this earth or hold this earth against them; for that they had cruelly
marked each shire of Wessex with burning and with harrying." The English
had sunk into hopeless misery, and were only waiting for a strong rule
to rescue them from their misery.

The strong rule came at last. Thorkell, a Danish jarl, marched all
through Wessex, and for three years more his host pillaged everywhere in
the South. In 1011, they killed Ælfheah, the archbishop of Canterbury,
at Greenwich. When the country was wholly weakened, Swegen turned
southward once more, this time with all Northumbria and Mercia at his
back. In 1013 he sailed round to Humber mouth, and thence up the Trent,
to Gainsborough. "Then Earl Uhtred and all Northumbrians soon bowed to
him, and all the folk in Lindsey; and sithence the folk of the Five
Burgs, and shortly after, all the host by north of Watling-street; and
men gave him hostages of each shire." Swegen at once led the united army
into England, leaving his son Cnut in Denalagu with the ships and
hostages. He marched to Oxford, which received him; then to the royal
city of Winchester, which made no resistance. At London Æthelred was
waiting; and for a time the town held out. So Swegen marched westward,
and took Bath. There, the thegns of the Welsh-kin counties–Somerset,
Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall–bowed to him and gave him hostages. "When
he had thus fared, he went north to his ships, and all the folk held him
then as full king." London itself gave way. Æthelred fled to Wight, and
thence to Normandy. He had married Ymma, the daughter of Richard the
Fearless; and he now took refuge with her brother, Richard the Good.

Next year Swegen died, and the West Saxon witan sent back for Æthelred.
No lord was dearer to them, they said, than their lord by kin. But the
host had already chosen Cnut; and the host had a stronger claim than the
witan. For two years Æthelred carried on a desultory war with the