Canute the Great Part 4

The customary route of the Danish vikings followed the Frisian coast to the south-eastern part of England, the shires of Kent and Suss.e.x.

Ordinarily, the fleets would continue the journey down the Channel, plundering the sh.o.r.e lands and sending out larger parties to harry the interior. Sweyn had developed a different plan: Wess.e.x was to be attacked from the old Danelaw. Following the ancient route, his ships appeared at Sandwich on the Kentish coast early in August. Sandwich was at this time a place of considerable importance, being the chief port in Southern England.[72] Here Sweyn and Canute remained for a few days, but soon the fleet turned swiftly northwards up the eastern coast to the Humber. Sweyn entered and sailed up this river till he came to the mouth of the Trent, which stream he ascended as far as Gainsborough.

Here his men disembarked and preparations were made for the war.

Sweyn had evidently counted on a friendly reception in the Scandinavian settlements of the Danelaw, and he was not disappointed. Recruits appeared and his forces increased materially. Uhtred, the earl of Northumbria, who was probably of Norse ancestry, soon found it to his advantage to do homage to the invader. Sweyn's lordship was also accepted by "the folk of Lindsey, and afterwards by the folk in the Five Boroughs, and very soon by all the host north of Watling Street, and hostages were given by every shire."[73] In addition to hostages, Sweyn demanded horses and provisions for the host.

The summer was probably past before Sweyn was ready to proceed against Ethelred. But finally, some time in September or a little later, having concluded all the necessary preliminaries, he gave the ships and the hostages into the keeping of his son Canute, and led his mounted army southward across the Midlands with Winchester, the residence city of the English kings, as the objective point. So long as he was still within the Danelaw, Sweyn permitted no pillaging; but "as soon as he had crossed Watling Street, he worked as great evil as a hostile force was able." The Thames was crossed at Oxford, which city promptly submitted and gave hostages. Winchester, too, seems to have yielded without a struggle. From the capital Sweyn proceeded eastward to London, where he met the first effective resistance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TULSTORP STONE. (Runic monument showing viking ship ornamented with beasts' heads.)]

In London was King Ethelred supported by Thurkil the Tall and his viking bands. It seems that Olaf the Stout had entered the English service with Thurkil the year before, and did valiant service in defence of the city; the story given by Snorre of the destruction of London Bridge apparently belongs to the siege of 1013 rather than to that of 1009. Sweyn approached the city from the south, seized Southwark, and tried to enter London by way of the bridge, which the Danes had taken and fortified. It is said that Olaf the Stout undertook to destroy the bridge. He covered his ships with wattle-work of various sorts, willow roots, supple trees, and other things that might be twisted or woven; and thus protected from missiles that might be hurled down from above, the ships pa.s.sed up the stream to the bridge, the supports of which Olaf and his men proceeded to pull down. The whole structure crashed into the river and with it went a large number of Sweyn's men,[74] who drowned, says the Chronicler, "because they neglected the bridge."

Sweyn soon realised that a continued siege would be useless: the season was advancing; the resistance of the citizens was too stubborn and strong. For the fourth time the heroic men of London had the satisfaction of seeing a Danish force break camp and depart with a defeated purpose: the first time in 991; then again in 994 when Sweyn and Olaf Trygvesson laid siege to it; the third time in 1009, when Thurkil the Tall and Olaf the Stout were the besiegers; now once more in 1013. The feeling that the city was impregnable was doubtless a factor in the stubborn determination with which the townsmen repelled the repeated attacks of the Danish invaders, though at this time the skill and valour of the viking mercenaries were an important part of the resistance.

Leaving London unconquered, Sweyn marched up the Thames Valley to Wallingford, where he crossed to the south bank, and continued his progress westward to Bath. Nowhere, it seems, did he meet any mentionable opposition. To Bath came the magnates of the south-western shires led by Ethelmer who was apparently ealdorman of Devon; they took the oaths that the conqueror prescribed and gave the required hostages.

From Bath, Sweyn returned to his camp at Gainsborough; it was time to prepare for winter. Tribute and provisions were demanded and doubtless collected, and the host went into winter quarters on the banks of the Trent. "And all the nation had him [Sweyn] for full king; and later the borough-men of London submitted to him and gave hostages; for they feared that he would destroy them."[75]

The submission of London probably did not come before Ethelred's cowardly behaviour had ruined the hopes of the patriots: he had fled the land. Earlier in the year (in August, according to one authority)[76]

Queen Emma, accompanied by the abbot of Peterborough, had crossed the Channel, and sought the court of her brother, the Norman duke. Whether she went to seek military aid or merely a refuge cannot be determined; but the early departure and the fact that she was not accompanied by her children would indicate that her purpose was to enlist her brother's interest in Ethelred's cause. a.s.sistance, however, was not forthcoming; but Emma remained in Richard's duchy and a little later was joined by her two sons, Edward and Alfred, who came accompanied by two English ecclesiastics. Ethelred, meanwhile, continued some weeks longer with Thurkil's fleet; but toward the close of December we find him on the Isle of Wight, where he celebrated Christmas. In January, he joined his family in Normandy. Duke Richard gave him an honourable reception; but as he was having serious trouble with another brother-in-law, Count Odo of Chartres, he was probably unable to give much material a.s.sistance to the fugitive from England.

Ethelred's flight must have left Thurkil and the Jomvikings in a somewhat embarra.s.sing position. They had undertaken to serve the King and defend his country; but now Ethelred had deserted the kingdom, and his subjects had accepted the rule of the invader. In January, however, the sea is an unpleasant highway, so there was nothing for the tall chief to do but to remain faithful and insist on the terms of the contract. While Sweyn was calling for silver and supplies to be brought to Gainsborough, Thurkil seems to have been issuing similar demands from Greenwich. No doubt his men were also able to eke out their winter supplies by occasional plundering: "they harried the land as often as they wished."[77]

Then suddenly an event occurred that created an entirely new situation.

On February 3, 1014, scarcely a month after Ethelred's departure from Wight, the Danish conqueror died. As to his manner of death, the Chronicle has nothing to say; but later historians appear to be better informed. The Encomiast, who was indeed Sweyn's contemporary, gives an account of a very edifying death: when Sweyn felt that the end of all things was approaching, he called Canute to his side and impressed upon him the necessity of following and supporting the Christian faith.[78]

The Anglo-Norman historians have an even more wonderful story to relate: in the midst of a throng of his henchmen and courtiers, the mighty viking fell, pierced by the dart of Saint Edmund. Sweyn alone saw the saint; he screamed for help; at the close of the day he expired. It seems that a dispute was on at the time over a contribution that King Sweyn had levied on the monks who guarded Saint Edmund's shrine.[79] The suddenness of the King's death was therefore easily explained: the offended saint slew him.

If it is difficult to credit the legend that traces the King's death to an act of impiety, it is also hard to believe that he died in the odour of sanct.i.ty. Sweyn was a Christian, but his religion was of the pa.s.sive type. He is said to have built a few churches, and he also appears to have promoted missionary efforts to some extent[80]; but the Church evidently regarded him as rather lukewarm in his religious professions.

The see of Hamburg-Bremen, which was charged with the conversion of the Northern peoples, did not find him an active friend; though in this case his hostility may have been due to his dislike for all things that were called German.

Sweyn's virtues were of the viking type: he was a lover of action, of conquest, and of the sea. At times he was fierce, cruel, and vindictive; but these pa.s.sions were tempered by cunning, shrewdness, and a love for diplomatic methods that were not common among the sea-kings. He seems to have formed alliances readily, and appears even to have attracted his opponents. His career, too, was that of a viking. Twice he was taken by the Jomvikings, but his faithful subjects promptly ransomed him. Once the King of Sweden, Eric the Victorious, conquered his kingdom and sent him into temporary exile. Twice as a king he led incursions into England in which he gained only the sea-king's reward of plunder and tribute.

But in time fortune veered about; his third expedition to Britain was eminently successful, and when Sweyn died, he was king not only of Denmark but also of England, and overlord of the larger part of Norway besides.

As to his personality, we have only the slight information implied in his nickname. Forkbeard means the divided beard. But the evident popularity that he enjoyed both in the host and in the nation would indicate that he possessed an attractive personality. That Sweyn appreciated the loyalty of his men is evident from the runic monument that he raised to his housecarle Skartha who had shared in the English warfare.[81]

By his first-wife, the Polish princess who was renamed Gunhild, Sweyn had several children, of whom history makes prominent mention of three: Harold, Canute, and Gytha, who was married to Earl Eric of Norway. In the Hyde _Register_ there is mention of another daughter, Santslaue, "sister of King Canute,"[82] who may have been born of the same marriage, as her name is evidently Slavic. His second wife, Sigrid the Haughty, seems to have had daughters only. Of these only one appears prominently in the annals of the time--Estrid, the wife of Ulf the Earl, the mother of a long line of Danish kings.

At the time of his death Sweyn is thought to have been about fifty-four years old and had ruled Denmark nearly thirty years. His body was taken to York for interment, but it did not remain there long. The English did not cherish Sweyn's memory, and seemed determined to find and dishonour his remains. Certain women--English women, it appears--rescued the corpse and brought it to Roeskild some time during the following summer (1014)[83], where it was interred in the Church of the Holy Trinity, which also sheltered the bones of Sweyn's father whom he had wronged so bitterly thirty years before.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1000.

[53] William of Jumieges, _Historia Normannorum_, v., c. 4.

[54] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1002.

[55] Richard of Cirencester, _Speculum Historiale_, ii., 147-148.

[56] As there seems to have been a Danish settlement in the Severn Valley, it seems probable that Pallig's home was in that region.

[57] The story of Palna Toki is told in various sagas, particularly _Jomsvikingasaga_. Of his exploits in archery Saxo has an account in his tenth book. Having once boasted that no apple was too small for his arrow to find, he was surprised by an order from the King that he should shoot an arrow from his son's head. The archer was reluctant to display his skill in this fashion, but the shot was successful. It is also told that Palna Toki had provided himself with additional arrows which he had intended for the King in case the first had stricken the child. Saxo wrote a century before the time of the supposed Tell episode.

[58] William of Jumieges, _Historia Normannorum_, v., c. 7.

[59] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1003.

[60] _Ibid._, 1004-1005.

[61] Liebermann, _Gesetze der Angelsachsen_, i., 246-256.

[62] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1009.

[63] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 2. It is barely possible that the brother was Gyrth, whose name appears on a runic monument (Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 138 ff.). But in the absence of information to the contrary we shall have to a.s.sume that Gyrth was buried where his monument was placed and was therefore not the brother who fell in England.

[64] Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, i., 160-161.

[65] _Ibid._, 160-163. Snorre, _Saga of Saint Olaf_, c. 14. Storm in his translation of Snorre (Christiania, 1900) locates Ringmere in East Wretham, Norfolk, (p. 239).

[66] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1011. Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, i., 163-165.

[67] _Gesta Regum_, i., 207.

[68] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 3.

[69] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 2.

[70] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 3.

[71] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 4.

[72] _Ibid._, i., c. 5.

[73] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1013.

[74] Snorre, _Saga of Saint Olaf_, cc. 12-13. The story in the saga has the appearance of genuineness and is based on the contemporary verses of Ottar the Swart. Snorre's chronology, however, is much confused.

[75] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1013.

[76] William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum_, i., 209.

[77] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1013.

[78] _Encomium Emmae_, i., c. 5; see also Saxo, _Gesta_, 342.

[79] _Memorials of Saint Edmund's Abbey_, i., 34 ff.

[80] Adamus, _Gesta_, ii., c. 39.

[81] Wimmer, _De danske Runemindesmaerker_, I., ii., 117.