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Updated: June 9, 2025
For these warriors had carried matters with a high hand, so that no Anglian dared to call them aught but lord it must be "lord Dane" if they spoke even to the meanest of the hosts and the gravest burgher must give way to some footman of Swein's if they met in street or on bridge. So they were not loved.
The half-Danish and Danish folk of the East Angles owned Swein as king, though not willingly, and a housecarle from Wormingford made his way to us with word from Gunnhild that set our minds at rest. Truly our hall and Osgod's had been burnt by parties from the Danish host, and for a time the danger was great, for Swein's vengeance for his sister's death was terrible.
"Eirik and Ulf and Thorkel the jarls may gather them for Cnut," I answered. "And he is Swein's son." "Those men are Cnut as yet, as one may say," answered Edric chuckling. "One has to deal with them therefore. What says Olaf?" "He says the same, lord earl." Then he turned sharply towards me, though he did not look at me, and said: "The king does not trust Olaf, I fear.
But I had no need to ask aught I knew only too well what manner of tales might be told here, as everywhere in Swein's track.
But the words of Streone prevailed as ever, and the council broke up, and the nobles fell to feasting, while this foolish message was sent to Swein's veterans in their towns. Then Sigeferth and Morcar made no secret of their belief that Streone was playing into Cnut's hands for reasons of his own.
And they told me that Thorkel's fleet had sailed northward on Swein's death, and that the thingmen whom he had left in the place had gone to London. "That is as I thought," said Olaf. "Now there will be more trouble in driving them out than there has been in letting them in."
Thorkel's host was that which slew Elfheah, the good archbishop of Canterbury, whom his monks called Elphege, but last year. That, too, was the thought of the seamen to whom I spoke when the ships were yet distant, and so we went back to the hall heavy and disappointed. We would not speak to these men, knowing that from Thorkel's folk we should but hear boasting of Swein's victories.
The earls of Mercia and Northumberland united their forces to those of Eadward at Gloucester, and marched with the king to a gathering of the Witenagemot at London. Godwine again appeared in arms, but Swein's outlawry was renewed, and the Earl of Wessex, declining with his usual prudence a useless struggle, withdrew over sea to Flanders. But the wrath of the nation was appeased by his fall.
"He was at Gainsborough," said Olaf, "and he was about to make his way south to Eadmund's burg. Whereon men say that to save his town and shrine the holy martyr, King Eadmund, whom Ingvar slew, thrust Swein through with an iron lance. Some say that he slew him otherwise, but all agree as to his slayer. And now I think that England will rise." "What of Cnut, Swein's son?" asked Eadmund.
They came probably from the other side of the Channel, and it was to clear them away as well as secure himself against Swein's threatened descent that Æthelred took a step which brought England in contact with a land over-sea.
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