While Elphege was resisting and dying, Ethelred was submitting and paying an enormous sum of money, abandoning at the same time several counties to the Danes. Thurkill settled in England, after swearing fidelity to the Saxon monarch. His conquests excited the envy of Sweyn. In the following year a large fleet appeared in the Humber, and landed near York. This time the invaders planted their lances in the ground or threw them into the rivers, to intimate that they took possession of the soil. The Saxons offered no resistance. Sweyn had overrun all the Midland and Northern Counties, and, leaving the fleet to the care of his son Canute, he marched towards the South. He was stopped near London, where the king had taken refuge, and where the brave citizens stood firm behind their massive walls. Sweyn did not attempt to conquer their town; he turned towards the West, and all Devonshire received him with open arms. He was proclaimed king at Bath. Ethelred was gradually losing the little power which he still retained. He suddenly left London, which surrendered soon afterwards, and he took refuge in the Isle of Wight. {70} From thence he sent his wife Emma to Normandy with the two sons whom she had borne to him, Edward and Alfred. In spite of his disagreements with his brother-in-law, the duke Richard received his sister with so much kindness that Ethelred soon followed her, and arrived at Rouen while Sweyn was taking the title of King of England (January, 1013). Titles are easily taken, but conquests are sometimes difficult to keep. Six weeks after the flight of the Saxon king the Danish king died suddenly at Gainsborough, and the power was slipping from the hands of his son Canute. The nobility and people of England had recalled Ethelred to the throne; they added, however, the words "providing that he will govern us better than heretofore." The king did not rely entirely upon the promises of his subjects. He sent his son Edward to negotiate with the principal chief. When he re-entered London his first care was to declare that no Danish prince could have any pretensions to the throne; but Canute had already been proclaimed king by his army and by the Danes established in England, and the war had recommenced. Ethelred died in the year 1016, in the midst of all this confusion, and at the time when the Danes were preparing to lay siege to London.