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of £10,000 to the Danes to secure peace is
attributed to the advice of Sigeric the new archbishop,77 who
acted as ‘chief magistrate temporally and spiritually in Kent.’78
Olaf of Norway and Swegen of Denmark ravaged Kent and other
counties in 994, and were paid off with £16,000.79
Further fighting took place at Rochester in 999, when ‘the Kentish
fyrd too quickly gave way and fled, because they were not supported as
they ought to have been,80 and the Danes plundered ‘almost
all the West Kentish.’81 In 1006 Kent was
again ravaged by a great Danish force which landed at Sandwich.82
Truce was obtained by payment of £36,000, and Ethelred made great
preparations, as a result of which a fleet was gathered at Sandwich in
1009.83 But the accusation and flight of Wulfnoth, ‘child’
of the West Saxons, ended in the bulk of the fleet being taken round to
London. Sandwich, thus left unguarded, was attacked by two Danish
fleets, one under Thurkill, the other under Hemming and Eglaf.
Canterbury would have fallen had not the citizens, with the men of East
Kent, made a payment of £3,000.84 The Danes seem to
have entrenched a camp at Greenwich, from which they ravaged the home
counties, and in 1011 they plundered Canterbury and took captive ‘all
the men in orders, and men and women.’ The city is said to have been
betrayed by AElfmaer, abbot of St. Augustine’s. Some of the captives,
including Godwin, bishop of Rochester, AElfmead, a king’s reeve, and
Leofrune, abbess of St. Mildred’s in Thanet, were allowed to ransom
themselves, while AElfmaer was ‘let away’ at once.85
AElfheah, or Alphege, archbishop of Canterbury, would not allow his
friends to raise a ransom from his suffering people, and after seven
months imprisonment in the camp at Greenwich was done to death by the
drunken Danes.86
About this time Ethelred made an alliance with Thurkill,
who undertook to support him with a fleet of 45 ships stationed
at Greenwich. This compelled Swegen to attack England once more in
person in 1013. His splendid fleet came first to Sandwich,87 but
moved off to the Humber, where he landed among a people largely Danish
and soon overran all the north and midlands. Even London submitted, and
Etheired took refuge with Thurkill’s fleet at Greenwich. The country
was laid under contribution both by Swegen and by Thurkill, and Kent
suffered severely.88 About Christmas, Ethelred fled to
Normandy, but on Swegen’s death in 1014 he returned to dispute the
kingdom with Cnut, and drove him out of Lindsey. Cnut made for Sandwich,
where he landed the hostages whom his father had taken from various
parts of the country, after brutally mutilating them.89 He
then sailed for Denmark, and in 1015 reappeared at Sandwich with a great
fleet and moved on to the west,90 where he appears to have
been joined by Thurkill, hitherto in Ethelred’s service. His conquest
of the county was almost complete when Etheired
77 Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub
anno. 78 Stubbs, Consi.
Hist. (ed. 4), i, 260.
79 Angl.-Sax. Chron. sub anno 993
(994)
80 Kentish affairs are given in great detail
in MSS. B, C, D, and E of this section of the Chronicle (983-1018),
which is probably of Kentish origin (Plummer, Two Sax. Chron. ii,
p. cxvi), and the excuse for the men of Kent is only found in MS. E,
which was almost certainly revised and continued at Canterbury.
81 Ibid. This, with the mention of East Kent
below, is the only trace in the Chronicle of the division of the
shire into two districts: see note 24, p. 273.
82 Ibid. 1006.
83 Ibid. 1008, 1009. For the assessment by which
this fleet was raised, see the section on Maritime History.
84
Ibid.
85 Ibid.
1011. 86
Ibid. 1012. 87
Ibid.1013.
88
Ibid.
89 Ibid.
1014. 90
Ibid. 1015. |