lose its harbours against Swein that
AEthelred in 1002 took the Norman Duke's daughter, Emma, to wife. The same
dread of invasion gave birth to a panic of treason from the northern
mercenaries whom the king had drawn to settle in the land as a fighting
force against their brethren; and an order of AEthelred brought about a
general massacre of them on St. Brice's day. Wedding and murder however
proved feeble defences against Swein. His fleet reached the coast in
1003, and for four years he marched through the length and breadth of
southern and eastern England, "lighting his war-beacons as he went" in
blazing homestead and town. Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to
prepare for a later and more terrible onset. But there was no rest for
the realm. The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls took his place, and from
Wessex the war extended over Mercia and East-Anglia. In 1012 Canterbury
was taken and sacked, AEltheah the Archbishop dragged to Greenwich, and
there in default of ransom brutally slain. The Danes set him in the midst
of their husting, pelting him with bones and skulls of oxen, till one
more pitiful than the rest clove his head with an axe. Meanwhile the
court was torn with intrigue and strife, with quarrels between the
court-thegns in their greed of power and yet fiercer quarrels between
these favourites and the nobles whom they superseded in the royal
councils. The King's policy of finding aid among his new ministers broke
down when these became themselves ealdormen. With their local position
they took up the feudal claims of independence; and Eadric, whom AEthelred
raised to be ealdorman of Mercia, became a power that overawed the Crown.
In this paralysis of the central authority all organization and union was
lost. "Shire would not help other" when Swein returned in 1013. The war
was terrible but short. Everywhere the country was pitilessly harried,
churches plundered, men slaughtered. But, with the one exception of
London, there was no attempt at resistance. Oxford and Winchester flung
open their gates. The thegns of Wessex submitted to the northmen at Bath.
Even London was forced at last to give way, and AEthelred fled over-sea to
a refuge in Normandy.

[Sidenote: Cnut]

He was soon called back again. In the opening of 1014 Swein died suddenly
at Gainsborough; and the spell of terror was broken. The Witan recalled
"their own born lord," and AEthelred returned to see the Danish fleet
under Swein's son, Cnut, sail