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 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 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.