Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066 -- Sources
This year, after Easter, the aforesaid Army invaded the Angles; they
landed at Ipswich and marched straight forward to the place where, as
they had heard, Ulfcytel was with his troops. This was on the morning
of Ascension-day, and the East Anglians soon took to flight, but the
men of Cambridgeshire stood their ground firmly. The King’s son in
law Æthelstan was slain there, and Oswi and his sons, and Wulfric the
son of Leofwin, and Eadwig the brother of Æfic, and many other good
Thanes, and more than can be numbered of the common people. Thurcytel
Myranheafod began the flight, and the Danes kept possession of the
field of battle, and there they obtained horses; and after this they
were masters of East Anglia, and they continued to burn and plunder
that country for the space of three months, and they even penetrated
into the wild fens, and slew both men and cattle, and they set all on
fire, and they burned the towns of Thetford and Cambridge; and then
they returned southward to the Thames, the cavalry keeping up with the
ships; and very soon they set forth again, and proceeded westward into
Oxfordshire, and thence into Buckinghamshire, and so along the Ouse
until they came to Bedford, and thus on to Tempsford, burning wherever
they went; and then they returned to their fleet with their plunder,
and divided it amongst the ships. And when the English troops ought to
have taken the field to repel the invaders they departed home, and when
the enemy was in the east these were kept in the west, and when they
were in the south our troops were in the north. Then all the Witan were
summoned to the King, to consult how this land might be defended, but
yet they persevered not for one month in any of the plans determined
on; and at length there was no leader who would gather the troops
together, but every man fled as best he might, nor indeed would any
county unite with another. Then before St. Andrew’s day the Army came
to Northampton, and forthwith burned that city, and they seized all
that they would in those parts, and thence they crossed the Thames into
Wessex, and so along the Caningan marshes (Cannington, Somersetshire?)
and they set all on fire, and having gone as far as they would for that
time, they returned to their ships at Christmas.
1011.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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