Battle of Assandun 1016 AD - Cnut the Great conquers England

 

In the summer of 1015 an invading fleet gathered on the tip of the Kent coast under the leadership of Knut the great who sought to reclaim England by force.

 Standing in his way is Edmund Ironside the son of late King Æthelred the Unready.

 Over the coming 14 months

 the fate of England will be decided...

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 The past 20 years of Æthelred the Unready's rule were marred by his distinct inability to deal with the Viking threat, as well as internal divisions and court politics

 Unsurprisingly he was quite unpopular.

 So when the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard descended on the shores of Kent in 1013 with an army many disgruntled nobles in the north welcomed the invader as their new king.

 But the lands to the south had to be taken by force.

 Before the year was

 out Sweyn was at the gates of London.

 He had forced Æthelred to flee the country and was declared King of England Triumphant he was at the height of his power ruling over a vast overseas empire But Sweyn didn't enjoy his victory for long, dying unexpectedly just weeks into his reign.

 However he laid the groundwork for his sons to build on his legacy.

 Meanwhile, English nobles bargained with Æthelred for his return to the throne on the condition that he ruled more justly than before.

 Words and pledges were exchanged and Æthelred became King for the second time.

 Support for the King grew and as he moved north to drive out the Danish invaders Knut wasn't able to mount a defense in time so he boarded his ships and left England.

 Although hostilities ceased for now Æthelred's court became more divided than ever.

 In the summer of 1015 at Oxford an assembly was held as an attempt to keep the peace between Æthelred and the two most powerful northern nobles, Siegferth and Morcar, who had submitted to the Danish invaders in 1013, accepting Sweyn Canute's father as their King.

 But the gathering that was meant to unite the North and South under the restored King was a trap.

 The two nobles were murdered by a certain Eadric Streona, the King's main advisor and enforcer, who played an important role in all affairs of the kingdom and was not only made Ealdorman of Mercia, but also married the king's daughter a clear sign of how much the King valued his "contribution"

 The killing of Siegferth and Morcar may have been punishment for their submission to the Danish invaders intense 13, but to murder them under the guise of hospitality was an especially despicable act, not least because the King declared prior to the assembly that he would forgive all injuries against him.

 Æthelred may have gotten rid of two powerful enemies but in doing so he made a much more dangerous enemy - his own son Edmund Ironside who was a close friend of the murdered nobles.

 Moreover, after the recent death of his older brother, Edmund was now the heir to the throne He quickly married Siegferths widow, and claimed all of his territories then began building his power base in the north in an open rebellion against the king.

 Meanwhile Knut embarked on a voyage back to England.

 With the help of his

 older brother King Harald II, he restocked supplies, repaired the ships and recruited troops from across Scandinavia.

 With 200 ships under his

 command he landed with 10,000 troops.

 As he began raiding Wessex Æthelred lay ill.

 The slippery Eadric used this opportunity to gather an army and persuade the King to assign 40 ships to him, him and he then shamelessly turned and submitted to Knut.

 By midwinter much of Wessex also submitted to Knut providing his army with men and horses.

 And once Eadric further bolstered his ranks Knut moved north into Mercia.

 Edmund Ironside tried

 to assemble an army but he could not count on his ailing father and the troops refused to fight without their King present. So the campaign was abandoned

 The heir to the throne then made another attempt to mount a defense, this time persuading his father to come with all the support he could muster.

 But once the army gathered the King believed he would be betrayed and he promptly went back to London.

 During this spectacle of mistrust among English leaders much of Northumbria submitted to Knut.

 Come spring the war shifted south.

 King Æthelred spent the last few months in London, sick and frail.

 And then after 38 years on the throne he died on April 23rd 1016.

 Edmund Ironside was elected

 King, adding much needed impetus to the defense of the country.

 Knut marched on

 London and besieged the city

 However Edmund managed to escape just in time with a portion of the city's garrison and headed to Wessex to raise an army

 The Danes went after Edmund and the two armies met at Penselwood, in Somerset, in a small scale but hard-fought battle.

 Another encounter took place at Cheston in Wiltshire, a much bloodier yet

 inconclusive battle.

 While Knut was still looking for a decisive victory for Edmond it was vital that he had managed to avoid defeat.

 The war gradually moved east as the invaders again moved on London.

 But the English King drove the Danes back and then defeated them in the battle of Brentford Knut turned northwest to regroup plundering the land as he went.

 Meanwhile, after suffering

 heavy losses at Brentford,

 Edmund, although he successfully relieved the siege of London for a second time, was forced back to Wessex to recruit more troops.

 Knut used this opportunity to march on London for a third time while the English King was away.

 It took weeks to rebuild his army but Edmond came back to aid the city this time numerically superior and with fresh troops.

 The Danes were driven back and defeated at Hartford though the English again

 suffered significant casualties.

 Knut turned back into Essex and went towards Mercia destroying all that he overtook Ever the opportunist Eadric Streona switched sides again managing to ingratiate himself with Edmund, perhaps feeling that the tide had turned in favor of the English and he brought with him vital troops.

 With his army strengthened Edmund went after Knut upon learning that he was in-land and moving towards his ships after ravaging Mercia.

 On the 18th of October the two armies met near the village of Assandun.

 Edmund moved to block the path that the Danes had to take to get to their ships.

 The English King had every reason to be optimistic. His army was the larger of the two and he had recently enlisted fresh troops.

 In contrast the Danish army was weary and reduced in numbers after 12 months of campaigning and four battles, and although they certainly recruited a number of English fighters they lacked the steady supply of troops that their opponent could rely on Nevertheless Knut decided to fight. He would either get the decisive victory he needed or die in the attempt.

 The Danes though outnumbered were approaching slowly across the level ground.

 The English meanwhile formed a battle line four men deep, atop a gentle hill.

 Edmund encouraged his men to defend themselves and their kingdom from the enemy that they had beaten before.

 As the Danes came halfway up the slope Edmund gave the signal.

 The English charged down the hill.

 Knut ordered his men to stand and fight.

 A fierce battle ensued. Clashing of swords and the thundering of shield walls could be heard in nearby villages.

 By some accounts it seemed to the English that the danes fought in a rage, determined to die rather than withdraw.

 But after hours of fighting sections of the Danish line began wavering

 It looked like the English would win.

 But then Eadric, with

 all of his men, withdrew from the field In one stroke Edmund lost a substantial part of his army.

 But the English King remained undeterred.

 He told his men that they were better off without the cowards that deserted them.

 And with those words he rallied his personal retinue and charged into the midst of the enemy cutting down Danes on all sides.

 However, now it was Knut who had the numerical advantage and he urged his troops to

 press the enemy.

 Edmund and his men fought on until nightfall but the defeats was inevitable.

 Exhausted the English retreated and Knut was left master of the field.

 Chronicler William of Malmesbury wrote: "On that field Knut destroyed a kingdom, there the whole flower of our country withered".

 The Danes had their victory.

 While the impact of Eadric's betrayal is clear what caused it is not fully understood.

 Did he decide on his own to set Edmund up to fail reasoning that his own future would be uncertain if the English King won the war, because of their decade-long uneasy relationship or was he still secretly allied to Knut even after rejoining Edmond and perhaps promised to deliver victory to the Danes in exchange for political favors after the war?

 Whatever the case it's clear that Eadric was loyal to neither side and was acting only in his own self-interest.

 Throughout the conflict he knew that his substantial contingent of troops could decide the winner, which is why both Knut and Edmund wanted him on their side.

 So he took advantage of this by playing kingmaker

 trying to secure the best possible position for himself

 once the war was over

 Many prominent figures have fallen at Assandun, but Edmund Ironside survived, though wounded.

 Not willing to concede

 defeat he marched across England with the remnants of his army perhaps hoping to raise more troops in the west and seek allies in Wales.

 But Knut was hot on his heels.

 Past Gloucester, not far from the Forest of Dean the two leaders met again, this time at a negotiating table And it was the treacherous Eadric who brokered a settlement to divide England with Edmund keeping the southern shires of Wessex, while Knut took Mercia and Northumbria, including the mercantile centre that was London.

 The two leaders agreed that if either of them should die the other would take control of the whole country.

 Perhaps unsurprisingly Edmund Ironside died first just over a month later.

 It may be that he succumbed to the wounds he sustained at Assandun, or that he was poisoned.

 Another account suggests that an assassin impaled him from below with a spike when the King sat on his toilet.

 The exact cause of Edmunds death is unknown, but the man who was ironically blamed for it was Eadric Streona.

 Although he kept hold of his position as Ealdorman of Mercia, by next Christmas he was executed by none other than King Canute the Great himself.

 The Battle of Assandun put a

 Dane on the English throne.

 Although less famous than a conquest of William of Normandy in 1066 Canute's invasion changed the history of England.

 He became one of the most powerful kings of the age ruling England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden.

 He quickly became a king that the English could accept. There's no evidence of rebellion against the Danish Conqueror or

 any ethnic tensions that can be associated with the Normans fifty years later

 Canute mostly ruled England with existing laws. He was conciliatory and generous towards the English church, appointing many church men as his advisors and promoting many Englishmen to serve as his Earls.

 There was also no jettisoning of the English language, wide-scale destruction of the land or imposing a foreign culture on the people.

 In most respects Knut worked with, not against the society he had conquered.

 During his two decade reign, his shrewd employment of marriage alliances ingenious implementation of proxy rule and maintenance of a dominant fleet would go on to transform Denmark from a fragile Kingdom into a North Sea Empire...