The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings

by Lars Brownworth

  The new king, known for his prodigious strength, must have been an imposing figure. Not only did he compel his reluctant jarls into the new faith, but he also imposed it on Norway’s far-flung territories with the result that the Faeroes, the Orkneys, and Iceland had all accepted Christianity by 1000. Even Greenland was well on the way to do the same. That same year a converted Leif Erikson left Olaf’s court on his voyage of discovery.

  Although deeply resented by many of his subjects, it wasn’t Olaf Tryggvasson’s religion that proved his undoing. A few years before, Svein Forkbeard had married off his sister to a Baltic chieftain. The union had proved unhappy, and against Svein’s wishes, the woman had fled to Norway where she was not only given shelter by Olaf Tryggvasson, but taken as his wife. This ill-timed act convinced the Danish king that Olaf was his enemy.

  Forkbeard had been wary of his old colleague for some time. Much of Olaf’s success at converting people was due to his massive flagship The Long Serpent, which cruised up and down the fjords, imposing the king’s authority.179 It was well known that Olaf wanted to expand his territory. He had already tried to marry the widowed queen of Sweden, and there were was a belief that he was now attempting to set himself up as king over all of Scandinavia by insinuating himself into the Danish royal family.

  The fears resulted in a Danish-Swedish alliance, and a combined fleet of seventy ships that managed to ambush Olaf as he was sailed between Denmark and Norway. The Norwegian fleet of eleven ships was quickly overwhelmed, with only The Long Serpent successfully resisting. When it was clear to Olaf that even his great flagship was lost, he leapt overboard, clutching his weapons to speed his descent.

  The triumphal Svein Forkbeard divided Norway up with his allies, taking most of the south for himself. He was now the most powerful Scandinavian king, having restored most of his father’s territorial holdings. It was at this moment, with Forkbeard at the height of his career, that Athelred the Unready, made the worst mistake of his reign.

  While the Scandinavian kings had been occupied, Athelred had been trying vainly to stem the increasing Viking tide. Buying off Olaf and Svein had only demonstrated that extortion worked, and in the immediate years after, the English king had handed out another 108,000 pounds of silver in increasing installments.180 In his frustration, Athelred came to believe that his northern subjects in the Danelaw were either harboring or encouraging the raids. The paranoia made it easy to believe that there was a Danish plot on his life, so on the 13th November, 1002, he ordered the liquidation of every Dane in the kingdom.

  The slaughter, remembered as St. Brice’s Day Massacre for the feast day on which it took place, was among the more foolish things Athelred ever did. The population of the Danelaw may have had some vestigial Scandinavian traditions, but they had repeatedly demonstrated loyalty to the English crown since the days of Athelred’s grandfather. One of the thousands who died in the bloodbath was Svein Forkbeard’s sister Gunnhild, who had settled in England with her Danish husband.181 Not only did Athelred alienate his own citizens, but he also earned the animosity of a Danish king at the peak of his powers.

  Svein wasted no time. The next year he was in England harrying the west, but was driven off by a combination of unexpectedly stiff local resistance, and a famine which made it difficult to live off the land. As he gathered additional troops, other independent Vikings kept up the pressure. The Jomsvikings, led by their leader Thorkell the Tall, conducted a profitable raid in Canterbury that netted forty-eight thousand pounds of silver from Athelred’s government. It should have been more, since they captured the archbishop of Canterbury, the same man who had presided over the ceremony welcoming Olaf into the faith. But the stubborn cleric had refused to allow his parish to pay a penny for him, and the annoyed Vikings beat him to death.182

  By 1013, Svein Forkbeard was ready, and he invaded England in force, not to punish Athelred, but to overthrow him. The hapless English king, who had seen his reign begin with such promise, was deserted by most of his subjects. The great-grandson of Alfred shamefully fled to Normandy, leaving England to the Vikings. London surrendered in December and Svein Forkbeard was crowned on Christmas Day of 1013.

  Svein had accomplished what even the ferocious Ivar the Boneless had failed to do, but he didn’t enjoy his new crown for long. Within a few weeks he fell ill, and by February he was dead. The body was washed, embalmed, and attended to by Svein’s teenaged son Cnut, and then sent back to Denmark for burial. The great Viking dream of conquering England seemed over just as it had begun.

  Ironically, it was only now, with the Viking spirit half-tamed and the days of the sea-wolves vanishing, that the most successful – and least appreciated – of the sea-kings arrived.

  Chapter 22

  The Emperor of the North

  “Moribus inclutus facet hic rex nomine Cnutus”

  (Here lies king Cnut, illustrious for his conduct)

  - The original epitaph of Cnut

  Svein Forkbeard may have had two crowns, but they weren’t of equal importance to him. His beloved eldest son Harald II was crowned king of Denmark, while young Cnut was given the unenviable task of governing the half-conquered England. The young man at least looked the part. The earliest description of him describes his ‘exceptional height, prodigious strength, thick head of fair hair, and clear and penetrating eyes’. The only flaw in this ruddy complexion was his nose, which was ‘thin and rather hooked’.

  Unfortunately for the new king, his subjects had soured on Danish rule. The citizens of the Danelaw confirmed his elevation, but the rest of the country didn’t follow suit. They may have feared the father, but they saw no reason to pay homage to the son. As a mark of their determination to oust the invader, they sent a delegation to recall Athelred the Unready.

  The disgraced Anglo-Saxon king who had spent three and a half decades ruining his reputation, now saw it rehabilitated within a few months. He had been living in Normandy with his wife Emma and their two sons at the court of his Norman brother-in-law, Duke Richard the Good. The English, however, didn’t exactly welcome him with open arms. Before allowing his return, he was made to swear that he would not punish anyone who had supported Swein Forkbeard, and that he would enact certain reforms that his nobles suggested.183

  Athelred agreed, and crossed the Channel leading an army composed of both Norman and English recruits. Cnut had taken the sensible step of acquiring hostages from the leading nobles to ensure their loyalty, but his army was caught unprepared and they defected anyway. Realizing that his position was hopeless, he fled to his fleet at Sandwich, on the southern coast, pausing only long enough to mutilate his hostages and leave them bleeding on the beach for his disloyal former subjects to take care of.

  For Athelred, regaining his kingdom without a single battle must have been an exhilarating moment, a soothing balm for the long years of humiliation. Sadly, it didn’t last. Within a year his son Edmund Ironside revolted, establishing himself in the Danelaw, and defying every attempt by his father to bring him under control.

  Even more serious, was the fact that Cnut hadn’t given up. The exiled king sailed directly to his brother’s court where Harald II received him warmly, aiding in the recruitment of an army to reclaim England. This was probably motivated less by fraternal loyalty than a desire to see a potential competitor out of his kingdom, but either way it proved effective. Within two years Cnut had a fleet of two hundred ships to carry his army of ten thousand Vikings.

  The invasion, so soon after Athelred’s triumph, broke something in the aging, and now sick king. He took no part in the defense of the kingdom, delegating those responsibilities to his son, Edmund Ironside, and his brother-in-law, Eadric “the Grasper” Streona. With Edmund, England was at least in capable hands. His vigorous defense of London won him the admiration of his father’s subjects, and when Athelred finally expired a few months later, Edmund was unanimously elected as king of what was left of the kingdom.

  Athelred had lived long enough for o
ne final humiliation. His brother-in-law, Eadric Streona, had issued a vote of no confidence by publicly deserting to Cnut, winning lasting infamy as the most notorious traitor in English history. The combined Danish and English army pursued Edmund into Wessex where two inconclusive battles were fought.184

  Cnut withdrew into Mercia, and Edmund Ironside surprisingly went after him, forcing him to retreat further. The small victory convinced the waffling Eadric Streona to rejoin the English side, where he was welcomed largely for the men he brought with him. Edmund needed to raise additional fresh troops, so he set off through Essex. As he was marching through open country, however, Cnut managed to surprise him. The battle was hard fought and bloody, and at the climactic moment Eadric Streona once again deserted his countrymen and handed the victory to the Danes.

  Edmund Ironside was wounded in the fighting, and most of his nobles were killed. He fled with what was left of his army to an island in Gloucestershire, and there came to an agreement with Cnut. England north of the Thames would be Danish, while he would retain the south. Furthermore, the lands of the king who died first would be given to the survivor, whose children would be heirs to the entire kingdom.

  The treaty amounted to an unconditional surrender. Both sides could see that the stricken Edmund Ironside wouldn’t live much longer, while Cnut was in the bloom of life. It was little more than a tactful agreement – perhaps as a nod to Edmund’s heroic defense of his kingdom – to spare the English sovereign the humiliation of exile.

  In any case, Cnut didn’t have long to wait to claim his prize. Edmund only clung to life for a few weeks before succumbing to his wounds. On January 6, 1017, Cnut was crowned, becoming the first Viking king of England. Little more than a century after Alfred had defeated the Vikings, his descendants had ceded it all to the Danes.

  If history had taught Cnut anything, it was that English crowns did not sit easily on Viking heads. He had already lived through one coronation that had failed because the English preferred even the most unpopular native monarch to a foreign one. Under no illusion that anything had changed, he set about firming up his control.

  Potential threats were ruthlessly crushed. Edmund Ironside’s younger brother was executed, as were many native earls who had supported the late English king. Displaying a good sense that had escaped his two predecessors, Cnut also had Eadric Streona killed, exposing his head on London Bridge.185 Not all those who had remained loyal to Edmund were punished, however. One noble in particular, a half-Danish man named Godwin had been unwaveringly faithful to the English king, and was therefore greeted with skepticism when he then pledged himself to Cnut. The king asked him why he should trust a man who had until recently been his implacable enemy, and Godwin responded with the argument that his constancy was proof against suspicion. The king, he continued, should instead be wary of those who switched sides during the war. He, on the other hand, had proved his loyalty even when his side was obviously doomed. Could Cnut’s English allies claim the same thing? Charmed, Cnut made Godwin the first Earl of Wessex, and even allowed him to marry his sister-in-law. The formerly obscure noble became the most powerful native earl in England.

  To strengthen his legitimacy Cnut married into the native royal family. Athelred the Unready’s Norman widow Emma was both eligible and relatively young, and more than happy to abandon her two sons to regain royal power. The fact that Cnut was already married to an Englishwoman – Aelfgifu of Northampton – was tactfully overlooked. Aelfgifu faded quietly to the background, and Emma took up residence with Cnut. The new marriage proved successful, and in a short time Emma presented her husband with a boy that they named Harthacnut. Since Cnut already had two sons – Swein and Harald Harefoot – by his first wife, the succession was now secure.

  Cnut had crushed all opposition to his rule, so he disbanded his army, keeping only forty ships and their crews as a standing army. To pay off his veterans, he needed to raise the enormous sum of seventy-two thousand pounds of silver, roughly half of what Athelred the Unready paid out during his entire reign. It is a measure of Cnut’s control – and England’s financial stability – that he was able to do it. Ironically, he used the system that his predecessor had put in place to bribe the Vikings. The usual officials were sent out, and a final Danegeld payment was collected from the English to pay off the army that had conquered them. No sooner had Cnut released his forces, however, than his elder brother, Harald II, king of Denmark, died.

  Cnut only had his small English army available, but he picked up some Viking recruits and sailed for Denmark to press his claims for the crown. There was considerable irony in this latest campaign. After more than two centuries of abuse, the tables had finally turned. Now an English army was setting out to conquer Denmark. Accompanied by Earl Godwin and other English nobles, Cnut plundered his way to the Danish capital of Jelling, sweeping all resistance aside.186 The campaign inaugurated a remarkable decade of conquests, unparalleled in Viking history. Within a year he had been accepted as king of Denmark, and was recognized as the dominant figure of Scandinavia.

  The Swedes and Norwegians resisted his growing power, but they were both entering periods of weakness. At the battle of the Helgeå in 1026, Cnut’s longships defeated the combined navies of his enemies and he was recognized as king of Norway and parts of Sweden.

  Cnut returned to England where he received the submission of three Scottish kings – including Shakespeare’s Macbeth – and possibly a representative of Viking Dublin. The Irish battle of Clontarf had been fought in 1014, the year Cnut had prepared his invasion of England. The shattering of Irish Viking power had left a vacuum that allowed Cnut to dominate the western colonies and their important trading contacts.

  Cnut had ascended to heights beyond even the wildest imaginations of those first raiders who had poured out of Scandinavia in the eighth century. He ruled a vast northern Empire, stretching from the Baltic to the Irish Seas, from Scandinavia to the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Isle of Man. He had become the greatest of the sea-kings, ruler of the only North Sea Empire in history.

  Cnut intended to be more than a simple conqueror, however. His vision was to unite his disparate holdings into a single state. English style coins were minted in Scandinavia, so that merchants hawking their wares in Copenhagen or London were paid with similar coins. He also brought his system of weights and measures into line with those used in Constantinople, hoping to integrate his lands into the broader European marketplace.187

  By 1027, Cnut’s status as one of the premier monarchs of Europe was confirmed when the Pope personally invited him to watch the coronation of the new Roman Emperor Conrad II. Although Cnut traveled leisurely to Rome as a pilgrim, the trip was a public relations triumph. The Emperor was a similar age, and the two hit it off immediately. They walked side by side in the processions, and were seated next to each other in public. The German territory of Schleswig, the land bridge between the German empire and Denmark, had been a source of conflict between the two kingdoms for generations. As a measure of his affection for his new-found brother monarch, Conrad donated it to Cnut, and the Dane pledged his daughter Gunnhild to Conrad’s son.

  The coronation itself left a lasting imprint on Cnut. As soon as he returned to England he commissioned a replica of the imperial crown, and assiduously cultivated the image, if not the title, of imperial rule. He ruled England for nearly two decades, on the whole wisely and well. When he died in 1035, he was genuinely mourned. The body was taken to Winchester and interred in a crypt in the cathedral.

  He should be remembered as one of England’s greatest monarchs, but instead he remains curiously distant. One reason is surely that most of what he built collapsed shortly after his death. Within a decade all of his children were dead and his empire had crumbled to dust. England returned once more to its native dynasty, and a Norwegian king conquered Denmark.

  Cnut was a man caught between two worlds. He was too Christian to be immortalized by the pagan skalds, and too pagan to serve as a Chri
stian hero. In many ways, the greatest of the Viking sea-kings wasn’t really a Viking at all. He took great pains to cast himself as a just and orderly ruler, made two pilgrimages to Rome, and used his influence to exempt his subjects from Roman tolls. In stark contrast to his ancestors who had targeted churches and earned the nickname ‘sea-wolves’ for their predatory activities, Cnut endowed numerous religious houses and donated countless precious chalices, crosses, and illuminated manuscripts to churches across his extensive lands.

  The most famous vignette from his life is not prowess in battle or generosity with spoils, it is of him sitting in a chair and commanding the waves to retreat. Far from a delusion of grandeur, this was his lesson to his flattering courtiers – that even the power of the greatest of kings was ultimately empty. Only the divine should be worshiped.

  But despite all of the king’s pious activities, the offerings, tax exemptions, and church building, he could never quite shake the Viking reputation for paganism.188 When he donated some gifts to a French cathedral, its bishop expressed surprise, writing that he had heard Cnut was ‘a heathen prince’. The bloody battles and cloudy marital situation contributed to the unease, and there were few glowing accounts written of his life. As much as he was appreciated by his English subjects, he was never fully accepted as one of them.

  Cnut’s ambiguous place in English history was mirrored by the Vikings themselves, whose world was rapidly changing. The restless days of adventuring young men, plundering monasteries, exploring the oceans, and returning as sea-kings were over. Although Christ had not yet completely vanquished Odin, the pirates had largely turned to merchants, and the skalds to priests. The Viking skill at shipbuilding had been turned to the construction of magnificent wooden churches, and missionaries were active throughout the north.189