Ethelred, who had weakly disputed with Sweyn what remained of the Saxon power, thought he could not do better to free himself from his importunate guests than to order a simultaneous massacre of all the Danes in the kingdom, (1002.) But Sweyn reappeared in the following year at the head of an imposing force, and between 1003 and 1007 three successive fleets effected disembarkations on the coast, and unfortunate England was ravaged anew.
In 1012, Sweyn landed at the mouth of the Humber and again swept over the land like a torrent, and the English, tired of obedience to kings who could not defend them, recognized him as king of the North. His son, Canute the Great, had to contend with a rival more worthy of him, (Edmund Ironside.) Returning from Denmark at the head of a considerable force, and aided by the perfidious Edric, Canute ravaged the southern part of England and threatened London. A new division of the kingdom resulted; but, Edmund having been assassinated by Edric, Canute was finally recognized as king of all England. Afterward he sailed to conquer Norway, from which country he returned to attack Scotland. When he died, he divided the kingdom between his three children, according to the usage of the times.
Five years after Canute's death, the English assigned the crown to their Anglo-Saxon princes; but Edward, to whom it fell, was better fitted to be a monk than to save a kingdom a prey to such commotions. He died in 1066, leaving to Harold a crown which the chief of the Normans settled in France contested with him, and to whom, it is said, Edward had made a cession of the kingdom. Unfortunately for Harold, this chief was a great and ambitious man.
The year 1066 was marked by two extraordinary expeditions. While William the Conqueror was preparing in Normandy a formidable armament against Harold, the brother of the latter, having been driven from Northumberland for his crimes, sought support in Norway, and, with the King of Norway, set out with thirty thousand men on five hundred vessels, and landed at the mouth of the Humber. Harold almost entirely destroyed this force in a bloody battle fought near York; but a more formidable storm was about to burst upon his head. William took advantage of the time when the Anglo-Saxon king was fighting the Norwegians, to sail from St. Valery with a very large armament. Hume asserts that he had three thousand transports; while other authorities reduce the number to twelve hundred, carrying from sixty to seventy thousand men. Harold hastened from York, and fought a decisive battle near Hastings, in which he met an honorable death, and his fortunate rival soon reduced the country to submission.
At the same time, another William, surnamed Bras-de-fer, Robert Guiscard, and his brother Roger, conquered Calabria and Sicily with a handful of troops,(1058 to 1070.)
Scarcely thirty years after these memorable events, an enthusiastic priest animated Europe with a fanatical frenzy and precipitated large forces upon Asia to conquer the Holy Land.
At first followed by one hundred thousand men, afterward by two hundred thousand badly-armed vagabonds who perished in great part under the attacks of the Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Greeks, Peter the Hermit succeeded in crossing the Bosporus, and arrived before Nice with from fifty to sixty thousand men, who were either killed or captured by the Saracens.
An expedition more military in its character succeeded this campaign of religious pilgrims. One hundred thousand men, composed of French, Burgundians, Germans, and inhabitants of Lorraine, under Godfrey of Bouillon, marched through Austria on Constantinople; an equal number, under the Count of Toulouse, marched by Lyons, Italy, Dalmatia, and Macedonia; and Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, embarked with a force of Normans, Sicilians, and Italians, and took the route by Greece on Gallipolis.
This extensive migration reminds us of the fabulous expeditions of Xerxes. The Genoese, Venetian, and Greek fleets were chartered to transport these swarms of Crusaders by the Bosporus or Dardanelles to Asia. More than four hundred thousand men were concentrated on the plains of Nice, where they avenged the defeat of their predecessors. Godfrey afterward led them across Asia and Syria as far as Jerusalem, where he founded a kingdom.
All the maritime resources of Greece and the flourishing republics of Italy were required to transport these masses across the Bosporus and in provisioning them during the siege of Nice; and the great impulse thus given to the coast states of Italy was perhaps the most advantageous result of the Crusades.