father had died in a land not his own and on their return found it to be true. This agrees with Scandinavian tradition according to which Ragnarr met his death at the hands of Aelle, king of Northumbria, by whom he was thrown into a snake-pit, while the capture of York by Ívarr the Boneless in 866-7 (v. infra) is represented as part of a great expedition of vengeance undertaken by the sons of Ragnarr. This tradition (apart from certain details) is probably historical, but we have no definite confirmatory evidence. With this note on the history of Denmark at this time and on the career of the most shadowy, if at the same time the most famous of the Viking leaders, we may turn once more to the history of events in England. For ten years after the wintering in Sheppey, England was left in a state of comparative peace. The change came in 866 when a large Danish force which had been bribed to leave the Seine by Charles the Bald sailed to England and took up its quarters in East Anglia. In 867 they crossed the Humber and captured York, their task being made easier by the quarrels of Aelle and Osberht as to the kingship of Northumbria. Next year the rivals patched up their differences, but failed to recapture York from the Danes under Ívarr and Ubbi. Setting up a[25] puppet king Ecgberht in Northumbria north of the Tyne, the Danes next received the submission of Mercia and returned to York in 869. In 870 they marched through Mercia into East Anglia, as far as Thetford, engaged the forces of Edmund, king of East Anglia, defeated and slew him, whether in actual battle or in later martyrdom, as popular tradition would have it, is uncertain. The death of St Edmund, king and martyr, soon became an event of European fame and no Viking leader was more widely execrated than the cruel Ívarr, who was deemed responsible. The turn of Wessex came next. The fortunes of battle fluctuated but the accounts usually terminate with the ominous words 'the Danes held possession of the battle field.' In 871, Alfred commenced his heroic struggle with the Danes and in the first year of his reign some nine pitched battles were fought, beside numerous small engagements. So keen was the West Saxon resistance that a truce was made in 871 and the Danes turned their attention to Mercia once more. London was forced to ransom itself at a heavy price and a coin of Halfdanr, probably minted in London at the time, has been found. After a hurried visit to Northumbria the here settled down for the winter of 872-3 at Torksey in the Lindsey district, whence they moved in 873 to Repton in Derbyshire. They overthrew Burhred of[26] Mercia and set up a foolish thegn of his as puppet ruler of that realm. In the winter of 874-5 the here divided forces: one part went under Halfdanr to the Tyne valley, the other under Guthrum (O.N. Guðormr) to Cambridge. In 876 Halfdanr divided up the lands of Northumbria among his followers who soon ploughed and cultivated them. At the same time they did not forget their old occupations. Raids were made against the Picts and the Strathclyde Welsh, while Halfdanr soon became involved in the great struggle going on in Ireland at that time between Norsemen and Danes. This ultimately led to his death in 877 (v. infra, p. 58). In the meantime the struggle continued in Wessex. In 875 Alfred captured seven Danish ships. In 876 the southern division of the here slipped past the West Saxon fyrd and reached Wareham in Dorsetshire, but came to terms with Alfred. Though the peace was sworn with all solemnity on their sacred altar-ring, the mounted portion of the here slipped off once more and established themselves in Exeter. Their land forces were supported by a parallel movement of the fleet. At Exeter Alfred made peace with them and the here returned to Mercia. There half the land was divided up among the Danes while the southern half was left in the hands of Ceolwulf. [27] Alfred reached the nadir of his fortunes when the here returned to Wessex in the winter of 877-8, drove many of the inhabitants into exile across the sea, and received the submission of the rest with the exception of King Alfred and a few followers who took refuge in the Island of Athelney amid the Somersetshire marshes. Alfred soon gathered round him a force with which he was able to issue from his stronghold and ultimately to inflict a great defeat on the Danes at Edington near Westbury. They now made terms with Alfred by the peace of Wedmore, and agreed to leave Alfred's kingdom while their king Guthrum received Christian baptism. They withdrew first to Cirencester and then to East Anglia. Here they settled, portioning out the land as they had done in Northumbria and Northern Mercia. A peace was drawn up between Alfred and Guthrum of East Anglia defining the boundary between their realms. It was to run along the Thames estuary to the mouth of the Lea (a few miles east of London), then up the Lea to its source near Leighton Buzzard, then due north to Bedford, then eastwards up the Ouse to Watling St. somewhere near Fenny or Stony Stratford. From this point the boundary is left undefined, probably because the kingdoms of Alfred and Guthrum ceased to be conterminous here. England now had peace for some twelve years. Alfred made good use of the interval in reorganising[28] his army and strengthening the kingdom generally, so that when attacks were renewed in 892 he was much better prepared to meet them. In the autumn of that year two fleets coming from France arrived in England: one landed on the Limen (between Hythe and Romney Marsh), the other under the leadership of Hæsten (O.N. Hásteinn) at Milton in North Kent. Alfred's difficulties were increased by the fact that during the next four years the Danish settlers in Northumbria and East Anglia played a more or less actively hostile part, both by land and sea. The Danes showed all their old mobility and in a series of raids crossed England more than once—first to Buttington on the Severn (co. Montgomery), then to Chester, and on a third occasion to Bridgenorth in Shropshire. They met with a uniformly stout and well organised resistance under the leadership of Alfred, his son Edward the Elder, and his brother-in-law Aethelred of Mercia, and in the end they had to retire with no fresh acquisition of territory. For the most part they distributed themselves among the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes, but those who had no cattle wherewith to stock their land took ship and sailed back to the Seine. There were no further attacks from abroad during Alfred's reign, but piratical raids made by the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes caused him a good deal of trouble, and in order to meet them he definitely addressed[29] himself to the long delayed task of equipping a fleet. The vessels were carefully designed according to Alfred's own ideas: they were larger, swifter and steadier than the Danish vessels and they soon showed their worth when more than 20 vessels with their crews were lost by the Danes in one year. It is interesting to note that these vessels were manned in part by Frisian sailors, probably because of the low ebb to which English seamanship had sunk. When once Edward the Elder's claim to the throne was firmly established in the battle fought at 'the Holm,' somewhere in South Cambridgeshire, he commenced, with the active co-operation of his brother-in-law Aethelred, ealdorman of Mercia, the great work of strengthening the hold of the English on Southern Mercia preparatory to an attempt to reconquer the Danelagh. Chester was rebuilt in 907. In 910 a fort was built at 'Bremesbyrig,' possibly Bromesberrow in Gloucestershire. Aethelred died in the next year, but his wife Aethelflæd, the 'Lady of the Mercians,' continued his work, and forts were built at 'Scergeat,' perhaps Shrewsbury, at Bridgenorth on the Severn, at Tamworth, and at Stafford in 912. In 914 Warwick was fortified, while in 915 forts were built at Chirbury in Shropshire and Runcorn in Cheshire. On the death of Aethelred, Edward took London and Oxford and the parts of Mercia adhering to them[30] into his own hands. Two forts were built on the north and south sides of the Lea at Hertford in 911-12, and another at Witham on the Blackwater in Essex. Edward's work soon bore fruit, for we read that in the same year a large number of those who had been under Danish rule now made submission to the king. The Danes in the Five Boroughs became restless under the continued advance of the English, and twice in the year 913 they made raids from Leicester and Northampton as far as Hook Norton in Oxfordshire and Leighton Buzzard, while in the next year Edward, for the first time in his reign, was troubled by raiders from abroad. Coming from Brittany they sailed up the Severn, ravaged South Wales and the Archenfield district of Herefordshire, but could do nothing against the garrison of Gloucester, Hereford and other neighbouring towns, which seem already to have been fortified. They were forced to leave the district and so careful a watch did Edward keep over the coast of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall that they could make no effective landing, though they tried twice, at Porlock and at Watchet. Ultimately they took up their quarters in the islands of Flatholme and Steepholme in the Bristol Channel, but lack of food soon drove them away to Ireland in a starving condition. In the same year Edward built two forts at Buckingham, one on each side of the Ouse, and his policy again found[31] speedy justification when Earl Thurcytel (O.N. Ðorkell) and all the chief men who 'obeyed[5]' Bedford, together with many of those who 'obeyed' Northampton submitted to him. Everything was now ready for the great advance against the Danes. Derby fell in 917, while in the next year Leicester yielded without a struggle. Their fall was accompanied by the submission of the men of Derbyshire and Leicestershire. At the same time the inhabitants of York declared themselves ready to enter the service of Mercia. Edward fortified Bedford in 915, Maldon and Towcester in South Northamptonshire in 916. Again the Danes from Northampton and Leicester tried to break through the steadily narrowing ring of forts and they managed to get as far south as Aylesbury, while others from Huntingdon and East Anglia built a fort at Tempsford in Bedfordshire near the junction of the Ivel and the Ouse. They besieged a fort at 'Wigingamere' (unidentified) but were forced to withdraw. Edward gathered an army from the nearest garrison towns, besieged, captured, and destroyed Tempsford (915). In the autumn he captured Colchester and a Danish[32] attempt on Maldon failed. Edward now strengthened Towcester and received the submission of Earl Thurfrith (O.N. Ðorröðr) and all the Danes in Northamptonshire as far north as the Welland. Huntingdon was occupied about the same time and the ring of forts around East Anglia brought about the submission of the whole of that district, Cambridgeshire making a separate compact on its own account. In 918 Edward built a fort just south of Stamford and soon received the submission of the Danes of South Lincolnshire, and in the same year occupied Nottingham, building a fort and garrisoning it with a mixed English and Danish force. He was now ruler of the whole of Mercia owing to the death of his sister Aethelflæd, and in 919 he fortified Thelwall in Cheshire, on the Mersey, and rebuilt the old Roman fort at Manchester. In 920 he built a second fort at Nottingham and one at Bakewell in Derbyshire. The reconquest of the Danelagh was complete and Edward now received the submission of the Scots, the Strathclyde Welsh, of Regnold (O.N. Rögnvaldr) of Northumbria, and of English, Danes and Norsemen alike. The Danish settlers accepted the sovereignty of the West Saxon king and henceforward formed part of an expanded Wessex which had consolidated its power over all England south of a line drawn roughly from the Humber to the Dee. [33] The submission of Rögnvaldr, king of Northumbria and the mention of Norsemen need some comment. On the death of Halfdanr in 877 an interregnum of seven years ensued and then, in accordance with instructions given by St Cuthbert in a vision to abbot Eadred of Carlisle, the Northumbrians chose a certain Guthred (O.N. Guðröðr) as their king. He was possibly a nephew of the late king, ruled till 894, and was also known as Cnut (O.N. Knútr). We have coins bearing the inscription 'Elfred rex' on the obverse and 'Cnut rex' on the reverse, indicating apparently some overlordship of king Alfred. Together with these we have some coins with 'Cnut rex' on the obverse and 'Siefredus' or (Sievert) on the reverse, and others, minted at 'Ebroice civitas' (i.e. York), with the sole inscription 'Siefredus rex.' This latter king would seem to have been first a subordinate partner and then, on Guðröðr's death, sole ruler of Northumbria. Other coins belonging to about the same period and found in the great Cuerdale hoard near Preston, bear the inscription 'Sitric Comes,' and there is good reason to believe that Siefredus (O.N. Sigröðr) and Sitric (O.N. Sigtryggr) are to be identified with Sichfrith and Sitriucc who just at this time are mentioned in the Irish annals as rival leaders of the Norsemen in Dublin. The identification is important as it shows us that Northumbria was now being[34] brought into definite connexion with the Norse kingdom of Dublin and that the Norse element was asserting itself at the expense of the Danish in Northern England. The rule of Sigröðr and Sigtryggr alike had come to an end by 911 and we know nothing more until the year 918 when a fresh invasion from Ireland took place under a certain Rögnvaldr. He gained a victory at Corbridge-on-Tyne and captured York in 919 or 920. He divided the lands of St Cuthbert among his followers but died in 921, the year of his submission to the overlordship of Edward. The Irish annals speak of him as king of White and Black foreigners alike, thus emphasising the composite settlement of Northumbria. Another leader from Ireland, one Sigtryggr, succeeded Rögnvaldr as king of Northumbria. He was on friendly terms with Aethelstan and married his sister in 925. He died in 926 or 927 and then Aethelstan took Northumbria under his own control. Sigtryggr's brother Guðröðr submitted to Aethelstan but after four days at the court of king Aethelstan 'he returned to piracy as a fish to the sea.' Both Sigtryggr and Guðröðr left sons bearing the name Anlaf (O.N. Ólafr) and with them Aethelstan and his successors had much trouble. Anlaf Sihtricsson lived in exile in Scotland and gradually organised against Aethelstan a great confederacy of Scots, Strathclyde[35] Welsh and Vikings, both Danish and Norwegian, Anlaf Godfreyson brought help from Ireland and the great struggle began. The course of the campaign is uncertain but if the site of its main battle, 'Brunanburh,' is to be identified with Birrenswark Hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire, it would seem that Aethelstan carried the war into the enemy's country. The result of the battle was a complete victory for the forces of Aethelstan and his brother Edmund. Constantine's son, five kings and seven jarls were among the slain. We have in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a poem[6] celebrating the victory, and it describes in vivid language the hurried return home of Constantine, lamenting the death of his son, and the headlong flight of Anlaf Godfreyson to Dublin. England had been freed from its greatest danger since the days of king Alfred and his struggle with Guthrum. Aethelstan had no more trouble with the Norsemen and we have evidence from other sources that at some time during his reign, probably at an earlier date, he exchanged embassies with Harold Fairhair, king of Norway. The latter sent him a present of a ship with golden prow and purple sails and the usual bulwark of shields along the gunwale, while Harold's favourite son Hákon was brought up at Aethelstan's court. There he was baptised and educated and is known in Norse history as Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri. [36] After the death of Aethelstan, Anlaf Sihtricsson, nicknamed Cuaran (i.e. with the sock or brogue of leather, so called from his Irish dress) came to England and captured York. From there he made an attempt to conquer the Danish district of the Five Boroughs. He seems to have got a good part of Mercia into his hands but in the end Edmund freed the Danes from Norse oppression and took once more into his hands all Mercia south of a line from Dore (near Sheffield) to Whitwell (Derbyshire) and thence to the Humber. Edmund and Anlaf came to terms, but Anlaf was driven out by the Northumbrians in 943, and in the next year that province fell into the hands of Edmund. In 947 Eric Blood-axe, son of Harold Fairhair, was accepted as king by the Northumbrians. In Scandinavian tradition we learn how he was expelled from Norway in 934 by the supporters of Hákon, went on Viking raids in the west, was appointed ruler of Northumbria by Aethelstan on condition of his defending it against attack, but was not on good terms with Edmund, who favoured one Ólaf. Probably Eric retired after Aethelstan's death and only returned to England in 947. In 948 Edmund forced the Northumbrians to abandon his cause and about the same time Anlaf[37] returned from Ireland and ruled till about 950 when he was replaced by Eric, whose short rule came to an end in 954. In that year he was expelled by the Northumbrians and killed at Stainmoor in Westmorland. The attempt to establish a Norse kingdom of Northumbria had failed and henceforward that district was directly under the rule of the English king. English authority was supreme once more even in those districts which were largely peopled with Scandinavian settlers. England had no further trouble with Norse or Danish invaders until the days of Ethelred the Unready, but no sooner did that weak and ill-advised king come to the throne than, with that ready and intimate knowledge of local conditions which they always displayed, we find Danes making an attack on Southampton and Norsemen one on Chester. The renewed attacks were not however due solely to the weakness of England, they were also the result of changed conditions in Scandinavia itself. In Denmark the reign of Harold Bluetooth was drawing to a close, and the younger generation, conscious of a strong and well-organised nation behind them, were ambitious of new and larger conquests, while at the same time many of them were in revolt against the definitely Christian policy of Harold in his old age. They turned with hope towards his young son Svein, and found in him a ready and willing leader. In[38] Norway, Earl Hákon had broken away from the suzerainty of Harold Bluetooth, but the Norwegians could not forget that he owed his throne to a foreign power, and his personal harshness and licentiousness as well as his zealous cult of the old heathen rites were a cause of much discontent. The hopes of the younger generation were fixed on Olaf Tryggvason, a man filled with the spirit of the old Vikings. Captured by pirates from Esthonia when still a child, he was discovered, ransomed, and taken to Novgorod, where he entered the service of the Grand Duke Vladimir. Furnished by him with a ship he went 'viking' in the Baltic and then ten years later we find him prominent among the Norsemen who attacked England in the days of king Ethelred. In 991 a Norse fleet under Olaf visited Ipswich and Maldon. Here they met with a stout resistance headed by the brave Byrhtnoth, earl of Essex, and in the fragmentary lay of the fight at Maldon[7], which has been preserved to us, we see that there was still much of the spirit of the heroic age left in the English nation even in the days of Ethelred II. It was to buy off this attack that a payment of Danegeld to the extent of some ten thousand pounds was made. From Maldon Olaf went to Wales and Anglesey and it was somewhere in the west that[39] he received knowledge of the Christian faith from an anchorite and was baptised. He did not however renounce his Viking-life, but joined forces with his great Danish contemporary Svein Forkbeard. Bamborough was sacked in 993, and both were present at the siege of London in 994, when they sailed up the Thames with 490 ships. The attack was a failure and Olaf came to terms with Ethelred agreeing to desist from further attack in return for a payment of sixteen thousand pounds of Danegeld. Olaf was the more ready to make this promise as he was now addressing himself to the task of gaining the sovereignty of Norway itself. Many of the Norsemen returned with Olaf but the attacks on the coast continued and the invaders, chiefly Danes now, ravaged the country in all directions. Treachery was rife in the English forces and again and again the ealdormen failed in the hour of need. Danegeld after Danegeld was paid in the vain hope of buying off further attacks, and the almost incredible sum of 158,000 pounds of silver (i.e. some half million sterling) was paid as Danegeld during a period of little more than 20 years. Once or twice Ethelred showed signs of energy; once in 1000 when a fleet was sent to Chester, which ravaged the Isle of Man while an army devastated Cumberland, and again in 1004 when a great fleet was made ready but ultimately proved of no use. Ethelred's worst stroke[40] of policy was the order given in 1002 for the massacre on St Brice's Day of all Danes settled in England. His orders were carried out only too faithfully and among the slain was Svein's sister Gunnhild, the wife of a Danish jarl in the king's service. Svein's vengeance was relentless, and during the next ten years the land had no peace until in 1013 Ethelred was driven from the throne, and Svein himself became king of England. Svein died in 1014 and his son Cnut succeeded to his claim. Ethelred was invited by the witan to return, and ultimately Wessex fell to Cnut, while the district of the Seven Boroughs (the old five together with York and Chester) and Northumbria passed into the hands of Ethelred, or rather of his energetic son Edmund. This division of the country placing the district once settled by Danes and Norsemen under an English king while the heart of England itself was in the possession of a Scandinavian king shows how completely the settlers in those districts had come to identify themselves with English interests as a whole. Mercia was nominally in Ethelred's power, but its ealdorman, Eadric Streona, was the most treacherous of all the English earls. On Ethelred's death in 1016 the witan chose Edmund Ironside as king and a series of battles took place culminating in that at Ashingdon in Essex where the English were completely defeated through the treachery of Eadric. A division of the kingdom[41] was now made whereby Wessex fell to Edmund, Mercia and Northumbria to Cnut—thus easily was the allegiance of the various districts transferred from one sovereign to another. Edmund only lived a few months and Cnut then became king of all England. For twenty years the land enjoyed peace and prosperity. In 1018 the greater part of the Danish army and fleet returned to Denmark, some forty ships and their crews sufficing Cnut for the defence of his kingdom. During the next four years he received the submission of the king of Scotland and made a memorable pilgrimage to Rome. The most important event of his later years was however his struggle with Olaf the Stout, the great St Olaf of Norway. Norway was now entirely independent of Danish sovereignty and when Cnut sent an embassy voicing the old claims of the Danish kings he received a proudly independent answer from St Olaf. For the time being Cnut had to be satisfied, but in 1025 he sailed with a fleet to Norway, only to suffer defeat at the Battle of the Helge-aa (i.e. Holy River) in Skaane, at the hands of the united forces of Norway and Sweden. Three years later the attack was renewed. Olaf's strenuous and often cruel advocacy of the cause of Christianity had alienated many of his subjects and the Swedes had deserted their ally. The result was that Olaf fled to Russia and Cnut was[42] declared king of Norway. Two years later the exile returned and fell fighting against his own countrymen. Cnut was now the mightiest of all Scandinavian kings, but on his death in 1035 his empire fell apart; Norway went to his son Svein, Denmark to Harthacnut and England to Harold Harefoot. Harold was succeeded by Harthacnut in 1040, but neither king was of the same stamp as Cnut and they were both overshadowed by the great Godwine, earl of Wessex. When Harthacnut died in 1042 the male line in descent from Cnut was extinct, and though some of the Danes were in favour of choosing Cnut's sister's son Svein, Godwine secured the election of Edward the Confessor. With the accession of Edward Danish rule in England was at an end and, except for the ambitious expedition of Harold Hardrada, foiled at Stamford Bridge in 1066, there was no further serious question of a Scandinavian kingship either in or over England. The sufferings of England during the second period of invasion (980-1016) were probably quite as severe as in the worst days of Alfred—the well-known Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, written by Archbishop Wulfstan of York in 1014, draws a terrible picture of the chaos and anarchy then prevailing—but we must remember that neither these years nor the ensuing five and thirty years of Danish kingship left as deep a mark on England as the earlier wars and the settlements resulting from them. There was no[43] further permanent occupation or division of territory and though some of the earldoms and the great estates passed into the hands of the king's Danish followers, there was no transformation of the whole social life of the people such as had taken place in the old Danelagh districts. <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote"> [5] This phrase is used repeatedly in the Chronicle in connexion with such towns as Bedford, Cambridge, Derby, Leicester and Northampton, and there can be no question that these groups represent the shires which now take their names from these towns. For purposes of convenience we shall henceforward speak of such groups as 'shires.' </div> <div class="footnote"> [6] See Tennyson's translation. </div> <div class="footnote"> [7] See Freeman's Old English History for Children for a translation of this poem. </div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.