off with a promise of £24,000 after a triumphant march from Teignton and Exmouth through Somerset and Wiltshire to Southampton Water. Instead of fighting this force Pallig actually joined it with all the ships he could lay hold of, a piece of treachery which enraged Aethelred to such a degree that he lost control of himself and planned a general massacre of the Danes in his service and even of their families. This utterly barbarous and unwise piece of retaliation was carried out on St Brice's day 1002 to the shame of all chivalrous Englishmen, and among the victims was not only Pallig and his son but his wife Gunnhild, Svein's sister, whom Aethelred was holding as a hostage.
The tragedy of Gunnhild's death marks the turning point in Aethelred's reign; for it naturally bred in Svein a desire for vengeance which was only to be satisfied after ten long years of warfare ending in the conquest of England. Of this struggle the Chronicle gives a minute account, but often in such hysterical tones that it is difficult to make out what really happened. Nor can space be given here to unravel its meaning. The bare outlines however are somewhat as follows. In 1003 Svein burnt Exeter, Wilton and Salisbury. In 1004 he sacked Norwich and Thetford, and had some hard tussles with Ulfkytel, the chief Danish jarl in East Anglia. In 1006 he ravaged East Kent, and next spring after wintering in the Isle of Wight plundered right and left through Hampshire and Berkshire. Aethelred meantime had apparently done nothing but hide in Shropshire in the company of a west-country magnate, one Eadric, nicknamed "Streona" or "the Grasper," an evil councillor of whom the Chronicle can hardly speak with patience. As ever Aethelred's one idea was to offer the enemy a ransom. He accordingly patched up a truce, and persuaded Svein to take his forces back to Denmark in return for a tribute of £36,000. At the same time he placed Eadric in possession of the great estates formerly possessed by Aelfhere in the Severn valley, and made him duke of Western Mercia. After this there seems to have been a lull for two years, in which some efforts were made to organise a large naval force for the defence of the country by requiring ships to be furnished from every 300 hides of land; but when this fleet assembled at Sandwich in 1009, the quarrels between its leaders, Brihtric, a brother of Eadric, and Wulfnoth the Child, a powerful Sussex magnate, completely wrecked its utility. In 1010 the Danish fleets were back again, this time led not by Svein in person but by one of his great men, Thorkil the Tall, a famous jarl from Jómsborg. He attacked Ulfkytel, and having defeated him at Ringmere near Thetford harried all the south-east Midlands, penetrating westwards as far as Oxfordshire, and burning in turn Cambridge, Bedford and Northampton. These inland districts, which had not before suffered from the raiders, seem to have been utterly dazed. No leaders could be found to captain the local levies and no shire would help another. The inhabitants simply clamoured for peace on any terms, and so in 1011 a witan
