Gone Medieval - Sweyn Forkbeard: First Viking King of England

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Sweyn Forkbeard was the first Viking King of England, however you'd be forgiven for potentially forgetting who he was given he was only King for five short weeks, being declared King on Christmas Day 1013, and ruling till his death on 3rd February 1014.Part of a distinguished line of Viking rulers, he was the son of Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark, and the father to Cnut the Great, the last Viking King of England.Today, Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr Caitlin Ellis, Associate Professor in Medieval Nordic History at the Univeristy of Oslo, to answer all the important questions: who was Sweyn Forkbeard? How did he become King of England? Was he a successful ruler? And did he really have a fork beard?If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like our episodes on: Cnut the Great, Harald Bluetooth, and Harald Hardrada.This episode was produced by Elena Guthrie and Joseph Knight. It was edited by Joseph Knight.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. In the late 11th century, the Peterborough Chronicle was begun. A huge undertaking passed from English monastery to monastery. It was meant to record the history of Britain since the birth of Christ. In it, the monks record an incredible feat from the year 1013, where they report that Before the month of August came King Sven with his fleet to sandwich. He went very quickly about East Anglia into the Humber's mouth,

and so upward along the Trent till he came to Gainsborough. Earl Utred and all Northumbria quickly bowed to him, as did all the people of the Kingdom of Lindsay, then the people of the five boroughs. He was given hostages from each shire. When he understood that all the people had submitted to him, he bade that his force should be provisioned and horsed. He went south with the main part of the invasion force. After he came over Watling Street, they went to Oxford,

and the town dwellers soon bowed to him and gave hostages. From there, they went to Winchester, and the people did the same. Then eastward, to London. But who was this king's fenn? And how did he manage to make such a quick conquest of the English kingdom? I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga, and today on Gone Medieval from History Hit, I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Caitlin Ellis, the associate professor in medieval Nordic history at the University of Oslo,

to talk about one of the most enigmatic of English kings, the Viking Sven Forkbeard. Caitlin, returning champion to Gone Medieval. Thank you so much for coming back once again. Thank you for having me. I'm absolutely delighted because we're going to talk about one of these kind of legendary figures today. I think this is one of those names that people know. Like, if you say it, people say, oh, yeah, that kind of sounds familiar. But let's just start with the most basic question, which is who was Sven Forkbeard?

Yeah, so he's a Danish king in the sort of late 10th and into the 11th century. He's obviously most well known for having successfully invaded England. Before that, we don't have necessarily quite so much information about his kind of youth and childhood. There's a lot of sources that say that he was a member of this thing called the Yoms Vikings, that were sort of this almost like elite kind of warrior band. in a way, kind of young Vikings based in a kind of stronghold called Yomsborg, because that's where they get their name from, so sort of in the Baltic Sea. So there's lots of legends about them, but there's not necessarily that much that we can actually kind of pin down. But yeah, lots of

kind of macho stories about what they get up to. Well, okay, even more important question. Did he have a forked beard? Presumably, so none of the sources actually kind of explicitly say he's called forked beard because his beard, you know, divides in two or something like that. There's a few of the sources that kind of say, like, later he was called Sven Fork Beards, you know, and I don't know if that's just because, you know, probably when he's young and when he's a child, he probably doesn't have the beard, yeah. So maybe, you know, he gets introduced into the story and we say, well, later he's called this.

I mean, some of the nicknames that we have for kind of other Vikings, yeah, do seem fairly straightforward and just sort of descriptive like that. So we have a fork called The Tall who's also will probably feature in our story later on. So yeah, presumably he's just a bit taller than other people. There's a Norwegian king a bit later on who's called Magnus Bear Legs. And then they actually almost seem to not quite know why he's called that later on. So you kind of get different stories that some were saying, oh, his legs were bare because he's kind of wearing like a kilt type thing.

And then another story says, oh, it was because one time he got surprised in battle. So he kind of had to like hurry into battle without having time to put his trousers on. So sometimes it seems like, you know, later on, they don't actually quite know where the nickname came from, but presumably he does have forked beard. I mean, I'm going to choose to believe that this bare-leg die is like a medieval proof of a shorts all-year guy. You know, they've always been with us. There's always somebody who's wearing shorts for no reason. Okay, a more important note about our good friend Sven, who may or may not have a beard. We know that he came from one of the elite Danish families, right?

And I know that he's the son of Harold Bluetooth, who was the king of Denmark, and he's the one that we largely credit with kind of introducing Christianity to the Danish lands as they were. Is that about right? Yeah, exactly. Yes. So, as you say, Harold Bluetooth, he's kind of the first king of Denmark in a sense of having kind of wider rule. There were lots of kind of regional or sort of petty kings before that. So sort of probably between Harold and Sven, they really kind of forge a more kind of united Denmark.

But yes, as you say, he's also known for kind of bringing Christianity. He has the yelling stone, the sort of big stone and big inscription at a site called yelling in Denmark. He tells us that he won all Denmark for himself and he converted them all to Christianity, which probably was a slightly more gradual process in reality. And yet, Sven's mother is also probably from maybe a different kind of regional Danish dynasty. And again, Harold's father maybe had some control in Denmark. So it's still quite a recent thing that this dynasty is really kind of coming to that prominence and sort of forging a new way.

And what are familial relationships like at this point in time are Harold and Sven getting on? Or is this one of the more rocky familial situations? Yeah, so we don't have lots and lots of evidence, unfortunately, but we do have the source of the Encomium, M.I. Reginae from a few generations later, so commissioned by Emma of Normandy, who's married to Knut, who's married to Sven's son. So presumably they do have access to kind of good information. You know, this is sort of from people in the family. You'd assume some of this has been passed down. It's also obviously trying to cast this sort of Anglo-Danish dynasty in quite a good light. But yeah, so that source says that Sven was kind of loved, by all of the people in Denmark, but hated by his father, and that the father was kind of envious of him, maybe because he was so loved by the people. So that obviously suggests that there's some tensions there. We don't really quite know what the root cause of that was. And that source also says that Harold kind of wanted to cast Sven out

and kind of that he made an oath that, like, he will not rule after me. So maybe that sort of suggests that he's like even denying his parentage slightly or just that he doesn't want him to be the air. I guess you kind of assume there might have been some other sons knocking around, but we don't sort of know for certain. But I guess the fact that it is in this source from maybe like six years later, it's actually quite far away from Sven's childhood. It's almost as long as, you know, the dynasty had even had power in Denmark at all. It's the fact that they're still talking about it. You kind of feel like it's a little bit raw or maybe just that Sven is having to kind of justify himself a little bit like his reputation, even if it's sort of posthumously that the family are kind of interested in.

in that it must have been quite intense or that he was known for having had this dispute with Harold. So some of the sources say that Sven ends up deposing his father. It's one thing for our father to say okay, well, I simply choose to elect another one of my sons.

We're not going in birth order here, which is fairly common. But some of these things say that Sven kind of gets out in front of his dad on this one. So is that accurate? Yeah, so you're right. Quite a few sources say that Sven comes to power sort of in a rebellion by kind of deposing Harold's, not a nice kind of smooth transition or, you know, Harold on his deathbed saying, okay, fine, you can have it. So I suppose what the sources are maybe disagreeing

about is kind of why, why this happens. So some of the sources, like Adam of Brayman, kind of writing in a German religious institution, he says this is because Sven is like an apostate, he's like really, really pagan. This whole thing is like a pagan reaction to Harold and his Christianity because Harold was wonderful. So therefore Sven must be awful. for having tried to kind of get rid of him. But we don't really have any other evidence that Sven was a pagan. You know, everything else suggests that he was a Christian. He might have been kind of getting his bishops not from Hamburg-Brahman,

which is why Adam of that institution doesn't like him. So that's maybe part of it. And there maybe was a sense that they wanted Harold Bluthiv to be made as saint, you know, because he could be the big sort of patron saint of Denmark for being the one that converted. So then it seems like Sven's reputation kind of suffers sort of later on because of the way that he's come to power. But yeah, as I say, those sources, like the Encomium,

just kind of say, well, Sven was really popular and that kind of the army and sort of people like sided with him. So it's difficult to know, I suppose, how much this was Sven's own initiative or whether there was kind of more general sort of political unrest and a particular faction seizes on him as sort of being the one that they can use as their kind of figureheads if they got a bit sick of Harold for whatever reason.

I mean, I suppose also two things can be true. It could be true that, you know, Hamburg Bremen are not particularly happy because they see their Danish possession slipping away from them. And, you know, your average Danish person is like, I like this guy, great beard. Yeah, totally. We sort of know at least that the end result, at least, seems to be that there is this kind of battle and that the army kind of desert Harold and sort of are loyal to Sven and that Harold is kind of wounded. So he's not actually killed straight away. Then he kind of flees to the Slav. So he flees because he's had some kind of diplomatic connection. connections with them and then he dies shortly after. That's great. Okay, so one rivalry down, Dad's dead. But he soon picks up a new one, right? Because he gets into a bit of a twist with the Norwegian king, Olaf Tregweson. Yeah.

So, I mean, Olaf isn't King of Norway when they first meet. So it is a really kind of interesting situation that actually they both, both Sven Fortbitt and Olaf Trigvison have been raiding in England. You know, they've been doing kind of classic Viking things, going to England, raiding, getting some money, going home again. So they're both recorded actually kind of like acting together, being on the same side in part of the same larger army in 994, attacking London. So yeah, originally they're on the same side, at least temporarily.

We think Sven might have been also there in 991, when there's the Battle of Molden, which people might have heard of because there's this kind of famous old English poem. We know Olaf is definitely there, so maybe Sven is there as well. And, you know, this poem is kind of all about how the English. English decide they won't just pay this kind of ransom, this sort of protection money to be left alone. You know, they're going to heroically fight against the Vikings. So they all die, but heroically, you know. So it's a very good piece of literature, but maybe not the most

practical military tactic in the long run. But anyway, so the main point for us, I suppose, is that Olaf seems to then change sides later on. So Effelred, the unready, as he's called a king of the English, he sends people maybe to go and negotiate. with Olaf. So there's this kind of usual sort of, you know, diplomatic exchange, usual way that you kind of maybe forge an alliance. And it culminates with Olaf being baptized, or some people say he's confirmed he might be baptized before. Sometimes Vikings maybe might get baptized multiple times because they don't quite see the significance of this. There's a big ceremony in which Olaf is baptized and Eiffelred is sort of his sponsor. But that definitely has quite strong kind of like

political overtones with Eiffelred as the sponsor. he's kind of in a superior position in kind of a godfather sense, right? So that sort of, you know, suggests that Olaf is slightly the junior party in a way in this alliance. So then Olaf in 995 goes to Norway is able to kind of take control because presumably he's got all this sort of money and kind of followers that he's built up in England. So perhaps Eiffelred is actually being quite clever here or sort of trying to divide the Viking armies that are kind of plaguing England at the time. Okay, so one way or another, though, we've got Olaf now fighting with Sven because Ethelred's paid him off. Is that fair? Yeah, I think that's on race to say, yeah, exactly. And that's all great for Ethelred. But this actually turns into real fighting between Denmark and Norway, yes? Yes. Yeah. So in this period, Denmark sort of has often had control over Norway. It unified a bit quicker. It's maybe got a bit more money, sort of a bit easier to govern as well, just sort of landscape-wise.

So they've often had this influence over Norway. So how well Bluetooth, Sven's father had that, at least for most of his reign. And they've often kind of ruled with these earls of Lada in sort of northern kind of coastal Norway. Trondelag and Hallogaland had kind of like loose overlordship over them or sort of ruled through them. But the Earl of Lada is killed kind of at the same time as Olaf comes back to Norway. So that sort of enables Olaf to kind of take control. So yeah, the Danes probably feel like this is a kind of a challenge. to their traditional overlordship in Scandinavia.

Okay, so we've got this fighting. But eventually, Sven kind of is able to claw some land back off of Olaf, right? Yes, there's a battle in the year 1,000, nice and easy to remember in September. It was sort of a naval battle. It's called the Battle of Svalda. So this is this big defeat for Olaf. A lot of the sources kind of say that he actually, like, froze himself into the water, kind of like jumps off one of the ships rather than be murdered, I guess.

then we do get some sort of slightly hopeful stories that sort of, you know, but he was never seen again. So maybe he got away and maybe he's going to come back and like save us a bit like a kind of King Arthur idea maybe. But yeah, Olaf is probably quite like outnumbered because, you know, he's facing Sven and his forces from Denmark. He's also facing the sons of this Earl of Larder, this sort of Norwegian Earl who was killed a few years before. So they kind of want to get their power back for that their family's hell. They want to get their lands back. and Sven also has the Swedish forces on his side as well because he's previously kind of managed to take control of Sweden

he married the widow of the Swedish king in a similar way I guess to you know later on we get Canute marrying Emma as the widow of the English king it's sort of a similar tactic maybe to get a little bit of kind of continuity as it were so then there is a Swedish king but he's known as sort of tributary king is his nickname so that sort of suggests he's maybe not quite independent so he's acting with Sven so the outcome of that is basically a kind of a return to the status quo maybe before.

Olaf had those five years ruling Norway. So Denmark maybe gets the direct control over the southern tip of Norway, so actually including modern Oslo, maybe Sweden gets a little bit of territory as well. But then, yeah, mostly those earls are kind of basically in charge, but sort of nominally maybe with Sven as they're kind of overlord. So we've consolidated part of southern Norway again. Great. Good things are happening for Sven.

And I suppose at this point, he says, well, I can go look in on England again, right? So it's about 103. And he starts hitting kind of strategic points. So, you know, Devin is attacked and then East Anglia, which we completely expect. So that furt is sacked, Norwich is sacked. And then, you know, he kind of wanders off again about two years later in a thousand and five or so. This is standard Viking stuff. You know, no one is surprised that a Viking is showing up and sacked.

things. But is anything slightly different in England at the time when Sven kind of reappears on the scene? Yeah, as you say, in some ways, it's fairly standard Viking stuff. We're obviously at a slightly different scale maybe than we think of if we were talking about the Great Army, something like that, because these people are now more powerful and they've obviously got more resources to draw on. But as you say, probably the timing is maybe based on the fact that he's now dealt with Olaf. Maybe it just takes him a couple of years to kind of fully regain control or consolidate feel a bit more secure, you know, before kind of risking launching some big expeditions to England. And yeah, England at the time, it's obviously so an attractive target, you know, it's wealthy.

Maybe some kind of weaknesses are being exposed because there's just been, yeah, this real like attrition of raids that they've been having to deal with. We have vast numbers of English coins being found in Scandinavia from the same. period so we know that that's happening. F-O-red, I guess, listeners might have heard of, he doesn't have the best reputation. His nickname being the unready, even if it maybe doesn't necessarily mean the same thing in modern English, but maybe something about ill-counseled, something like that. So he doesn't necessarily have the best reputation because, I guess, it goes badly for him.

We know, you know, with a benefit of hindsight, that it all goes horribly wrong. And to maybe see this policy of kind of paying off the Vikings sometimes rather than, yeah, heroically defending against them in the kind of Battle of Mulden style. And I suppose England is still also maybe fairly recently unified in a way. Obviously a lot earlier than Denmark and sort of other parts of Europe, we can trace Fred's dynasty, you know, back to Alfred. But there's still probably some kind of regional tensions there. There's still the area that had a lot of Scandinavian settlement after this last big wave

of raiding after the Great Army. And we've still got quite a few maybe powerful nobles. So as often there'll be this tension between. the king and those, yeah, those kind of powerful nobles who in some ways he relies on, because you need your allies, you need your supporters, you need the people who will act for you in the local areas or help raise an army or whatever it might be. But I suppose, yeah, if they get too powerful, then maybe that can start to be a bit of a problem for you or can cause some kind of tensions at court. And I suppose what do you think of the view that perhaps

one of the reasons that Sven shows up around this point is as a result of, you know, of the St. Bryce's Day massacre. And the St. Bryce's Day massacre kicks off because in about 2002 or so, Ethel Red is told that the Danish settlers who'd been living in England were going to, quote, faithlessly take his life and then all his counselors and possess his kingdoms afterwards, which, you know, a lot of kings don't like that quite famously. And then, you know, apparently there's a huge massacre of a lot of the Danish people who are living in England, but certainly I think we know in Oxford. So do you think

that there's any possibility that this is something that Sven is responding to? So definitely some of our later sources say that that is what's going on. So William of Malmesbury, who's writing in the 12th century, sort of Anglo-Norman kind of English historian, he says that Sven's sister, Gunnhild, and her husband as well were killed in this massacre. So that kind of gives Sven a very, very personal kind of motivation, you know, to take revenge. But it seems probably that might just be a convenient story. We don't have any other kind of mention of their sister anywhere else. It's not the first time that Sven's ever raided in England and it's also not the last time, you know, it's not the big invasion push or a few years later either. So I think it might partly just be kind of a good story

or, yeah, providing a simpler explanation for what's probably quite complicated in terms of politics and economics. When are the conditions in Sven's home country, you know, right, that he can feel that he can go to England and launch some sort of military force, but also, yeah, when does it go well in English terms? We're also sort of not actually quite sure in a way quite how this massacre kind of plays out that, yeah, presumably at this point you can't tell who's originally of Danish origin in this area that we know is the Dane law, if these are people that settled kind of generations before. So we assume that this maybe is about more recent settlers or if it's mercenaries or sort of soldiers who were involved in this very recent

raiding who just stuck around for some reason or presumably they might also even just have been to kind of Danish merchants and people who are going about their business maybe and aren't actually connected to this but happened to be actually Danish. Yeah, it does seem to be something that kind of shocks people at the time. I think even some of the kind of the Norman sources, people from outside also seem to remark that this was like an unusual thing. They seem a little bit horrified, a little bit shocked. But I mean, one way or another, we know that Sven is attacking repeatedly in this period. And what's the kind of generalized English response to that? It's a little bit mixed in a way. There is some kind of armed resistance, I suppose they are

other times. Maybe they are just being bought off kind of like protection money. There's one battle in 1004 that seems to be fairly successful for the English damaging to the Danes, but the survivors are kind of able just to escape on their ships. So I suppose that's one of the things about these Viking armies, these fleets, is they have that kind of flexibility, perhaps, that as long as they can get to the ships and escape, they've got a kind of a way out maybe. And they managed to storm Exeter, which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle blames on a French churl who's not quite clear whether he just kind of let them in or sort of what happens, but that's in 1003.

And then we also have, there's a large army in Wiltshire, and then we're told that the commander, the person who's supposed to lead them into battle pretends to be ill and is like pretending that he's throwing up, that he's like retching, and then sort of go, oh, I'm sorry, I feel very ill. I have to leave now. So he's obviously afraid to die. So, you know, we get told that in some ways the English are let down by some of their own, in a way, is the impression that we get in the sources, yeah. I'm sorry, I just love it. It's like an eight-year-old trying to get out of school. It's brilliant. One way or another, you know, by 105 Sven has pulled out. And do we know why that is? We're told that in that year there's like great famine kind of throughout England and

then the fleet goes back. So maybe just because there's this big famine, there's slimmer picking, so they're not going to bother sticking around. But yeah, I mean, that affects a lot of Western Europe as well. So I mean, whether Sven feels like it needs to go back to Denmark and check on things. So I say it might just be, yeah, that kind of flexibility that these fleets have and they can be so opportunistic. Maybe they've kind of just got what they wanted. They've got a lot of money by now. they've had this tribute. So yeah, he might just achieve what he'd wanted to achieve, perhaps. Then, you know, eight years later, in 10-13, it's Forkbeard the Return, you know.

And this time it's much more clearly an attempt at conquest, right? He lands at Gainsborough, which is in Lincolnshire. He's got a huge army. A lot of English and Danish people immediately sort of flock to him. That's interesting. This is a real statement of intent. But this does beg the question, do we know what Sven's doing for? eight years? Yeah. I mean, the short answer is no, not in any great detail. But if we're kind of able to

look back and see how successful kind of the dynasty goes on to be, presumably he does actually have like a lot of work to do like in Denmark on the ground. As we said, the kind of way that he came to power isn't necessarily the smoothest transition and that that dynasty hadn't actually been kings of all of Denmark for generations. There maybe still were tensions or like different factions. So yeah, looking back, we can see that there's things. this like sort of growth of power and it goes well. But presumably that actually took quite a lot of effort on his part. Presumly he's just having to consolidate his position or sort of build his allies. So yeah, he does achieve quite a lot on an internal front as well as the externally going

abroad and invading. So yeah, we do end up with a much more kind of powerful United country. He does also seem to make efforts with Christianity kind of in general in his reign and you know, build churches and things. So there is maybe another side to him as well rather than just they're kind of the warrior side too. I suppose what I've said, you know, here he comes, and he's back in England and he's got a huge invasion force. Is that just me projecting? Do we think that his motivations were different?

To me, it looks like this is a little bit more concerted of an effort to take over and less of just, oh, well, we're going to raid. But, you know, am I just kind of making that up with the benefit of hindsight? Yes. Other times we can sort of be worried about hindsight, but no, I think here you're quite right. as you said, the fact that he seems to go for these kind of strategic places that he goes to Gainsborough, goes to this kind of power centre and take submission from the people there. So presumably there has maybe been some communication between them before this that we don't have a lot of information

about. And he also gets submission from the five boroughs, so this sort of area of the Dane law, this area of Scandinavian settlement. There's also been perhaps an attempted invasion by Forkal the Toll, you mentioned right at the beginning, the sort of other kind of Danish kind of warlord, sort of powerful, noble. So it might be that actually Fawkel was almost like doing too well. And then that's like a threat for Sven, you know, like if another kind of powerful war leader like from your country is doing really well somewhere else. And yeah, again, getting all this money and kind of this reputation and maybe building up your followers. Maybe Sven is worried that Fawkel will actually take England and then is he then going to try and come back to Denmark or is he going to try and do

what Ola Tregfusson did in Norway and leverage all of these resources to try and take take back the homeland. So yeah, perhaps he just doesn't want to miss out in a way. And then also, again, actually, we have Effelred's allying with a Viking trying to get them to switch sides. So that maybe also might be another kind of angle to that that, yeah, if FLED decided to support Fawkel in taking Denmark, that could be quite a kind of serious threat. So maybe if instead of letting all these people have potential access to stealing lots of money from England, maybe he just thinks, why don't I just control England and I can have the first strings, right? Yeah, so it does seem quite different maybe from what went on before. So speaking of Ethelred, if Ethelred is here,

perhaps conspiring to make things difficult in Denmark, there are some rumors that people in England are conspiring against Ethelred and that he might have received invitations to come on over and perhaps take the kingdom. But is that a reliable story? And if so, why do people want to get rid of Ethelred. Yeah, I mean, there have definitely been some tensions in Ethelred's reign. So there was maybe a sort of sometimes being called a palace revolution in 1005 to 6 after Sven left the previous time. But it didn't work out. But then there's quite sort of violent reprisals by Ephrod. So there's killings and sort of land has been confiscated. So, you know, that obviously will make some people unhappy. I suppose it maybe we just get this sense that there's some desperation in a way. Maybe, you know,

they've been facing all of these raids and all of these attacks. They're maybe just being like worn down. So I suppose maybe under those circumstances, it's not surprising. People might question the leadership, although, yeah, he obviously is in quite a difficult situation. Yeah, I suppose Effred is often compared sort of unfavorably to Alfred, because Alfred saved everybody from the Vikings, but Effred didn't. He's also dealing with a bigger problem and is supposed to defend a lot larger kind of

swave of land. So, yeah, I think even if Sven isn't necessarily directly invited, like, oh, please come and help us. He's definitely sort of able to exploit maybe this situation when there are these tensions. Some people have said, oh, you know, these places of what's known as the Dane law, maybe they would have this sense of kind of common Scandinavianness of some sort of common feelings that might make them more likely to kind of ally with a Danish ruler. But yeah, we've seen the Effelred will ally with Dains when it suits him. So maybe I'm a bit more cynical. I sort of think that a lot of it is a bit more, yeah, just opportunistic and sort of political. And,

And then there's also been tensions between Ethelred and his eldest sons. So his sons from his first marriage, so not the ones with Emma of Normandy, so not Edward the confessor, as he will later be. So, yeah, so there definitely are some tensions and so maybe different factions going on anyway. So, I mean, one of the things about Sven, that's great, is he manages to exploit those tensions. And, you know, he's shown up with an army, so far, so Viking. But one of the things he also does very brilliantly is he's really able to use marriage a lot. to kind of consolidate things in the north of England, right?

Yes. So he marries Canute. He marries his son to a woman called Alf Gifu, who is the daughter of Alfhelm of Northumbria, who was killed on Effored's orders by this guy called Aedrich Strainer, who seems quite kind of power hungry from the impression that we get. So again, yeah, there being these kind of rivalries between the nobles. Sometimes one side will have favor of the king, and, you know, that might change. You know, you can imagine that her family were not particularly pleased with Efforead. And as I say, they had maybe initially been allying with Efferred's kind of elder sons. So they maybe had been looking for, yeah, just alternatives to Efferred anyway.

And yeah, I say I think maybe there were more these kind of regional tensions within England that Efferred's dynasty are from Wessex, you know, this dynasty of Alfred from the kind of southwest. So maybe their control over the north and the east has never been quite as firm. and yet that's definitely something that Sven and Canute are able to try and use to their own advantage. I mean, I suppose he really does, you know, because he essentially takes the North fairly peacefully, fairly quickly, and then it's on, right? And Sven's off. He marches on south. He takes Oxford. Then he takes Winchester. That's a big kind of political get at the time. And London's still holding out. But at this point in time, then Wessex just completely submits the Sends. are like, yeah, fine, Sven, great.

And Ethelred then just runs, right? Which is incredible, right? You know, you expect that if anyone comes in with a large invading army, you would do something about it, but Ethelred's like, right, that's it, I'm off. You know what? How does Sven manage such a successful campaign with basically no major pitched battles? It is very impressive, really, as you say, the speed of which a lot of these places just submit. I mean, Oxford had suffered previously, you know, a few years before,

at the hands of a Viking army, whereas, as you implied, Winchester sort of has this extra kind of symbolic importance to Efforett's dynasty. So the loss of that kind of traditional power centre maybe has felt even more keenly. You know, often people say, oh, you know, he must have obviously just been such a brilliant kind of military commander, but we don't necessarily have quite as many details as we would like. But it may well just be that the English are really tired and fed up at this point. They've been fighting for all these years against these people that keep appearing and they maybe have really been worn down and say they had a few years where Forkle the toll was really causing a lot of damage basically. London holds out for longer.

Efferred and Forkle, who's on his side at this point, they're there. But I suppose, yeah, then everyone else has basically submitted now. So then they're kind of just encircled. So, yeah, maybe they're not left with that much choice. As you say, Effelred, he runs off to Normandy to his wife's family, takes Emma and the younger children, their children, the children they had together. and yeah, London is punished with a sort of extra large kind of payment for having resisting and for having held out.

So yeah, I think the only thing we can really say is probably it's just the damage done by the years of attacks has probably just weakened the defences. So yeah, maybe people just seem to see what way the wind is blowing slightly and just decide just to submit rather than do the risky opposition rather than do a Battle of Mulden with the kind of doomed but heroic resistance. So it kind of swan, forkbeard, fine, whatever, it's a king. Great. But wait, wait, is Sven the king now? If you chase what off, do you get to be king? Yeah, true. I mean, I suppose by a medieval standpoint that, yeah, there can just be rulership by right of conquest rather than by right of blood. But yeah, basically in effect, because all of these kind of regions, all of these people in England have submitted to him and yeah, the king's just like run off. He does, yeah, seem to be de facto king. We're not quite sure if Effelred's kind of elder sons, if they're

they're still around, or if they've fled, but maybe not to Normandy, maybe they've fled somewhere else. You know, Edmund Ironside is later able to try and resist Canute as one of Effered's sons. His older brother also just dies in 1014, so there's a bit of a loss there as well to the dynasty, which probably doesn't help things really either. I suppose it all becomes a moot point, right, because it's like record scratch, plot twist, Sven dies. Five weeks later, five weeks, and he's just dead. And I love this story because as a big fan of medieval ghost stories, there's this myth out there that he dies because the ghost of St. Edmund shows up and kills him with a sphere. However, as much as I love the story,

I'm not sure I believe it, you know, spoiler alert. How does Sven die? It is a really good story, the ghost story. And I suppose it's particularly appropriate that it's St. Edmund, the martyr, who, you know, was killed by Vikings, by the Great Army in this previous big wave of kind of Viking activity. So yeah, I guess you can definitely sense a kind of English point of view there that he gets his comeuppance for having done all this and put them through all this suffering. But yeah, obviously it maybe also makes the saint look good. You know, if you're in Barry St. Edmund's telling the story that our saint was able to get rid of this conqueror because he defended him. But yeah, we don't know exactly how he does die. And as you say, it's so

sort of interesting that it's so soon after. Yeah, he's maybe crowned on Christmas Day. And then we're maybe at the 3rd of February, and when he dies very suddenly, there isn't any suggestion of foul play in the contemporary sources, and you would sort of assume that would be mentioned if someone had assassinated him or poisoned, you know, done something like that, you would think that someone would have tried to take the credit or that people would have known about it at the time. So one of the theories is maybe that he just has some sort of like stroke

or kind of aneurism, some just sudden kind of medical issue. And it does seem actually that the men in his family are not that lucky in this regard, a lot of them actually die suddenly. A lot of them don't live to see a great kind of ripe old age. So, I mean, Canute also dies in his maybe, not quite sure, late 30s, early 40s. And his sons also die in their 20s. And there's a bit of a more detailed description of one of those sons and his death. And that sort of does sound a bit more like sort of a stroke or a sort of aneurysm.

So, yeah, it has been suggested that maybe there's some actually almost like genetic predisposition or something in the family that for something like that. I guess we can also assume that he's been under a lot of pressure. He's been under a lot of stress. This whole picture that we've painted about the way that he gets power. Then he's trying to take over Sweden. And then we have the fights with Norway and with Olaf and then all of this with England. And then maybe being worried about the internal Danish situation.

What's Falkall the tall up to? What are maybe these other potential rivals who could suddenly try and make a bid? What are they up to? And then, yeah, make this sort of amazing achievement of managing to actually take England. I mean, why not go out on a high, though, right? There are no worlds left to conquer, et cetera, et cetera. But we've got this great story. It's really interesting.

But is there some kind of legacy that all of this leaves? You know, for the next few years in England, does that really have anything to do with what Sven managed to accomplish? Yeah. I mean, I think it does set a real kind of precedent that a Scandinavian can attempt to take England. That's maybe something that would have felt quite unthinkable earlier on. And yet, even though he personally, I guess,

doesn't really get to enjoy the fruits of his labours fully. But yet, there's the idea that someone could challenge this sort of quite wealthy, quite kind of mighty country. And yet, so the fleet elects Canute while they're in England. But then the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that the English councillors ask for EFOR Red to come back, you know, send off to him in Normandy. Although they do say, we'll have you back. If you would govern more justly than you did before, which is quite an interesting comment, right?

There's a little bit of approach in there, maybe a bit of criticism that he maybe was. wasn't, you know, the best king. But I guess they do actually recall him. So, you know, maybe he wasn't the worst. They didn't just scratch that and try a completely different approach or try one of the sons. So yeah, Canute does end up having to kind of reinvade. So he sort of isn't able to straight away build on Sven's achievements. Like we're told that he maybe has to leave his father's body behind, that he does have to leave quite quickly because there's counterattack by Effelred. And he puts ashore a lot of hostages at Sandwich, so sort of hostages, maybe the English who were on his side who'd been cooperating with the Danes cuts off their hands,

ears and noses before putting them ashore. So it's a bit gruesome. Canute goes back to Denmark where actually his elder brother, who'd sort of been left, presumably just to keep an eye on things, is still ruling. I think it has to probably create the alliances again and, you know, rally support again and get everyone together to reinvade. But yeah, just the idea that it had been done and maybe an idea of sometimes people have referred to sort of a North Sea empire that Sven and canute are able to have with them having that wide influence also over Norway and Sweden. They don't manage to have that all the time and it's maybe to varying degrees about quite how much influence do they have or if they have a kind of puppet or someone who they rule through or someone they have overlordship

over. Sven in some ways is a bit more successful actually at doing that than Canute surprisingly. But yeah, I mean, some people would maybe actually also say that it's almost the end of the Viking age in that is this really still just doing Viking stuff anymore? Is this something a little bit different I don't know what we're going to call that as a post-viking or whether the fact that, as we say, that this is a new intention maybe and a new scale and a new ideology. But yeah, we do get Scandinavian Danish and Norwegian rulers

who continue to make attempts on the British Irish Isles you know, next kind of 100 years or so and beyond even after the Norman conquest. We know that none of them actually work. We know that Harold Hodrata also doesn't manage to get England and so on. But it seems like maybe it's on their mind that they might be able to. to do the same thing that Sven Falkbeir did.

I mean, I suppose with the possible death of the Viking Age, the actual death of Sven and the return of Ethelred, we're going to have to leave it there. But Caitlin, I could keep you here all day. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you, Henry. We enjoyed it. Thanks so much, as always, for listening. And thank you to Caitlin once again for joining me.

This has been Gone Medieval by History Hit. And if you've liked what you've heard, don't forget to rate, review, follow the podcast and tell your friends about it. If you fancy suggesting an episode, you can always drop us an email at gone medieval at history hit.com. My co-host Matt Lewis will retake the Gone Medieval Throne on Friday. And as always, I'll see you again next Tuesday. Until next time.