The death of Dunstan was the signal for the breaking down of the
artificial kingdom which he had held together by the mere power of his
solitary organising capacity. Æthelred, the son of Eadgar (who succeeded
after the brief reign of his brother Eadward), lost hopelessly all hold
over the Scandinavian north. At the same time, the wicking incursions,
intermitted for nearly a century, once more recommenced with the same
vigour as of old. Even before Dunstan's death, in 980, the pirates
ravaged Southampton, killing most of the townsfolk; and they also
pillaged Thanet, while another host overran Cheshire. In the succeeding
year, "great harm was done in Devonshire and in Wales;" and a year later
again, London was burnt and Portland ravaged. In 985, Æthelred, the
Unready, as after ages called him, from his lack of _rede_ or counsel,
quarrelled with Ælfric, ealdormen of the Mercians, whom he drove over
sea. The breach between Mercia and Wessex was thus widened, and as the
Danish attacks continued without interruption the redeless king soon
found himself comparatively isolated in his own paternal dominions.
Northumbria, under its earl, Uhtred (one of the house of Bamborough),
and the Five Burgs under their Danish leaders, acted almost
independently of Wessex throughout the whole of Æthelred's reign. In 991
Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury, advised that the Danes should be
bought off by a payment of ten thousand pounds, an enormous sum; but it
was raised somehow and duly paid. In 992, the command of a naval force,
gathered from the merchant craft of the Thames, was entrusted to Ælfric,
who had been recalled; and the Mercian leader went over on the eve of an
engagement at London to the side of the enemy. Bamborough was stormed
and captured with great booty, and the host sailed up Humber mouth.
There they stood in the midst of the old Danish kingdom, and found the
leading men of Northumbria and Lindsey by no means unfriendly to their
invasion. In fact, the Danish north was now far more ready to welcome
the kindred Scandinavian than the West Saxon stranger. Æthelred's realm