The Danes had disappeared; but the unlucky king of England had become involved in fresh difficulties, through his quarrels with Richard, duke of Normandy. A fleet was being raised against him on the Norman coast when Richard died, leaving to his son Richard II. the burden of carrying on the war. The interference of the Pope put an end to the quarrel, which was followed by the marriage of Ethelred with the Countess Emma, sister of Richard, who was called the "flower of Normandy." Ethelred already had six sons and four daughters by his first wife. {66} The young queen had just arrived in England, and the rejoicings were scarcely at an end, when a prolonged cry was heard throughout the country. Either by a spontaneous movement, or in consequence of secret orders, the Saxons had risen in every direction and had slaughtered the Danes who were established in their midst, and whose reiterated insults had become unendurable. "A Norseman is equal to ten Saxons," the Danish lords haughtily said; but the ten Saxons united had triumphed over the Norsemen. Taken by surprise on the 13th of November, St. Brice's Day, "women, old men, and children, good and wicked, big and little, pagans and Christians," succumbed under the effects of the popular hate and revenge. The sister of King Sweyn, Gunhilda, who had embraced the Christian faith in order to marry Palric, Earl of Northumbria, a chief of Danish extraction, saw her husband and children murdered before her eyes, and afterwards encountered the general fate herself. "My brother will drown your country in blood when he revenges me," she exclaimed when dying. Gunhilda had not been mistaken. Already the news of the crime which had been committed in England had spread to Denmark; an immense fleet was being prepared. The Norsemen, actuated this time by their thirst for revenge as well as by their natural love of plunder, were gathering eagerly round their king; not a serf, not a freedman, not an old soldier was admitted into this chosen band; the freemen, in the flower of their youth and strength, alone had the privilege of avenging their brothers slaughtered in a foreign land. The ships of the Sea-kings were resplendent with the golden and silver ornaments with which they were decked, from prow to stern, when the great Dragon, with King Sweyn on board, was the first to land, in the neighborhood of Exeter. The defence of the town had been entrusted to a Norman, Count Hugo, who had come from France with Queen Emma. He betrayed King Ethelred, and gave up the town to the invaders. {67} Having pillaged and burnt down Exeter, the Danes spread throughout Wiltshire. On arriving at a farm or at a house, or a village, they would order the trembling inmates to prepare a meal; then, having satiated their appetites with meat and mead, they would murder the inmates upon the threshold of their huts, which they would then burn down, and remount their horses to go forth and extend their fearful ravages.