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Updated: June 19, 2025
I could not think of letting my men lie in wait for any foe of mine, however good cause I had for hating him. And I did hate Streone with a hate that I am not ashamed of, not for my own sake, but because he was a traitor to both king and country.
Then Olaf said, very quietly: "Why not put an end to Danegeld once for all by helping me drive out the last Dane from England? We should be strong enough as things are now. "For Streone and his tools to reap the benefit? Not I," said the earl. "Come, we have forgotten our own business."
"My father hates Emma the cat as bitterly as he does Streone the fox, which is saying a good deal. The cat's claws are clipped now, maybe." Well, I knew this, and said nothing. One could expect no more from Earl Wulfnoth's son. Nor do I think that any loved Emma the queen much.
That was good hearing, maybe, for Olaf had feared that Streone would have taken them. But next I found that this marriage was sorely against the king's will, and that he and Eadmund had parted in anger therefore. I seemed then to see the hand of Streone in this quarrel, for all men knew that he slew the earls to gain the Five Boroughs for his own.
He led us to the eastern gate, and climbed to the broad top of the ramparts. "See yonder," he said, and pointed eastward across the river and marsh. "There is the hill where our standard has been raised time after time since OElla and Cissa drove in flight the Welsh who had raised theirs in the same place before us. There will I raise it again against Cnut or Streone or any other of his men."
And Cnut was master of all the land from Kent to Severn shores, Ethelred's own country. So Edric Streone went over to Cnut, and with him many thanes who despaired of help from Ethelred, and chose rather peace under a king who was strong enough to give it them. And one night forty of the English ships slipped away from us down the tide and joined the Danes at Sandwich.
The men had been bribed by Streone, as we found. Almost then did Olaf make up his mind to leave England, but he pitied Ethelred, who turned to him again in this new trouble, and he did not go. "But my men will not bide patiently much longer," he told me; "here is neither honour nor gold to be won, and I need them for my going to Norway when the time comes."
Then too came Edric Streone, the great Earl of Mercia, Eadmund's uncle by marriage and his foster father, praying for and gaining full forgiveness for having seemed to side with Swein, as he said. With these was Ulfkytel, our East Anglian earl, and many more, while word came from Utred of Northumbria that he would not hold back.
There were Englishmen who fought for Cnut thinking that thus they wrought best for England and her peace as Wulfnoth chose for Godwine and I had no hatred for them. They were honest if they were wrong; but they were no traitors. But Edric Streone was as Judas to me.
"Now," he said, slowly and half to himself, "if the shadow of that villain Streone is on Eadmund as on me, I will not strike for myself as yet; and Cnut shall win other men's praise before I give him mine or go to him unsought." "Eadmund needs a friend, lord earl," I said, mindful of Olaf's errand, yet hardly daring to say more seeing that he had failed.
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