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Amidst a number of discordant statements it is difficult to fix on the original ground of the dissension between them; whether it were the Archbishop's resignation of the chancellorship, or his resumption of the lands alienated from his see, or his attempt to reform the clergymen who attended the court, or his opposition to the revival of the odious tax known by the name of the danegelt.
But after Alfred's death, fresh swarms of pirates visited the shores, among the most formidable of whom were the Danes, who spread desolation and misery along the banks of the Thames, the Medway, the Severn, the Tamar, and the Avon, for more than a century, though repeatedly tempted to desist by weighty bribes, raised by an oppressive and humiliating tax called Danegelt, from its object; and which, like most others, were continued long after it had answered its intent.
Certainly the name, through its forms of Crew, Carew, Carey, and Cary, still prevails on the Irish coast from which depression of trade drove the family first to Yorkshire, then to the Northamptonshire village of Yelvertoft, and finally to Paulerspury, farther south as well as over the whole Danegelt from Lincolnshire to Devonshire.
But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding strangers.
And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
By this charter, the city was empowered to keep the farm of Middlesex at three hundred pounds a year, to elect its own sheriff and justiciary, and to hold pleas of the crown: and it was exempted from scot, Danegelt, trials by combat, and lodging the king's retinue. Twisden.
Though Hardicanute, before his accession, had been called over by the vows of the English, he soon lost the affections of the nation by his misconduct; but nothing appeared more grievous to them, than his renewing the imposition of Danegelt, and obliging the nation to pay a great sum of money to the fleet which brought him from Denmark.
It was commonly called danegelt; because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the Danes or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile nation.
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