CHAPTER VIII
LATER VIKING RAIDS AND THE DANISH CONQUEST
Men who had seen the famous triumphal procession on the Dee in 973, when Eadgar the Peaceful, rowed by eight vassal princes, passed in his boat by the venerable walls of the ‘Chester’ of Valeria Victrix, must have groaned in spirit at the wretchedness that overwhelmed England in the reign of his worthless son, Aethelred ‘the Redeless.’[D]
[D] Aethelred is popularly known as ‘the Unready,’ but the Anglo-Saxon word rede means ‘counsel’ or ‘advice,’ and a better rendering of the king’s nickname is ‘ill-counselled’ or ‘wrong-headed.’
The story of how Aethelred’s evil mother, Aelfthryth, contrived the murder of her stepson, Eadward II., ‘the Martyr,’ at Corfe is well known. He himself was at the time only ten years of age. For several years the kingdom was probably governed by his mother and her supporters, but they were not strong enough to oust the officials of Eadgar and Eadward II. The minority of the king left the rival ealdormen and reeves ill-controlled, and there is some reason to think that the monachizing religious policy of Eadgar and St. Dunstan was greatly resented. At all events, there was much internal disorder; it is even possible that a state of modified civil war prevailed. Externally the country appeared great and powerful. Aethelred II. at his accession was overlord of all Britain no less than his father. England possessed a navy as strong in numbers as the largest Viking fleet that had ever assailed the country. Yet when the crisis came everything was in hopeless disorder. It was not the people, but the ruling class that was in fault. The exasperation of the nation glows fiercely through the bitter entries of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ whose compiler is thoroughly aware that sheer ineptitude, if not absolute treachery, was the cause of the national disasters.
Of the wretched monarch at whose door the blame for the downfall of the first ‘English Empire’ is usually laid little can be said that is favourable. Aethelred II. is condemned for all time by the scathing epithet bestowed upon him of ‘redeless.’ He was not altogether devoid of courage and enterprise, but his instability and utter incapacity to adopt and execute any sensible plan of action were his bane.
In 980, after more than forty years of immunity, the shores of England were once more troubled by Vikings. Pirate squadrons raided Thanet, and the country round Southampton and Chester. Next year another, or the same force—apparently from Ireland—sacked St. Petrocstow (Padstow), and wasted on both shores of the Bristol Channel; and in 982 three pirate vessels touched at Portland for a hurried raid.
For five or six years thereafter nothing is heard of Vikings; but there was certainly unrest among the English nobles, and when the raids began again the country was utterly unprepared. Once again was repeated the weary tale of the ninth century—raids, growing ever more murderous and widespread, and met only by local resistance. But besides this there is the foul record of combined action repeatedly frustrated by jealousy, ineptitude, or treachery, and of frequent buying off after the invaders had done as much mischief as possible. In 988 there was another petty raid of Irish Vikings; and in the same year the great Archbishop Dunstan died, taken away betimes from the wrath to come.
At this period the famous Olaf Tryggvason, debarred from his ancestral Norway, which was held against him by Jarl Haakon, was roving about the Northern Seas. He appeared in English waters in 991 with, perhaps, fifty ships, sacked Ipswich, and, sailing down the coast, landed his followers at Maldon. He was gallantly opposed by Brihtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex; but, after a hard struggle, the day went against the English, Brihtnoth himself being slain. It was a mere local defeat, like that of Charmouth in 836; but the consequences were most disgraceful. ‘In this same year,’ says the Chronicle, ‘it was decreed that tribute should be given to the Danish men for the great terror they occasioned by the seacoast; and that first [payment] was ten thousand pounds. The first who advised this was Archbishop Sigeric.’
Next year an attempt was made to collect a great fleet at London in order to ‘entrap the army from without.’ According to the Chronicle, Ealdorman Aelfric, one of the admirals, deliberately betrayed the plan of campaign to the enemy, and then deserted his fleet. Olaf escaped with the loss of only one ship, and shortly afterwards was able to fight an indecisive action with the squadrons of London and East Anglia. The English flagship was taken; but, as far as we can see, the Vikings had the worst of it, and withdrew northward. In 993, however, they had recruited sufficiently to sack Bamborough, and then entered the Humber. ‘They did much evil, both in Lindsey and Northumbria. There was collected a great force; but when the armies were to engage, then the leaders first commenced the flight—namely, Fræna and Godwin and Frithgist.’ Two at least of the three bear Scandinavian names, and the suspicion must be strong that they deliberately deserted their men.