#Danish longphort viking conquest full#

His swift conquest sent the Anglo-Saxons’ native ruler, Æthelred (nicknamed ‘the Unready’) into exile in Normandy, leaving his English subjects to pay a large tribute and supply their conqueror and his army with provisions.

#Danish longphort viking conquest full#

When, as a near-contemporary English chronicler reported, “all the nation regarded him as full king”, the citizens of London finally capitulated and submitted, giving the Dane hostages, “for fear that he would destroy them”. After a brief campaign, he secured the submission of all the English people apart from the inhabitants of London. How did Sweyn Forkbeard become king of England?Īround one thousand years ago, the king of Denmark (and lord also over Norway and Sweden) invaded England with a large fleet. There Sweyn is praised as a fortunate, generous and religious king. Most medieval accounts of his career followed the lead given by a German chronicler, Adam of Bremen, who denigrated Sweyn for failing to recognise the authority of the German emperor and not acknowledging the ecclesiastical authority of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen.Ī more positive picture is offered in a text in praise of Emma of Normandy, widow of Æthelred the Unready, who went on to marry Cnut, Sweyn’s son. Sweyn’s nickname, Forkbeard, is first recorded in a chronicle from Roskilde, compiled about 1140.