During the remaining months of the year and all through the following summer, the vikings rode almost unresisted through Southern England, plundering everywhere. Finally the King and the "wise men" began to negotiate for peace on the usual basis. But so often had Danegelds been levied that it was becoming difficult to collect the money and the payment was not so prompt as the vikings desired. In their anger they laid siege to Canterbury, and, after a close investment of twenty days, by the assistance of an English priest were enabled to seize the city. Many important citizens were held for ransom, among them the Archbishop Alphege, who remained a prisoner for nearly six months. His confinement cannot have been severe; the Prelate was interested in the spiritual welfare of the Scandinavian pirates, and seems to have begun a mission among his keepers. But he forbade the payment of a ransom, and after a drunken orgy the exasperated Danes proceeded to pelt him to death with the bones of their feast. Thrym, a Dane whom he had confirmed the day before, gave him the mercy stroke.[66]
During the closing days of the archbishop's life, an assembly of the magnates in London had succeeded in raising the tribute agreed upon, 48,000 pounds. Not merely were the invaders bought off,—they were induced to enter Ethelred's service as mercenaries; there must have been reasons why it would be inadvisable to return to Jomburg. The English King now had an army of some four thousand or perhaps five thousand men, a splendid force of professional warriors led by the renowned viking Thurkil the Tall. According to William of Malmesbury, they were quartered in East Anglia,[67] which seems plausible, as Wessex must have been thoroughly pillaged by 1012.
When the year 1013 opened, there were reasons to hope that the miseries of England were past. For a whole generation the sea-kings had infested the Channel and the Irish Sea, scourging the shores of Southern Britain almost every year. Large sums of money had been paid out in the form of Danegeld, 137,000 pounds silver, but to little purpose: the enemy returned each year as voracious as ever. Now, however, the pirate had undertaken to defend the land. The presence of Danish mercenaries was doubtless an inconvenience, but this would be temporary only. It was to be expected that, as in the days of Alfred, the enemy would settle down as an occupant of the soil, and in time become a subject instead of a mercenary soldier.
But just at this moment, an invasion of a far more serious nature was being prepared in Denmark. In the councils of Roeskild Sweyn Forkbeard was asking his henchmen what they thought of renewing the attack on England. The question suggested the answer: to the King's delight favourable replies came from all. It is said that Sweyn consulted his son Canute with the rest; and the eager youth strongly urged the undertaking.[68] This is the earliest act on Canute's part that any historian has recorded. In 1012, he was perhaps seventeen years old; he had reached the age when a Scandinavian prince should have entered upon an active career. His great rival of years to come, Olaf the Stout, who can have been only two years older than Canute, had already sailed the dragon for six or seven years. It is likely that the young Dane had also experienced the thrills of viking life, but on this matter the sagas are silent. But it is easy to see why Canute should favour the proposed venture: as a younger son he could not hope for the Danish crown. The conquest of England might mean not only fame and plundered wealth, but perhaps a realm to govern as well.
The considerations that moved the King to renew the attempts at conquest were no doubt various; but the deciding factor was evidently the defection of Thurkil and the Jomvikings. An ecclesiastic who later wrote a eulogy on Queen Emma and her family discusses the situation in this wise:
Thurkil, they said, the chief of your forces, O King, departed with your permission that he might take revenge for a brother who had been slain there, and led with him a large part of your host. Now that he rejoices in victory and in the possession of the southern part of the country, he prefers to remain there as an exile and a friend of the English whom he has conquered by your hand, to returning with the host in submission to you and ascribing the victory to yourself. And now we are defrauded of our companions and of forty ships which he sailed to England laden with the best warriors of Denmark.[69]
So the advice was to seize, the English kingdom as well as the Danish deserter. No great difficulty was anticipated, as Thurkil's men would probably soon desert to the old standards.
The customs of the Northmen demanded that an undertaking of this order should first be approved by the public assembly, and the Encomiast tells us that Sweyn at once proceeded to summon the freemen. Couriers were sent in every direction, and at the proper time the men appeared, each with his weapons as the law required. When the heralds announced the nature of the proposed undertaking—not a mere raid with plunder in view but the conquest of an important nation—the host gave immediate approval.
In many respects the time was exceedingly favourable for the contemplated venture. A large part of England was disposed to be friendly; the remainder was weak from continued pillage. Denmark was strong and aggressive, eager to follow the leadership of her warlike king. Sweyn's older son, Harold, had now reached manhood, and could with comparative safety be left in control of the kingdom. Denmark's neighbours in the North were friendly: Sweyn's vassal and son-in-law controlled the larger part of Norway; his stepson, Olaf, ruled in Sweden. Nor was anything to be feared from the old enemies to the south. The restless vikings of Jom were in England. The lord of Poland was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Empire. The Saxon dynasty, which had naturally had Northern interests, no longer dominated Germany; a Bavarian, Henry II., now sat on the throne of the Ottos. In the very year of Sweyn's invasion of England, the German King journeyed to Italy to settle one of the numberless disputes that the Roman see was involved in during the tenth and eleventh centuries. He remained in Italy till the next year (1014), when the victorious Pope rewarded him with the imperial crown.
Something in the form of a regency was provided for the Danish realm during Sweyn's absence. Harold seems to have received royal authority without the royal title. Associated with him were a few trusted magnates who were to give "sage advice," but also, it seems, to watch over the interests of the absent monarch.[70] A part of the host was left in Denmark; but the greater part of the available forces evidently accompanied the King to England.