rned to Denmark,
leaving a part of his army behind him.

Ethelred, who had weakly disputed with Sweyn what remained of the Saxon
power, thought he could not do better to free himself from his
importunate guests than to order a simultaneous massacre of all the
Danes in the kingdom, (1002.) But Sweyn reappeared in the following
year at the head of an imposing force, and between 1003 and 1007 three
successive fleets effected disembarkations on the coast, and unfortunate
England was ravaged anew.

In 1012, Sweyn landed at the mouth of the Humber and again swept over
the land like a torrent, and the English, tired of obedience to kings
who could not defend them, recognized him as king of the North. His son,
Canute the Great, had to contend with a rival more worthy of him,
(Edmund Ironside.) Returning from Denmark at the head of a considerable
force, and aided by the perfidious Edric, Canute ravaged the southern
part of England and threatened London. A new division of the kingdom
resulted; but, Edmund having been assassinated by Edric, Canute was
finally recognized as king of all England. Afterward he sailed to
conquer Norway, from which country he returned to attack Scotland. When
he died, he divided the kingdom between his three children, according to
the usage of the times.

Five years after Canute's death, the English assigned the crown to their
Anglo-Saxon princes; but Edward, to whom it fell, was better fitted to
be a monk than to save a kingdom a prey to such commotions. He died in
1066, leaving to Harold a crown which the chief of the Normans settled
in France contested with him, and to whom, it is said, Edward had made a
cession of the kingdom. Unfortunately for Harold, this chief was a great
and ambitious man.

The year 1066 was marked by two extraordinary expeditions. While William
the Conqueror was preparing in Normandy a formidable armament against
Harold, the brother of the latter, having been driven from
Northumberland for his crimes, sought support in Norway, and, with the
King of Norway, set out with thirty thousand men on five hundred
vessels, and landed at the mouth of the Humber. Harold almost entirely
destroyed this force in a bloody battle fought near York; but a more
formidable storm was about to burst upon his head. William took
advantage of the time when the Anglo-Saxon king was fighting the
Norwegians, to sail from St. Valery with a very large armament. Hume
asserts that he had three thousand tr