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Old 06-06-2022, 07:33 PM   #39 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Return of the Vikings: Can’t Keep a Good Dane Down

Despite the absolute rout of the King of Dublin in Aethelstan’s time and the breaking of the power of the Danes soon afterwards by Eadred, the Vikings were not yet finished with England and they attacked again in 980, streaming over from Denmark, and though originally carrying out lightning raids on the coast only, and these spread out over almost a decade, with some years of respite in between, the lacklustre and uncoordinated response from England emboldened them. Aethelred tried to placate them by buying them off (“paying tribute”) but their blood was up and conquest was on their minds, and in 991 they sent a huge fleet to sack Ipswich, and in August came face to face with the English at Maldon in Essex. This was to be not only the first major defeat for the English but the nascent beginnings of the later Norman invasion of England, something that was to shape the country’s future forever.

With the soundest of defeats against the English under their belts, the Vikings - though demanding, and getting tribute - rampaged across the country, and you can’t help but call to mind the rather self-defeating invitation of the Saxons by the Britons two hundred years ago, sealing their own fate. The Vikings had not been invited, no, but the resistance of the English under Aethelred - who really could be accused of being actually unready, as it seemed he certainly had not been expecting this massive fleet to attack - was so weak that the Vikings were able to make it as far as London with impunity. England’s defence, such as it was, became more a desperate rearguard action, and there was really no chance the Danes, now supported by the French in Normandy, were ever going to be defeated.

The best the English could hope for was a truce, and this they got in 994, when King Olaf Tryggvason, suitably paid off, took much of his force to Norway and promised never to darken England’s doorstep again. He kept his word, but some of his men stayed on, as mercenaries loyal now to Aethelred, who thought he could control them. Big mistake! Three years after their prince had returned to the comforting icy wastes of Scandinavia, these soldiers of fortune seem to have fashioned their own fortune, and turned on Aethelred, deciding it was, say it with me, pillaging time!

And so in 997 the coastal attacks began again, until as the new millennium dawned, the Vikings decided to check out their new pals in Normandy, and Aethelred, as any king faced with such a sudden and unexpected respite in hostilities would do, gathered his forces, shored up his defences and… attacked Strathclyde. Um. The reason for this rather unreasonable attack is, according to historians, “lost in the history of the north”, but I would be willing to bet he was paying back some old scores, as Strathclyde had been one of the kingdoms to support Danelaw. He was caught rapid, as we say here, the next year though, as the Vikings returned, bored with eating frog’s legs and snails and hankering for some Yorkshire pud, or maybe Yorkshire puss(!) and back they came. I hope Aethelred and his court partied like it was 999, cos from 1001 onwards there wouldn’t be much cause for joy.

The Danegeld, already mentioned several times, would have been one of the main reasons taxes skyrocketed, as the Vikings demanded more and more tribute for not knocking in English heads (that much) or setting English cities on fire (well, maybe a small one here or there, but nothing serious), and Aethelred, with no real army to oppose them, had no choice but to cough up. Which meant making the people cough up. Which presumably left a less than glowing impression on the minds - and wallets - of his subjects. Eventually, he decided he’d had enough.

St. Brice’s Day Massacre

Herod would have been proud. Well, maybe not, but Al Capone would. When word came to Aethelred that the Danes were rising and would kill him and all his people, and take their land, he decided to get his retaliation in first, and ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England. This was on, appropriately enough, November 13 1002 (I don’t know if it was a Friday, but how cool if it was, eh? My phone’s calendar doesn’t go back to the eleventh century, cheap piece of crap) and is the first time I’ve read of an English king ordering what amounts to all but genocide. I mean, these people weren’t even prisoners of war. For all Aethelred knew, the accusations could have been what we would call today “fake news”, an attempt to stir up local hatred of those who belonged to the peoples who had attacked them, but who might not themselves have had anything to do with those attacks.

I find the king’s matter-of-fact recounting of what is on the face of it surely a savage and un-Christian act chilling, the more so because it was only related in reference to explaining why the funds were needed to rebuild the church.

"For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death, those Danes who dwelt in the afore-mentioned town, striving to escape death, entered this sanctuary of Christ, having broken by force the doors and bolts, and resolved to make refuge and defence for themselves therein against the people of the town and the suburbs; but when all the people in pursuit strove, forced by necessity, to drive them out, and could not, they set fire to the planks and burnt, as it seems, this church with its ornaments and its books. Afterwards, with God's aid, it was renewed by me."

Here the king is saying, without any sense of outrage or regret, the cheek of these guys! Instead of letting us exterminate (note the use of the word) them, they took refuge in a church! And because of that my people had to burn the church! The nerve! So now, like, we have to rebuild it so dig deep people!

It’s an act of pretty much wanton savagery on a par with the worst excesses of Cromwell in Ireland, or Lake later on in Ulster. Sure, Henry V would later execute French prisoners of war, and that was a reprehensible deed which has been more or less glossed over by English historians, but at least it has the very small saving grace of those men having been fighting the English, and being military prisoners. Yes, in fairness, the skeletons of 36 men excavated at the site in 2008 and analysed in 2012 does seem to support the fact that the Danish corpses were all warriors (and all men) so probably those mercenaries all right, but even so, once again English historians shrug and treat the whole incident with a kind of they-had-it-coming attitude. One even describes the incident as a “so-called massacre”. How there can be any doubt, when the king lays the entire case out in a fucking royal charter, you got me there son!

In the end, as nobody will be surprised to hear, this massacre of their people led not to pacification of England but further reprisal attacks, and the coming end of the House of Wessex.

I don’t quite understand how (unless the order was open to misinterpretation, or it happened accidentally as she was trying to shield her husband or lover) but the rumour was that Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, the King of Denmark, was among the slain, and her brother did not take this well. I can just see Aethelred now: "Was I not fucking crystal clear here? Did I not say men? Is this woman a man?" And one of his disgruntled warriors muttering "She looked like a man", whereupon the king might have turned sharply and demanded "What?" But the warrior who spoke had suddenly developed a deep interest in the tapestries on the wall, or something.

And so a proper Viking invasion of England kicked off in 1004, ploughing through East Anglia while Aethelred remained in the south, unable to engage the enemy while his court began to self-destruct under coups possibly instigated or at least supported by his second wife, Emma. There were some victories against the Vikings, but mostly they had everything their own way, and for the next five or so years England was under constant attack, the latest, an invasion launched in 1008 was only bought off in 1012. A year later Forkbeard attacked again.

Sweyn Forkbeard was the son of Harold Bluetooth (yes that one, from whom we get the word) and was to be reckoned one of the greatest ever Viking generals. His fleet hit English shores in 1013, this time with the intention not just of raiding and plundering, but to take the English throne. Sweyn was unstoppable, and by the end of the year England was his, and he was crowned its king, Aethelred fleeing into exile. His reign did not last long though, as he died a mere year later, leaving his son, Cnut the Great, to take his place. We'll be hearing much more about him later. The English weren’t having this though, and invited Aethelred back, provided he fulfilled a lot of their wish list, including forgiving any bad stuff any of them may have said about or to, or done to him. Basically blackmailing a king, it would seem, but Aethelred shrugged and said sure, let ye bygones be ye bygones, swore to implement all the reforms they requested (demanded) and when he returned to battle Cnut few Vikings and hardly any Englishmen supported the son of Sweyn, who was quickly defeated and Aethelred reinstalled on the English throne. I’m not sure, but I think this might be the first (only?) time in English history when a king ruled, was deposed, went into exile and was then restored to the throne.

Though he beat Cnut, Aethelred walked into more trouble on his return, as his son, Edmund Ironside, established himself in the Danelaw and revolted against his father. Later, when Cnut (it’s so hard not to misspell that name!) returned both father and son allied against him, but in 1016 both were defeated and soon after Aethelred died, perhaps ironically, given his fractious rule of the country, on the day most revered by Englishmen, St. George’s Day, April 23. This left Cnut as king, initially sharing power with Edmund (though Aethelred’s son was only permitted to rule over Wessex until his death a little over a month later, whereupon Cnut became king of all England) the first not of the Wessex line, in fact the first non-Saxon king since Alfred the Great, discounting the very brief forty-odd-day reign of Sweyn Forkbeard. Cnut’s ascension meant power passed for the first time in almost a hundred and fifty years from the unbroken line of the House of Wessex, and though it would be temporarily restored with the rule of Edward the Confessor, he would be the last Wessex king to sit the English throne.

Although Sweyn Forkbeard had subjugated England and become its king, he ruled for a mere couple of months before his death, after which the throne reverted to an Englishman. But Cnut, as the first true Viking king of England, was to remain in power for nearly twenty years, a reign only bettered by Aethelred and the two original Wessex kings, Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder.
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