Scandinavian settlements, Britain and Normandy
This lull in the activities of the sea-kings gave the western rulers an opportunity to regain much that had been lost. In England the expansion of Wessex which had begun in the days of Alfred was continued under his successors, until in Edgar's day one lord was recognised from the Channel to the Forth. But with Edgar died both majesty and peace. About 980 the viking spirit was reawakened in the North. The raven banner reappeared in the western seas, and soon the annals of the West began to recount their direful tales. Among all the chiefs of this new age, one stands forth pre-eminent, Sweyn with the Forked Beard, whose remarkable achievement it was to enlist all this lawless energy for a definite purpose, the conquest of Wessex.
In 979 Ethelred the Ill-counselled was crowned king of England and began his long disastrous reign. If we may trust the Abingdon chronicler, who, as a monk, should be truthful, England was duly warned of the sorrows to come. For "in that same year blood-red clouds resembling fire were frequently seen; usually they appeared at midnight hanging like moving pillars painted upon the sky." The King was a mere boy of ten summers; later writers could tell us that signs of degeneracy were discovered in the prince as early as the day of his baptism. On some of his contemporaries, however, he seems to have made a favourable impression. We cannot depend much on the praises of a Norse scald who sang in the King's presence; but perhaps we can trust the English writer who describes him as a youth of "elegant manners, handsome features, and comely appearance."[33]
That Ethelred proved an incompetent king is beyond dispute. Still, it is doubtful whether any ruler with capabilities less than those of an Alfred could have saved England in the early years of the eleventh century. For Ethelred had succeeded to a perilous inheritance. In the new territorial additions to Wessex there were two chief elements, neither of which was distinctly pro-Saxon: the Dane or the half-Danish colonist was naturally hostile to the Saxon régime; his Anglian neighbour recalled the former independence of his region as Mercia, East Anglia, or Northumbria, and was weak in his loyalty to the southern dynasty. The spirit of particularism asserted itself repeatedly, for it seems unlikely that the many revolts in the tenth century were Danish uprisings merely.
It seems possible that Ethelred's government might have been able to maintain itself after a fashion and perhaps would have satisfied the demands of the age, had it not been that vast hostile forces were just then released in the North. These attacked Wessex from two directions: fleets from the Irish Sea ravaged the Southwest; vikings from the East entered the Channel and plundered the southern shores. It is likely that in the advance-guard of the renewed piracy, Sweyn Forkbeard was a prominent leader. We have seen that during the last years of Harold's reign, there were trouble and ill-feeling between father and son. These years, it seems, the undutiful prince spent in exile and piratical raids. As the Baltic would scarcely be a safe refuge under the circumstances, we may assume that those seven years were spent in the West.[34]
In the second year of Ethelred's reign the incursions began: "the great chief Behemoth rose against him with all his companions and engines of war."[35] In that year Chester was plundered by the Norsemen; Thanet and Southampton were devastated by the Danes. The troubles at Chester are of slight significance; they were doubtless merely the continuation of desultory warfare in the upper Irish Sea. But the attack on Southampton, the port of the capital city of Winchester, was ominous: though clearly a private undertaking it was significant in revealing the weakness of English resistance. The vikings probably wintered among their countrymen on the shores of the Irish Sea, for South-western England was again visited and harried during the two succeeding years.
For a few years (983-986) there was a lull in the operations against England. The energies of the North were employed elsewhere: this was evidently the period of Styrbjörn's invasion of Sweden and Sigvaldi's attack on Norway with the desperate battles of Fyris River and Hjörunga Bay. But, in 986, viking ships in great numbers appeared in the Irish Sea.[36] Two years later a fleet visited Devon and entered Bristol Channel. It is probable that Norman ships took part in this raid; at any rate the Danes sold English plunder in Normandy.
In 991, the attack entered upon a new phase. Earlier the country had suffered from raids in which no great number of vikings had taken part in any instance; now they came in armies and the attack became almost an invasion. That year a fierce battle was fought near Maldon[37] in Essex where one of the chief leaders of the vikings was an exiled Norwegian prince, Olaf Trygvesson, who four years later restored the Norwegian throne. It is likely, therefore, that the host was not exclusively Danish but gathered from the entire North.
The fight at Maldon was a crushing defeat for the English and consternation ruled in the councils of the irresolute King. Siric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and two ealdormen were sent as an embassy to the viking camp to sue for peace. A treaty was agreed to which seems to imply that the host was to be permitted to remain in East Anglia for an undefined time. The vikings promised to defend England against any other piratical bands, thus virtually becoming mercenaries for the time being. In return Ethelred agreed to pay a heavy tribute and to furnish provisions "the while that they remain among us."[38] Thus began the Danegeld which seems to have developed into a permanent tax in the reign of Canute.
The next year King Ethelred collected a fleet in the Thames in the hope of entrapping his new allies; but treason was abroad in England and the plan failed.[39] The following year the pirates appeared in the Humber country; here, too, the English defence melted away. After relating the flight of the Anglian leaders, Florence of Worcester adds significantly, "because they were Danes on the paternal side."[40]