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was therefore with little difficulty that bishop Ælfheah and ealdorman Ethelweard, aided by the difference of religion between the two kings-for Olaf was now a Christian and Swein a heathenmanaged to break their league, and to bring the Norwegian leader to an interview with Ethelred at Andover. In return for the king's gifts Olaf pledged himself to withdraw from England and return to it no more, and his retreat in the summer of 995 forced Swein also to withdraw.

The two years that followed this withdrawal were spent in a quiet which might have been used to build up an efficient system of national defence." But

1 Eng. Chron. a. 994.

2 In the present period William of Malmesbury and Florence of Worcester have given the tone to the general accounts of modern writers. Both have done much to confuse the annals of the time, especially Florence. His work as far as 994 seems to be a literal rendering of the first Worcester (or Peterborough) Chronicle, (though probably taken from the copy preserved in a second Worcester Chronicle, as we may see from the entry at 1004,) with occasional ecclesiastical insertions from a Ramsey Chronicle and other sources, and the usual rhetorical amplifications of the time. After this point various noteworthy insertions occur in his work which are without foundation in, or even in opposition to, the statements of the Chronicle, and especially in the account of Eadric from 1006 onwards. A poor translator of the Chronicle, he seems to have been a violent partizan, whose patriotism led him to account for every English defeat by a theory of betrayal. The story as the Chronicle gives it is one which is reasonable, if hard to follow from want of detail; but as the insertions of Florence have moulded it, the treason of the ealdormen accounts for every national defeat, and Æthelred is responsible for the slackness of the national resistance. we have tried to show, however, the causes which underlay the great crash were not the individual action of this or that man,

As

CHAP. VIII
The Danish

Conquest.

9881016.

Weakness of the English

defence.

The Danish

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9881016.

1

2

CHAP. VIII. nothing was done. The king's power indeed must have been shaken by the last year's events, for we not only find Ælfric again in England, but replaced in his old dignity as ealdorman of the Central Provinces, and even in his second place among the royal counsellors. We know nothing of the circumstances of his return; but the fact itself shows that the royal power after its short outburst of vigour was again ebbing before the force of the great nobles. Its weakness told on the state of the realm. In 997, a band of pirates, who may have been Ostmen from Ireland, appeared in the mouths of the Severn and the Tamar, harried Cornwall without opposition, and, advancing eastward the year after, carried their raids over Dorset, and finally took up their winter quarters in the Isle of Wight, where they levied supplies from the coasts of Hampshire and Sussex.3 In 999 they pushed still further on, entered the Medway, attacked Rochester, and harried West Kent. Whatever may have been the cause of Æthelred's inactivity before, this daring attack at last aroused both king and Witan. Danger threatened again on on every hand; from Norman and from Ostmen, with wikings from Man, and

4

the treason of an ealdorman, or the weakness of a king, but must be sought in the social and political conditions of the time. 1 He signs again as usual from 994. See Cod. Dip. 687, 688, 1289, &c.

2 Eng. Chron. a. 997.

3 Eng. Chron. 998. "And forces were often gathered against them, but as soon as they should have joined battle, then there was ever, through some cause, flight begun, and in the end they ever had the victory." 4 Eng. Chron. a. 999.

2

The Danish
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9881016.

northmen from Cumberland. Ship-fyrd and land- CHAP. viii. fyrd were summoned, but delay followed delay, and the pirates were suffered to withdraw unharmed to the Norman harbours. The absence of any attempt three years before to meet Swein's force at sea may be accounted for by the fact that the English vessels were too small to face the huge war-ships which were now employed by the Scandinavian kings; the failure to meet these pirates shows that the naval system which had been built up by Elfred had now been suffered to break utterly down. Ethelred's action at this moment suggests such a failure of the fleet. As if aware of the weakness of his own naval forces he now took into his service a force of Danes, with Pallig, a brother-in-law of Swein, among them, and used this to clear the seas. The first point at which the king struck was Cumberland ; the district had only just become mainly Norse in blood, but its position on the western coast made it perilous to the realm, and it had no doubt given aid to the Ostmen who had been harrying in the Channel. After descents on the Isle of Man and on Cumberland, Ethelred again

1 Eng. Chron. a. 1000.

3

4

2 "When the ships were ready, then the crew delayed from day to day, and distressed the poor people that lay in the ships." Eng. Chron. a. 999.

3 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (ed. Hardy), i. 289.

4 Eng. Chron. a. 1000. The Norse settlement of Cumberland was such a source of danger in itself, as much probably to Malcolm of Scots as to Æthelred, that I see no reason to prefer the story in Fordun, iv. 34, to that in Henry of Huntingdon, a. 1000 (Arnold), p. 170.

CHAP. VIII.

The Danish Conquest. 988. 1016.

Death of
Olaf.

turned southward to follow the freebooters to their refuge across the Channel. If we may trust the Norman chroniclers, the king's descent on the coast of the Cotentin was roughly repulsed, and it may have been the discouragement of this failure which drove him anew to abandon warfare for his old field of diplomacy.

The danger from the north, indeed, had now become a yet more pressing one. At the death of the Swedish king, Eric, Swein's fortunes had at last seen a change, for Denmark threw off the Swedish yoke and recalled its king.' Swein, indeed, had still to war with Eric's son, Olaf, till the mediation of Olaf's mother, whom he wedded, brought peace with Sweden, and enabled him to renew his father's effort to establish a supremacy over Norway. So great was the power of Olaf Tryggvason, that it was only in league with the Swedes and Jarl Hakon's son Eric, that Swein ventured to attack him; but ill luck threw the Norwegian king, with but a few vessels, into the midst of the enemy's fleet as it lurked among the islands off his coast. The fight in which he fell was long famous in the north. King Olaf stood on the Serpent's quarter-deck, high above the rest. He had a gilded shield and a helm inlaid with gold; over his armour he wore a short red coat, and was easy to be distinguished from other men. When King Olaf saw that the scattered forces of the enemy gathered themselves under the banners of their ships, he asked Who is the chief of the force right over against us?'

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1 This was about A.D. 1000. Dahlmann, mark," i. 92.

66 Gesch. V. Dänne

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CHAP. VIII.

Conquest.

9881016.

He was answered that it was King Swein with the Danish host. The king replied, 'We are not afraid The Danish of these soft Danes, for there is no bravery in them. But who are they to the right?' He was told King Olaf with the Swedes. Better for the Swedes,' he said, 'to be sitting at home killing their sacrifices than venturing under our weapons from the Long Serpent! But whose are the big ships to larboard?' 'That is Earl Eric Hakonson,' said they. 'Ah,' said the king, ‘he, methinks, has good ground for meeting us, and we may look for sharp fighting with his men, for they are northmen like ourselves."" It was, indeed, Earl Eric's men that pressed Olaf hardest in the fight that followed; and at last earl's ship and king's ship lay side by side. "So thick flew spears and arrows into the Serpent that the men's shields could scarce contain them, for the Serpent was girt in on all sides by our ships." Though Olaf's men fell fast,

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Einar Tambarskelver, one of the sharpest of bowshooters, stood yet by the mast and shot with his bow." But, as he drew his bow, an arrow from Eric's ship hit it in the midst and the bow was broken. “What is that?' cried King Olaf, ' that broke with such a noise?' 'Norway, king, from thy hands!' cried Einar. No, not quite so much as that,' said Olaf; 'take my bow and shoot!' and he tossed the bow to him. Einar took the bow and drew it over the arrow's head. 'Too weak, too weak,' he said, 'for the bow of a mighty king!' and throwing down the bow he took sword and shield, and fought valiantly."1 The fight, however, was all but over; 1 Laing, "Sea Kings of Norway," i. 475.

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