Danish invasions of England

“ It must be remembered that until quite modern times South London was liable to be flooded at every high tide, and it is more than probable that the only pioneering work imposed upon the Danish warriors consisted in making short cuts from one reed-grown watercourse to another, and in clearing a fairway. Cnut thus brought his lighter vessels above the bridge and completed the blockade; but the citizens held out stoutly, hoping for relief from Eadmund.
The King had reached Wessex safely, and the men of his dynasty’s homeland soon began to rally to his banner. ”

“ But with the usual Viking treachery, he merely transferred himself to Bemfleet, in Essex. The East Anglian Danes received him with open arms, and a great plan of operations was framed. While Hæsten ‘contained’ the English on the Thames, the ‘Great Army’ was to penetrate across the Weald into Wessex, sending a detachment with the fleet to Hæsten. Meanwhile forty Northumbrian Danish ships were to enter the Bristol Channel, and 100 more, partly Northumbrian, partly East Anglian, would sail down the east coast and attack Wessex from the south. ”

“ In June he was able to take the field and defeat a Danish force at Penselwood. Cnut sent off in haste an Anglo-Danish army under Thorkil and the traitor Eadric, but Eadmund defeated them at Sherston, and marched for London. He burst through Cnut’s lines into the city and broke up the siege. Cnut collected his forces on the south bank of the Thames, but Eadmund, two days later, slipped away up the river and forced a passage at Brentford. The Danes, however, though beaten, were not routed, and the English lost many men by drowning—apparently because they had scattered to plunder. ”

“ It succeeded admirably—the Danes hurried back from Mercia to save their153 homes. By accident they came upon the Kentish troops isolated, and after a furious engagement gained a Pyrrhic success. Nearly every man of note on both sides fell, including, on the Danish side, both the English claimant and Eric, King of East Anglia. There was, perhaps, more indecisive fighting, but in 903 a treaty was made with Guthrum II. of East Anglia on the basis of the status quo ante. ”

“ The third period of the Danish invasions begins in this reign; when the Danes proceed to conquer England for their own. The reason why the old enemy now became particularly formidable is to be sought in the changes which were taking place in the north of Europe. There Denmark had become a formidable monarchy in close alliance with Norway and Sweden. For the first ten years of Ethelred's reign, however, it was not in a position to become aggressive, owing to the struggle that was going on between Harold Bluetooth and his son Sweyn. ”

“ Now, however, the pirate had undertaken to defend the land. The presence of Danish mercenaries was doubtless an inconvenience, but this would be temporary only. It was to be expected that, as in the days of Alfred, the enemy would settle down as an occupant of the soil, and in time become a subject instead of a mercenary soldier.
But just at this moment, an invasion of a far more serious nature was being prepared in Denmark. In the councils of Roeskild Sweyn Forkbeard was asking his henchmen what they thought of renewing the attack on England. ”

“ After directing how his kingdom and his property should be divided between his sons, he ordained that throughout his dominions one man in ten, whether a native or a foreigner, should be supplied with meat, drink and clothing by his successors until the Day of Judgment, always supposing “that there should still be men and cattle in the land and that the country should not have become quite desolate,” a striking evidence of the anxieties caused by the Danish invasions. ”

“ Valuable libraries, and collections of art and other valuable property, were destroyed by fire, 1,100 soldiers and citizens were killed and eight hundred wounded. The Danes had to surrender their whole fleet, which was then brought to England. The English government now gave Denmark the choice between three conditions: neutrality, an alliance, or war. In case of war Denmark was threatened with destruction of the Danish and Norwegian merchant marine, the occupation of Copenhagen by the Swedes, and, possibly, the forcible transfer of Norway to England’s ally, Sweden. ”

“ Beyond a doubt, Denmark to-day is much more favorably situated than when Prussia despoiled the country of Schleswig-Holstein, and while little apprehension exists on the score of Germany again attacking her northern neighbor, should a war break out between England and the German Empire it might prove impossible for either belligerent to keep Danish territory inviolate. Denmark’s neutrality would be thrown to the winds where the fate of empires would be at stake. Still, in her defense of such neutrality, Denmark would gain time sufficient to make any trespasser pause before advancing. ”

“ For as the Britons in Wales and Cornwall constantly nourished a lively hatred against the Anglo-Saxons, on whose lands they continued to make war, the Danes often entered into an alliance with them against their common enemies. The Danish and British armies were either combined, or else the Britons attacked from the west and south, whilst the Danes invaded the eastern coasts. ”

“ The dispute became most vehement in the case of the Danish frigate Freya, which, together with the merchantmen under her convoy, were brought into an English port, after a sharp engagement on the 25th of July, 1800; and the English, aware of the hostile negotiations which were going on in the north, at once despatched an expedition against Denmark.
Sixteen English ships of war suddenly appeared before Copenhagen, and most unexpectedly threatened the harbour and city with a destructive bombardment, if Denmark did not at once acknowledge England’s right of search at sea. ”

“ Little as is known about them, there is every reason to believe that the art of war formed no exception to the general rudeness and ignorance of the age. [1] Indeed there is positive evidence, in the fact that the first Danish invaders, who appeared before England had come to own a single ruler, found the English far their inferiors in arms, in skill, in everything but mere courage. The English had no coherent organisation, no practice in combined warfare, no defensive armour. ”

“ The Danish wars began again in 893. For years now there was a great deal of fighting. Two large bodies of Danes, one of them under the famous chief Hasting, landed in Kent in 893 and fixed themselves in fortresses which they built. And the Danes who had settled in Northumberland and East-Anglia helped them, though they had all sworn oaths to King Alfred, and those in East-Anglia had also given hostages. There was fighting all over the south of England throughout 894, and the King had to go constantly backward and forward to keep up with the Danes. ”

“ Doubtless the Danish invasions struck a heavy blow at learning and literature, a blow from the effects of which not even the heroic activities of an Alfred could save them, but there can be no question that in the development of town life, in the promotion of trade, in the improvement of organisation and administration, in the modification of legal procedure the invaders conferred great benefits on the country as a whole. ”

“ The incessant warfare of the Danish period, and of the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion, must have been destructive to the industrial arts; yet we meet occasionally with some external evidence of their existence even then. ”

“ The Danes were to desist from their ravages, but were allowed to stay in England. Next year AEthelred himself broke the peace by an attack on the Danish ships. Despite the treachery of AElfric, the English were victorious; and the Danes sailed off to ravage Lindsey and Northumbria. In 994 Olaf Tryggvason, king of Norway, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, united in a great invasion and attacked London. Foiled by the valour of the citizens, they sailed away and harried the coast from Essex to Hampshire. ”

“ But by a defensive alliance with Russia, Prussia, and Sweden in 1801, Denmark involved herself in a quarrel with England, suffered severely in the naval battle off Copenhagen, and lost her colonies in the East and West Indies, which were restored to her, however, by the treaty of peace which followed. In 1807, when England suspected Denmark of entering into an alliance with Napoleon, an English fleet was sent to the Baltic to compel the surrender of the entire Danish navy. ”

“ Alfred by this treaty was acknowledged as undisputed master of England south of the Thames; of Wessex and Essex, including London, Hertford, and St. Albans; of the whole of Mercia west of Watling Street,--the great road from London to Chester; but the Danes retained also one half of England, which shows how formidable they were, even in defeat. The Danes and the Saxons, it would seem, commingled, and gradually became one nation.
The great Danish invasion of the ninth century was successful, since it gave half of England to the Pagans. It is a sad thing to contemplate. ”

“ From this time it became the custom for the English monarchs to have continually a standing army, composed mostly of Danes, “Huskarlene,” or “Thingmen,” as they were called (Þingmannalið) , whose duty it was to keep the country quiet, and to defend it against foreign invasion; whence they sometimes came to fight against their own countrymen. King Athelstan (925-941) had, however, almost a century earlier, made use of Danish warriors to suppress revolt in his kingdom ”

“ But particularly if bones or joints of unusual size are found, they are at once concluded to be the remains of the gigantic Danes, whose immense bodily strength and never-failing courage had so often inspired their forefathers with terror. For though the Englishman has stories about the cruelties of the ancient Danes, their barbarousness, their love of drinking, and other vices, he has still preserved no slight degree of respect for Danish bravery and Danish achievements. "As brave as a Dane," is said to have been an old phrase in England ”

“ Alfred's successors annexed the Danelaw which Alfred had left to Guthrum, but their efforts to assimilate the Danes provoked in the first place a reaction against West Saxon influence which threatened more than once to separate England north of the Thames from Wessex, and, secondly, a determination on the part of Danes across the sea to save their fellow-countrymen in England from absorption. Other causes no doubt assisted to bring about a renewal of Danish invasion ”

“ Old and young, women and children, were murdered with the most frightful tortures. Not even the churches could protect the Christian Danes against the fury of the Anglo-Saxons. The slaughter was, however, confined almost exclusively to the south of England; since towards the north, and particularly in Northumberland, the population was chiefly of Danish and Norwegian extraction. ”

“ A fleet and army were dispatched to the Baltic. An assault of three days gave the Danish fleet into our hands. The confederacy was broken up by the British batteries; and the armament returned, with twenty sail of the enemy's line, as trophies of the best planned and boldest expedition of the war.
Napoleon raged; but it was at finding that England could show a promptitude like his own, sanctioned by a better cause. Denmark complained pathetically of the infringement of peace, before she had "completed her preparations for war;" ”

“ It was not till the time that the Danes and Norwegians began to invade the countries of the west, and to make great conquests there, and consequently not till the ninth century, that we find the oldest traces of the Danes, or rather perhaps the Danish-Norwegian Vikings, having fought under one flag; which was not, like the earlier ones, that of a single chief, but rather an established national ensign. We must remember that they were heathens, making war upon a Christian land, and fighting for Odin and Thor against White [5] Christ. ”

“ These Danes have come as our forefathers came here, to take a new and better country for themselves, but the strife between them and us is not as the strife between alien peoples. They are our kin, but between us and the Welsh was hatred of race. They will settle down, and never will East Anglia pass from Danish hands, even if Ethelred of Wessex makes headway enough to be owned as overlord of England by them. Now therefore is there one place in all England where peace has come, and to that place I would go to end my days. Here in London the tide of war will ebb and flow ever. ”

“ It cannot reasonably be reproached to the Danes exclusively that, in order to obtain settlements in England, they made their way with fire and sword, for this was no more than all other conquerors, and particularly the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, had done before them. With regard to bloodshed, and acts of violence and destruction, the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England exceeded rather than fell short of the Danish. It annihilated the civilization which had been so widely disseminated there by the Romans, and subjugated or expelled the older inhabitants in the most frightful manner. ”

“ It should not pass altogether unnoticed that the sympathies of the English for Denmark, and their fraternal feeling towards the Danish people, have increased in proportion as they have been obliged to acknowledge that the Danes of modern times still know how to defend their independence, liberty, and honour, with the bravery inherited from their forefathers. Not to speak of the last contest, so glorious for Denmark, it is particularly the battle in Copenhagen Roads, the 2nd of April, 1801, which has maintained in England the ancient fame of Danish valour. ”