Ængla Land

[The Lawspeaker]

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Ængla Land

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, Æthelred's father. However, beginning in 980 small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coast-line raids against England. During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. Æthelred's eventual marriage to Emma of Normandy was an English strategy to avert an alliance against England.

Sweyn Forkbeard then launched an invasion in 1013 intended to make him king of England, and showed himself to be a general above any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013, English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing Æthelred into exile in Normandy, but the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent immediately gave their allegiance to Sweyn's son Canute.

Cnut, a Viking, was to be one of England's most successful kings. The protection he lent against Viking raiders -- with many of them under his command -- restored the prosperity that had been increasingly impaired since the resumption of Viking attacks in the 980s. As well as England itself, he was able to restore the overlordship of earlier English kings over much of the British Isles, while the resources he commanded in England helped him to establish control of the majority of Scandinavia. In July 1017, Cnut wed Emma of Normandy, the widow of Æthelred.

Harthacnut had been considered the legitimate successor following Canute's death in 1035, but his half-brother, Harold Harefoot, usurped the crown. Emma's other children in Norman exile, Edward and his brother Alfred, unsuccessfully attempted to depose Harold in 1036. Edward then returned to Normandy, but Alfred was captured by Godwin, Earl of Wessex who then turned him over to Harold Harefoot, who blinded by forcing red hot pokers into his eyes to make him unsuitable for kingship. Alfred died soon after as a result of his wounds.

The Anglo-Saxon lay and ecclesiastical nobility invited Edward back to England in 1041; this time he became part of the household of his half-brother Harthacnut (son of Emma and Canute), and according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was sworn in as king alongside him. Following Harthacnut's death on 8 June 1042, Edward ascended the throne.

Edward's sympathies for Norman favourites frustrated Saxon and Danish nobles alike, fuelling the growth of anti-Norman opinion led by Godwin, who had become the king's father-in-law in 1045. The breaking point came over the appointment of an archbishop of Canterbury. Edward rejected Godwin's man and appointed the bishop of London, Robert of Jumièges, a reliable Norman of Normandy. Godwin died in 1053 and the Norman Ralph the Timid received Herefordshire, but Godwin's son Harold accumulated even greater territories for the Godwin family, who held all the earldoms save Mercia after 1057. Harold led successful raiding parties into Wales in 1063 and negotiated with his inherited rivals in Northumbria in 1065, and in January 1066, upon Edward's death, he was proclaimed the king.

The details of the succession have been widely debated. The Norman position was that William of Normandy had been designated the heir, and that Harold had been publicly sent to him as emissary from Edward, to apprise him of Edward's decision. However, even William's eulogistic biographer, William of Poitiers, admitted that the old king had made a deathbed bestowal of the crown on Harold. On Edward's death, Harold was approved by the Witenagemot which, under Anglo-Saxon law, held the ultimate authority to convey kingship.

Edward's cousin's son, William of Normandy, who had visited England during Godwin's exile, claimed that the childless Edward had promised him the succession to the throne, and his successful bid for the English crown put an end to Harold's nine-month kingship following a 7,000-strong Norman invasion.

[The Lawspeaker]

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Ængla Land

England had experienced a period of peace after the reconquest of the Danelaw in the mid-10th century by King Edgar, Æthelred's father. However, beginning in 980, when Æthelred could not have been more than 14 years old, small companies of Danish adventurers carried out a series of coast-line raids against England. During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, sought port in Normandy. This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV. The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

However, in August of that same year, a sizeable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England. It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the river Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island. The battle that followed between English and Danes is immortalised by the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, which describes the doomed but heroic attempt of Byrhtnoth to defend the coast of Essex against overwhelming odds. This was the first of a series of crushing defeats felt by the English: beaten first by Danish raiders, and later by organised Danish armies.

Æthelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England on St Brice's Day, 13 November 1002. No order of this kind could be carried out in more than a third of England, where the Danes were too strong, but Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, was said to have been among the victims. It is likely that a wish to avenge her was a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of western England the following year. By 1004 Sweyn was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. Sweyn then launched an invasion in 1013 intending to crown himself king of England, during which he proved himself to be a general greater than any other Viking leader of his generation. By the end of 1013 English resistance had collapsed and Sweyn had conquered the country, forcing Æthelred into exile in Normandy. But the situation changed suddenly when Sweyn died on 3 February 1014. The crews of the Danish ships in the Trent that had supported Sweyn immediately swore their allegiance to Sweyn's son Cnut, but leading English noblemen sent a deputation to Æthelred to negotiate his restoration to the throne.

Æthelred then launched an expedition against Cnut and his allies, the men of Lindsey. Cnut's army had not completed its preparations and, in April 1014, he decided to withdraw from England without a fight leaving his Lindsey allies to suffer Æthelred's revenge. In August 1015, he returned to find a complex and volatile situation unfolding in England. Æthelred's son, Edmund Ironside, had revolted against his father and established himself in the Danelaw. Over the next months, Cnut conquered most of England, and Edmund had rejoined Æthelred to defend London when Æthelred died on 23 April 1016. The subsequent war between Edmund and Cnut ended in a decisive victory for Cnut at the Battle of Ashingdon on 18 October 1016. Edmund's reputation as a warrior was such that Cnut nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Cnut the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became king of the whole country.

Cnut was to rule England for almost twenty years. The protection he lent against Viking raiders - with many of them under his command - restored the prosperity that had been increasingly impaired since the resumption of Viking attacks in the 980s. As well as in England itself, he was able to gain overlordship throughout practically the whole of Britain. The resources he commanded in England helped him to establish control of the majority of Scandinavia too. In July 1017, Cnut wed Emma of Normandy, the widow of Æthelred, and daughter of Richard the Fearless, the first Duke of Normandy.

The house of Wessex was to reign again in Edward the Confessor, whom Cnut's son, Harthacnut, had brought out of exile in Normandy and made a treaty with. In 1042, Harthacnut died, and Edward was king. His reign meant Norman influence at Court was on the rise thereafter, and the ambitions of its dukes finally found fruition in 1066, with William the Conqueror's invasion of England, and crowning, fifty years after Cnut was crowned in 1016.