Page:The Early Kings of Norway.djvu/102

 92 EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY. all remedies, good for the day only. Nay, there was one remedy still worse, which the miserable Ethelred once tried : that of massacring * all the Danes settled in England' (practically, of a few thousands or hundreds of them), by treachery and a kind of Sicilian Yespers. Which issued, as such things usually do, in terrible monition to you not to try the like again ! Issued' namely, in redoubled fury on the Danish part; new fiercer invasion by Svein's Jarl Thorkel; then by Svein himself; which latter drove the miserable Ethelred, with wife and family into Normandy, to wife's brother, the then Duke there ; and ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming King of England himself Of this disgraceful massacre, which it would appear has been immensely exaggerated in the English books, we can happily give the exact date (a.d. 1002) ; and also of Svein's victorious ac- cession (a.]). 1013),* — pretty much the only benefit one gets out of contemplating such a set of objects. King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income- Tax for the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with a stronghanded diligence, but had not
 * Kennet, I 67; Ma^n, i. 119, 121 (from the Saxon ChronicU both).