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Updated: May 18, 2025
If we win them to peace, Cnut cannot come back." Thereat Sigeferth of Stamford spoke hotly, minding Streone that the harm was done in Lindsey by pillage and burning wrought among peaceful folk, who were thus made enemies to the king. The thingmen would submit quietly if they knew they must; but if they were left, they would send word to Cnut that there was no force to oppose him.
The scarlet-cloaked Danish thingmen at the gates paid no heed to me, for it was market day, and many countryside people were going in and out. So I went to the marketplace, and sat down on a bench outside an inn with others and listened to all that I could, while I drank my ale and ate as did the rest. Some I talked with. There was little hatred of Cnut here, as I found.
They had risen, as it seemed, and had slain many of the thingmen, and Heming, Thorkel's brother, himself. That had but brought on them hardships and a stronger garrison, while Ethelred wavered and would not come. At last Ethelred gathered what few men would follow him from Normandy and sailed to go to Southampton, and so to Winchester.
There was some change, too, in the ways of the thingmen, for it was not their plan here to make themselves hated and feared as in East Anglia. Then came a man whose face and walk were those of a seaman, and he sat down close to me, and I pushed the ale mug towards him, and we began to talk of his calling.
The fighting was coming nearer to me, and I watched and waited, and I knew that I had never seen so stern a fight as this, for before me Olaf's veterans fought against Swein's the trained thingmen who held the towns. And neither side had ever known defeat, and it seemed to me that surely we must fight till all were slain, for these were men who would not yield.
Already the London folk had planned a rising there and in the great towns against the Thingmen, as the Danish paid garrisons were called, and it was likely that this had by this time come about. So at once Eadmund went with these thanes to Rouen, and Olaf would have me bide with him till word came from the king as to the next doings.
Had we but half the number of our foe, and that half all housecarls, I should not for a moment doubt the issue." "London will put a strong body in the field, and though we have not the training of the Thingmen you may trust us to fight sternly, Master Wulf; and if we are beaten I will warrant that there will not be many of us to bring the tidings back." "Of that I am sure, Ulred.
We came up to the Pool on a good flood-tide, and as we dropped anchor there we saw all this, and, moreover, that the place was held by the Danes in force. The red cloaks of Cnut's thingmen were on bridge and walls and fort alike, and no few of them in either stronghold. There was work before us if we would win the place for our king.
Utred is in Northumbria to guard the Humber, and Ulfkytel guards the Wash, and Olaf is in the Thames. They will drive away the Danes before they set foot on the beach." "They are still fighting the thingmen in the towns," I said. "Northumbria and Anglia are Danish at heart yet." Aye, and I might have added "Mercia also," but I knew not that yet. Eadmund should have known it, though.
Valiantly they fought, but there was no resisting the solid array of the English housecarls, or Thingmen as they were also called. Taken altogether unprepared, and for the most part without their defensive armour, the Norsemen could offer no successful resistance to the English host.
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