Svend Estrithson, being of the line of the great King Canute,[[189]] raised some claim to the throne of England, and had ever considered his right better and more legal than that of William of Normandie. Before the arrival at his court of the earnest invitation of the monks of Ely and the great Saxon lords in the Camp of Refuge, he had resolved in his own mind to try his fortune once more on our side the sea, hoping that if he should do no more he should at least be enabled to make up for the loss of his great fleet, a loss which pressed heavily upon his heart, and destroyed his peace by day and his rest by night. He had summoned his jarls and chiefs, the descendants of the sea-kings or great pirates of old, and had taken counsel of the old sea-rovers and warriors who had been in England with the great Canute, or who had served under Canute’s sons, King Harold Harefoot and King Hardicanute. Now these jarls and chiefs, together with many of their followers, were well acquainted with all the eastern side of England from the Scottish border to the end of Cornwall; and they knew every bay, harbour, and creek on the coast, and all the deep inlets of the sea and the rivers which gave access to the interior of the country, for they had warred or plundered in them all, aforetime. Being called upon by King Svend to give their advice, these chiefs and nobles all said that another expedition ought to be attempted without loss of time; and it was agreed at a great meeting of the Viborgting, which corresponds with the Witangemot of old England, that another great fleet should be got ready, and that the king or his eldest son should take the command of it. Some doubts, however, occurred as to the present strength of the Normans and the present condition of the English; and, although they meant to betray them or conquer them themselves, the Danes proposed to begin merely as allies of the English,[[190]] and felt little good could be done unless the English on the eastern coast were unsubdued by the Normans, and ready to receive the Danes with open arms. At this juncture a ship arrived from Lynn with the envoy from the Camp of Refuge on board. As soon as the Englishman had presented the letters and the gold and silver he brought to Svend Estrithson, the king called together his great council. The envoy from the Camp of Refuge was allowed to speak at great length before the council, and the shipmen of Lynn were more privately examined touching the present situation of affairs in the fen country. All doubts were removed, and the fleet was forthwith ordered to get ready for the voyage to England. Already many thousands of long and yellow-haired warriors had been collected for the enterprise, and now many thousands more flocked towards the fleet from all parts of Jutland, Zealand, and Holstein, and from Stralsund and the Isle of Rugen, and the other isles that stand near the entrance of the Baltic Sea; for whenever an expedition to the rich and fertile country of the Anglo-Saxons was on foot, the hearts of the Danes rejoiced in the prospect of good booty, even as the hearts of the coast-dwelling people rejoice when they hear that a rich wreck or a large fat whale hath been stranded near to their doors. King Svend Estrithson, of a certainty, would have gone himself[[191]] into England with the fleet, but his royal shield fell to the ground and broke as he was lifting it down from the wall, and a hare crossed his path as he was walking in his garden, and the priest his chaplain sneezed three times while he was saying mass before him, and he was greatly enamoured of the Princess Gyda,[[192]] and in consequence of all these evil omens the king resolved to stay at home, and to send his eldest son Knut into England.[[193]] Taking with him the royal standard of the black raven, and many jarls of high renown into his own ship, Knut began his voyage forthwith, being followed by two hundred and fifty keels, large and small. The royal ship was rich and splendid; it had thirty benches of rowers; its prow was adorned with a dragon’s head, the eyes of which were of precious stones and the tongue of red gold; and the sides and the stern of the ship glowed with burnished gold; the whole body of the ship glittered in the sun like some great and marvellous fish or some swimming dragon; and, in sooth, the whole ship was dragon-shaped. The masts and the cordage and the sails were surpassing rich and gay; the masts were covered with ivory and pearl, the cords seemed to be covered with white silk, and the sails were of many and bright colours. There were cloths of gold spread all about, and the flag that waved at the mainmast-head was all of silk and gold; and the windlass and the rudder were bepainted with blue and gold. And on board this right royal ship every warrior wore bright steel-chain armour, and carried a shield and battle-axe inlaid with gold and jewels, and each of value enough to purchase a hide of land. A few other ships there were in this great fleet only a little less splendid than that of Knut. The rest were of a coarser make, and with no adornments about them except the figure-head at the prow and the banner at the mast-head; and they varied in size and burthen from the great ship which could carry two hundred fighting men, down to the little bark which carried but ten. To speak the truth, many of the fleet were little better than fishing barks. The summer wind blew fresh and fair for England, the waves seethed before their prows, and on the morning of that glad evening at Brunn when Lord Hereward captured Torauld of Fescamp and put Ivo Taille-Bois to flight and shame, nearly the whole of the great fleet came to anchor off the Wash, and not far from the chapel of our Ladie. Knut, the king’s son, being uncertain and suspicious, like one that had treacherous plans in his own mind, despatched one of his smallest and poorest keels with a crafty and keen-sighted chief up the Wash and up the Ouse, to confer with Abbat Thurstan and the Saxon chiefs at Ely, to spy into the condition of the Camp of Refuge, and to invite the Lord Abbat and some of the great chiefs to come down to Lynn, in order to hold there a solemn conference with his jarls and chiefs. The messenger-bark proceeded on her voyage prosperously, and landed the cunning Dane at Ely. Good Abbat Thurstan wondered and grieved that the prince had not come himself; yet he bade his envoy welcome, and feasted him in his hall. But still more did Thurstan wonder and grieve when he was told that Knut meant not to come to Ely, but was calling for a congress at Lynn.
“There may be danger,” said the Lord Abbat to the cunning old envoy, “if I quit this house, and the great thanes leave the Camp of Refuge, though only for a short season; but there can be no peril in thy prince’s coming hither, and assuredly it is only here that we can entertain him as the son of a great king ought to be entertained.”
The old Dane said that the prince his master had schemes of operation which would not allow him to send his ships up the Ouse for this present; that he would come hereafter, when good progress should have been made in the war against the Normans; and that in the meanwhile it were best for my Lord Abbat, and some other of the prelates, and some of the great lay lords, to go down to Lynn and hold a conference, and make a combined plan of operations with the prince and the jarls.
Much did the Saxon lords wish to make out what was the nature of the plan the prince had already adopted; but the astutious old envoy would tell them nothing, and protested that he knew nothing about it. The Saxons plied him hard with wine; but the more he drank, the more close the old Dane became. And although he would tell nothing himself, he wanted to know everything from the English: as, what was the strength of their army in the Camp of Refuge—what their means of subsistence—what the names of all their chiefs—what their correspondence and alliance with other Saxon chiefs in other parts of England—what the strength of the Normans in various parts of England, and which the provinces and the chiefs that had entirely submitted to them, with many other particulars. It was too confiding, and indeed very unwise so to do; but the Saxons, albeit often betrayed before now, were not much given to suspicion, and so they satisfied him according to the best of their knowledge on all these points, and conducted him into their camp that he might see with his own eyes how matters stood there, and afforded him all possible opportunities of judging for himself as to the means they had in hand, and the chances they had of successfully terminating a struggle which had already lasted for years. The crafty old man thought the nakedness of the land much greater than it really was, and he afterwards made a report conformably to Knut his master and prince. Yet, on the morrow morning, when he was about to take his departure from the ever hospitable house of Ely, he took the Lord Abbat aside, and with bland looks and most gentle voice asked him whether he had not in the abbey some small matter to send as a present and welcoming gift to the royal Dane. Now good Thurstan, who was never of those that had expected a vast and unmingled good from the coming of the Danes, told him how he had broken open the shrine-boxes and stripped the shrines, and contaminated the house with dealing with usurers, in order to get what had been sent into Danemarck as a present for the king.
“But,” said the greedy Dane, “have there been no pilgrims to thy shrine since then?”
“Nay,” said the Lord Abbat, “some few there have been that have left their little offerings; and, doubtless, many more will come ere many days be past, for in this blessed month occur the festivals of our saints, to wit, that of Saint Sexburga, queen and second abbess of this house, and that of her kinswoman and successor, Saint Withburga, virgin and abbess. On such seasons the donations of the faithful were wont to be most liberal; but alas! few are the Saxons now that have anything left to give to Saxon saints! And the matter we have in our coffers at this present is too small for a gift to a prince, and is, moreover, much needed by this impoverished brotherhood.”
To this the cunning, clutching old Dane said that a small matter was better than no money at all; that it had been the custom in all times to propitiate kings and princes with free gifts; that the Lord Abbat had better send such gold and silver as he had; and that the great Knut might come up to Ely after the festival of the two saints, when the shrine-boxes would be fuller, and so give the monks of Ely occasion to make a more suitable offering.
At these words Lord Thurstan grew red in the face, and stared at the Dane with a half incredulous look; and then he said, “Wouldst thou skin us alive? Wouldst take the last silver penny? Wouldst see the shrines of four among the greatest of our saints left in dirt and darkness? Dane, can it be that thou art herein doing the bidding of a royal and a Christian prince? Hast thou thy master’s orders to ask that which thou art asking?”
Not a whit discountenanced, the old Dane said that men who lived with princes learned to know their wishes, and hastened to execute them, without waiting for express commands; and that he must repeat that he thought the best thing the Abbat of Ely could do would be to send Prince Knut all the money he had in the house.
“By the rood,” quoth Thurstan, still more angered, “these Danes be as rapacious as the Normans! By Saint Sexburga and Saint Witburga, and by every other good saint in the calendarium, I will not consent to this! I will not rob the shrines to get a mere beggar’s alms. I cannot do the thing thou askest of mine own authority. Such matters must be discussed in full chapter, and settled by the votes of the officials and cloister-monks of the house. But I will not do even so much as to name the matter!”