Intermission I Part II: Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Angland
Planet of Hats
Donor
Excerpt: The Danish Conquest: A Foundational History of Ængland[1] - Daniel Eardwald, Grimsby University Press, 1983
Truthfully, systemic factors made the Danish conquest of Ængland almost inevitable - the combination of a weak king, friendly harbours nearby and an avaricious group of raiders also not far away made Anglo-Saxon England far too tempting a target for the Vikings to pass up. The conclusion of the campaign of the early eleventh century essentially ended the Anglo-Saxons as rulers of the whole island. Some pockets of semi-independent Anglo-Saxon rule did remain as King Sweyn I established his rule over the land, but they mostly persisted in pockets beyond the Pennines and around Southampton.
Upon receiving the submission of most of the Anglo-Saxon lords, Sweyn set up his seat at the town then called Gaignesborg[2], on the river Trent. The region at the time was well within the former Danelaw, still home to large concentrations of people of Danish extraction, and the invading army had been using it as a base for some time. The town itself, already prominent as one of the former seats of old Mercia, would become the centre of Danish Ængland for some time, though the capital would of course be destined to move to the Humber to Grimsby centuries later.
Forkbeard immediately set to work consolidating his position, starting with a systematic thinning-out of prominent Anglo-Saxon nobles he considered a threat. These included most of the sons of the former King, Æthelred. His sons Edmund[3] and Eadred were captured and put to death; the next year his youngest son Edgar attempted to escape by boat, only to be caught and turned over to Sweyn, who ordered him publicly beheaded. Aethelred's fifth son, Eadwig, managed to escape Sweyn's men, fleeing by boat to the mainland and eventually turning up in Bulgaria with some few loyalists.
His depredations weren't limited to the immediate family of the House of Wessex. While Sweyn permitted Uhtred to remain as ealdorman over much of Northumbria, he placed mayors of his own choosing over the historic Five Boroughs, namely Djuraby, Ljudegestre, Lingolin, Snodingheim and Stanford,[4] and an earl over most of Mercia. Another Danish earl was placed over the lands of old Jorvik as Sweyn effectively created a power base in the lower and central part of the island. For the most part he retained control over Gaignesborg and most of the Five Boroughs, with his five mayors chosen for their loyalty and administrative skill. At lower levels of administration, Anglo-Saxon officials such as reeves largely remained in place, and the Old English language didn't fall out of use, though the Eastern dialect of Old Norse was effectively the language of government.
Sweyn's power was at its weakest in the southwest, where the lords of Wessex made a show of loyalty to the Danes but otherwise did little to actually enforce Danish rule and law in the region. His authority also extended only narrowly into western Mercia, where some of the lords there continued to pay nominal allegiance to the Danes while actually ruling as minor landlords with a high degree of autonomy.
For the first two or three years, Sweyn spent the bulk of his time in England, leaving Denmark under the regency of his oldest son Harald. His second son Cnut, a boy of perhaps thirteen at the time of the conquest,[5] spent much of his adolescent years in Gaignesborg, learning at his father's side and showing himself to be a talented administrator and a decent fighter in his own right.
Upon putting down a revolt in London in 1009, Sweyn instituted a large military tax and collected a significant danegeld from the remaining Anglo-Saxon lords, which he used to pay off much of his army. The men were sent home, but fifty ships and a body of men under Thorkell the Tall were retained in Ængland proper to keep order in the land. The King then set to work establishing loyal priests where possible, though he continued his past practice from Denmark of installing Anglo-Saxon churchmen in positions of authority. He established Lyfing, abbott of Chertsey, as the Archbishop of Canterbury and filled a few empty bishoprics beneath him with loyal men, then set off for Denmark to set his house in order there, leaving things in Ængland in the hands of Thorkell and some other lieutenant whose name has been lost to time.
By 1011 Sweyn was back in Ængland, receiving report of a handful of rebellions put down by Thorkell and his men. The next three years saw a gradual outflow of men from Denmark to settle in England, particularly in Gaignesborg and around the Humber-mouth, with modern Grimsby becoming the most popular landing area for incoming ships full of men-at-arms or merchants. This would set the trend for future years, with incoming ships from Denmark and Norway typically arriving at the Humber and either landing at one of the villages at the rivermouth or turning up the Trent to Gaignesborg. Danes never truly came to outnumber the Anglo-Saxons, of course, but the Danish population of the Midlands in particular increased, and Anglo-Saxon tradesmen mingled more often with the Danes.
Certainly by 1014 Sweyn had completed the process of reinstating many of the old legislative tenets once associated with the Danelaw, gradually moving the laws of Ængland to align with those of Denmark. He hadn't quite finished his work, however, when a particularly cold winter felled him with a lingering illness, and he died at Gaignesborg at the age of 54.
Sweyn's body was returned to Denmark and buried with some ceremony, and his eldest son was elevated to the kingship of Denmark as Harald II. However, the fleet still based in Ængland instead acknowledged Sweyn's son, Cnut, as king. This left the two sons of Sweyn ruling over a divided realm, Harald in Denmark, Cnut in Ængland with the support of the fleet and the loyalty of many of the Anglo-Saxon lords. The split doesn't seem to have been a hostile one, and relations between the brothers seem to have been strong following their father's death. Cnut returned to Ængland and resumed his father's seat at Gaignesborg.[6]
The fleet's decision preempted an effort by some lingering Anglo-Saxon lords to assemble the witenagemot and elect a monarch of their choosing, and Cnut was obliged to jail and execute Leofwine, earl of the Hwicce, who had been left in place by Sweyn but had evidently been one of the first lords to arrive in anticipation of an old-style election. Cnut promptly placed his own man as earl over the Hwicce and set to work securing the loyalty of the earls, relying on good relations he'd cultivated with his father's appointees and a mixture of gifts and threats for those Anglo-Saxon appointees still hostile to him.
All told, the succession from Sweyn to Cnut was fairly smooth, owing to the years Sweyn took to consolidate his position and stock the kingdom with loyal earls. While occasional peasant revolts still troubled Ængland, by and large Cnut transitioned into power without major problems.
[1] By some point or another ITTL, English has become some kind of weird pidgin of Old English and Danish, hence the Danish-style Æ. Obviously our divergence here is that the period of Scandinavian rule over England will be significantly longer-lasting - most of Ethelred's direct line is gone at this point, and the Danes get a few years to get some loyal earls in place before their first succession.
[2] I had a devil of a time trying to derive an Old Norse etymology for Gainsborough. It's described as Gaeignesburgh in contemporary Anglo-Saxon sources and eventually comes from "Gaenbeald's fortress," but I'm not enough of a linguist to be able to nail this one to my satisfaction.
[3] Edmund Ironside.
[4] Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. I've probably butchered the names - I'm rotten at building conlangs, and trying to marry Old East Norse to the Old English names as reflected in the Domesday Book has been a weird effort. On the plus side, I know what vowel breaking is now.
[5] Don't be fooled: Butterflies have reached Scandinavia by 995. This man has the same name as Cnut the Great, but he is not Cnut the Great - he was born in 994, not 995.
[6] As OTL.
* 2 *
King Sweyn I: Consolidation and Inheritance
King Sweyn I: Consolidation and Inheritance
Truthfully, systemic factors made the Danish conquest of Ængland almost inevitable - the combination of a weak king, friendly harbours nearby and an avaricious group of raiders also not far away made Anglo-Saxon England far too tempting a target for the Vikings to pass up. The conclusion of the campaign of the early eleventh century essentially ended the Anglo-Saxons as rulers of the whole island. Some pockets of semi-independent Anglo-Saxon rule did remain as King Sweyn I established his rule over the land, but they mostly persisted in pockets beyond the Pennines and around Southampton.
Upon receiving the submission of most of the Anglo-Saxon lords, Sweyn set up his seat at the town then called Gaignesborg[2], on the river Trent. The region at the time was well within the former Danelaw, still home to large concentrations of people of Danish extraction, and the invading army had been using it as a base for some time. The town itself, already prominent as one of the former seats of old Mercia, would become the centre of Danish Ængland for some time, though the capital would of course be destined to move to the Humber to Grimsby centuries later.
Forkbeard immediately set to work consolidating his position, starting with a systematic thinning-out of prominent Anglo-Saxon nobles he considered a threat. These included most of the sons of the former King, Æthelred. His sons Edmund[3] and Eadred were captured and put to death; the next year his youngest son Edgar attempted to escape by boat, only to be caught and turned over to Sweyn, who ordered him publicly beheaded. Aethelred's fifth son, Eadwig, managed to escape Sweyn's men, fleeing by boat to the mainland and eventually turning up in Bulgaria with some few loyalists.
His depredations weren't limited to the immediate family of the House of Wessex. While Sweyn permitted Uhtred to remain as ealdorman over much of Northumbria, he placed mayors of his own choosing over the historic Five Boroughs, namely Djuraby, Ljudegestre, Lingolin, Snodingheim and Stanford,[4] and an earl over most of Mercia. Another Danish earl was placed over the lands of old Jorvik as Sweyn effectively created a power base in the lower and central part of the island. For the most part he retained control over Gaignesborg and most of the Five Boroughs, with his five mayors chosen for their loyalty and administrative skill. At lower levels of administration, Anglo-Saxon officials such as reeves largely remained in place, and the Old English language didn't fall out of use, though the Eastern dialect of Old Norse was effectively the language of government.
Sweyn's power was at its weakest in the southwest, where the lords of Wessex made a show of loyalty to the Danes but otherwise did little to actually enforce Danish rule and law in the region. His authority also extended only narrowly into western Mercia, where some of the lords there continued to pay nominal allegiance to the Danes while actually ruling as minor landlords with a high degree of autonomy.
For the first two or three years, Sweyn spent the bulk of his time in England, leaving Denmark under the regency of his oldest son Harald. His second son Cnut, a boy of perhaps thirteen at the time of the conquest,[5] spent much of his adolescent years in Gaignesborg, learning at his father's side and showing himself to be a talented administrator and a decent fighter in his own right.
Upon putting down a revolt in London in 1009, Sweyn instituted a large military tax and collected a significant danegeld from the remaining Anglo-Saxon lords, which he used to pay off much of his army. The men were sent home, but fifty ships and a body of men under Thorkell the Tall were retained in Ængland proper to keep order in the land. The King then set to work establishing loyal priests where possible, though he continued his past practice from Denmark of installing Anglo-Saxon churchmen in positions of authority. He established Lyfing, abbott of Chertsey, as the Archbishop of Canterbury and filled a few empty bishoprics beneath him with loyal men, then set off for Denmark to set his house in order there, leaving things in Ængland in the hands of Thorkell and some other lieutenant whose name has been lost to time.
By 1011 Sweyn was back in Ængland, receiving report of a handful of rebellions put down by Thorkell and his men. The next three years saw a gradual outflow of men from Denmark to settle in England, particularly in Gaignesborg and around the Humber-mouth, with modern Grimsby becoming the most popular landing area for incoming ships full of men-at-arms or merchants. This would set the trend for future years, with incoming ships from Denmark and Norway typically arriving at the Humber and either landing at one of the villages at the rivermouth or turning up the Trent to Gaignesborg. Danes never truly came to outnumber the Anglo-Saxons, of course, but the Danish population of the Midlands in particular increased, and Anglo-Saxon tradesmen mingled more often with the Danes.
Certainly by 1014 Sweyn had completed the process of reinstating many of the old legislative tenets once associated with the Danelaw, gradually moving the laws of Ængland to align with those of Denmark. He hadn't quite finished his work, however, when a particularly cold winter felled him with a lingering illness, and he died at Gaignesborg at the age of 54.
Sweyn's body was returned to Denmark and buried with some ceremony, and his eldest son was elevated to the kingship of Denmark as Harald II. However, the fleet still based in Ængland instead acknowledged Sweyn's son, Cnut, as king. This left the two sons of Sweyn ruling over a divided realm, Harald in Denmark, Cnut in Ængland with the support of the fleet and the loyalty of many of the Anglo-Saxon lords. The split doesn't seem to have been a hostile one, and relations between the brothers seem to have been strong following their father's death. Cnut returned to Ængland and resumed his father's seat at Gaignesborg.[6]
The fleet's decision preempted an effort by some lingering Anglo-Saxon lords to assemble the witenagemot and elect a monarch of their choosing, and Cnut was obliged to jail and execute Leofwine, earl of the Hwicce, who had been left in place by Sweyn but had evidently been one of the first lords to arrive in anticipation of an old-style election. Cnut promptly placed his own man as earl over the Hwicce and set to work securing the loyalty of the earls, relying on good relations he'd cultivated with his father's appointees and a mixture of gifts and threats for those Anglo-Saxon appointees still hostile to him.
All told, the succession from Sweyn to Cnut was fairly smooth, owing to the years Sweyn took to consolidate his position and stock the kingdom with loyal earls. While occasional peasant revolts still troubled Ængland, by and large Cnut transitioned into power without major problems.
[1] By some point or another ITTL, English has become some kind of weird pidgin of Old English and Danish, hence the Danish-style Æ. Obviously our divergence here is that the period of Scandinavian rule over England will be significantly longer-lasting - most of Ethelred's direct line is gone at this point, and the Danes get a few years to get some loyal earls in place before their first succession.
[2] I had a devil of a time trying to derive an Old Norse etymology for Gainsborough. It's described as Gaeignesburgh in contemporary Anglo-Saxon sources and eventually comes from "Gaenbeald's fortress," but I'm not enough of a linguist to be able to nail this one to my satisfaction.
[3] Edmund Ironside.
[4] Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. I've probably butchered the names - I'm rotten at building conlangs, and trying to marry Old East Norse to the Old English names as reflected in the Domesday Book has been a weird effort. On the plus side, I know what vowel breaking is now.
[5] Don't be fooled: Butterflies have reached Scandinavia by 995. This man has the same name as Cnut the Great, but he is not Cnut the Great - he was born in 994, not 995.
[6] As OTL.
SUMMARY:
1014: King Sweyn I of Denmark and England dies after spending seven years consolidating his hold on England. The Danish throne goes to his son, Harald II, while in England, the Danish fleet there proclaims Cnut king. Much of old Wessex continues to remain only tenuously under Danish control.