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The battle horns were blown and both sides shouted a war-cry, and soon the combat raged fiercely, at first with arrows from crossbows and long bows, then with spears and javelins and slings and King Olaf Tryggvasson fought most manfully. King Svein's men turned the prows of many of their ships towards both sides of the Long Serpent. The Danes also attacked the Short Serpent and the Crane.
Edmundsbury plundered by the Tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. In all ways impossible, however, Edmund's own death did not occur till two years after Svein's. Knut soon returned from Denmark, with increase of force sufficient for the English problem; which latter he now ended in a victorious, and essentially, for himself and chaotic England, beneficent manner.
But in the autumn of 1066, Tosti, a younger son of our English Earl Godwin, came to Svein's court with a most important announcement; namely, that King Edward the Confessor, so called, was dead, and that Harold, as the English write it, his eldest brother would give him, Tosti, no sufficient share in the kingship.
The "Saxon Chronicle" gives date to it, A.D. 994, and names expressly, as Svein's copartner, "Olaus, King of Norway," which he was as yet far from being; but in regard to the Year of Grace the "Saxon Chronicle" is to be held indisputable, and, indeed, has the field to itself in this matter.
The attack proved difficult for the Danes, for the stern-defenders of the Long Serpent and of the Short Serpent hooked anchors and grappling hooks to King Svein's ships, and as they could strike down upon the enemy with their weapons, for they had much larger and higher boarded ships, they cleared of men all the Danish ships which they had laid hold of. King Svein had to retreat.
King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income-Tax for the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with a stronghanded diligence, but had not yet done levying it, when, at Gainsborough one night, he suddenly died; smitten dead, once used to be said, by St. Edmund, whilom murdered King of the East Angles; who could not bear to see his shrine and monastery of St.
In which log, next morning, treacherous Svein's battle-axe was found deeply sticking: and could not be removed without difficulty! But this was after Harald and King Magnus himself bad begun treating; with the fairest prospects, which this of the $vein battle-axe naturally tended to forward, as it altogether ended the other copartnery.
Which, soon after that of Svein's nocturnal battle-axe, was the course adopted; and, to the joy of all parties, did prove a successful solution. Magnus agreed to part his kingdom with Uncle Harald; uncle parting his treasures, or uniting them with Magnus's poverty. Each was to be an independent king, but they were to govern in common; Magnus rather presiding.
Svein's tyrannies in Norway had wrought such fruit that, within the four years after Olaf's death, the chief men in Norway, the very slayers of King Olaf, Kalf Arneson at the head of them, met secretly once or twice; and unanimously agreed that Kalf Arneson must go to Sweden, or to Russia itself; seek young Magnus, son of Olaf home: excellent Magnus, to be king over all Norway and them, instead of this intolerable Svein.
Apparently a very opulent country, too; a ready skill in such arts and fine arts as there were; Svein's very ships, they say, had their gold dragons, top-mast pennons, and other metallic splendors generally wrought for them in England. "Unexampled prosperity" in the manufacture way not unknown there, it would seem!
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