Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/35

 other's subjects, without ‘passports from their own sovereign’ (Gesta Regum, secs. 165, 166; this, the only authority for this treaty, is, of course, late; the grounds on which Dr. Freeman accepts the story will be found in Norman Conquest, i. 313, 633; it certainly seems unlikely that any one should have invented the pope's letter).

The peace purchased of the Northmen was broken by Æthelred. In 992 he and the witan ‘decreed that all the ships that were worth anything’ should be gathered together at London (A.-S. Chron.) He put the fleet under the command of two bishops and two lay leaders, Thored, possibly his father-in-law, and Ælfric, the Mercian ealdorman he had banished (, p. 740). The scheme of taking the Northmen's fleet by surprise was defeated through the treachery of Ælfric. Nevertheless the English gained a complete victory. Enraged at Ælfric's conduct, the king blinded his son Ælfgar. The Northmen sailed off, and did much damage in Northumbria and Lindsey. In 994 the two kings, Olaf of Norway and Swend of Denmark, invaded the land with nearly a hundred ships; their forces were beaten off from London by the burghers on 8 Sept., but ravaged Essex, Kent, Surrey, and Hampshire, and then ‘took horses and rode whither they would.’ Æthelred and the witan now offered them money and provisions if they would cease their ravages. They took up winter quarters in Southampton, and a tax was levied on Wessex to pay the crews, while a tribute of sixteen thousand pounds was raised from the country generally as the price of peace (it is possible that Æscwig gave the help which was the subject of an arrangement made in a witenagemot of the next year on this occasion; the threat of ravaging Kent, and the fact that Sigeric seems to have been acting on his own responsibility, appear, however, to point to the peace of 991). Æthelred for once used the time thus gained with prudence, for he sent Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester, and the ealdorman Æthelweard on an embassy to Olaf [see under ]. The result was that the alliance between the invading kings was broken. Olaf came to Æthelred at Andover, made alliance with him, and, being already baptised, was confirmed by the bishop. Æthelred took him ‘at the bishop's hands,’ and gifted him royally; he promised that he would invade England no more, and kept his word. Swend sailed off to attack the Isle of Man, and the invasion ended. About two years of peace followed. In 995 Æthelred, probably at a meeting of the witan, acknowledged the faults of his youth, and made a grant to the bishop of Rochester (, Codex Dipl. p. 688). The next year he held another meeting at Celchyth (Chelsea), where the ecclesiastical element seems to have predominated (ib. 696). At some earlier date he had published at Woodstock a code regulating the English law of bail and surety, and in 997, at a witenagemot that met at Calne, and was adjourned to Wantage, a code was published on police matters, evidently designed for the Danish districts (Ancient Laws, pp. 119, 124; Codex Dipl. p. 698). At these meetings the king again acknowledged the sins of his youth, and restored some land he had unjustly taken from the church of Winchester. In this year the ravages of the Danes began again, though for about two years they were not especially serious, being chiefly confined first to the western coasts and then to the coast of Sussex. During the winter of 998, however, they took up quarters in the Isle of Wight, and forced the people of Hampshire and Sussex to send them provisions. This fresh trouble drove Æthelred to a renewed attempt to pacify heaven; he made a fresh and detailed acknowledgment of his youthful errors, especially in the Rochester matter, laid the blame chiefly on Æthelsine, whom he had deprived of his rank and wealth, and made full restitution to the bishop (Codex Dipl. p. 700). At the same time he was giving his confidence to another favourite as unworthy as Æthelsine, one Leofsige, whom in 994 he had made ealdorman of the East-Saxons (ib. p. 687). Kent was ravaged in 999, and Æthelred made another effort to defend his land. He commanded that the Danes should be attacked both by a fleet and an army, but the whole administration was hopelessly disorganised, and ‘when the ships were ready they delayed from day to day, and wore out the poor men that were on board, and the more forward things should have been the backwarder they were time after time. And in the end the expedition by sea and land effected nothing except troubling the people, wasting money, and emboldening their foes’ (A.-S. Chron. an. 999; for the causes of this inefficiency see, ii. 160; Norman Conquest, i. 324).

After the ravaging of Kent the Danes sailed off to Normandy in the summer of 1000, probably to sell their booty. Æthelred took advantage of their absence and of the preparations of the previous year to strike at the viking settlements close at hand; he led an army in person into Cumberland, which was a stronghold of the Danes, and ravaged the country, while his fleet wasted the Isle of Man (A.-S. Chron.;