6. =Svend's Conquest. 1002--1013.=--AEthelred, having failed to buy off the Danes, tried to murder them. In =1002=, on St. Brice's Day, there was a general massacre of all the Danes--not of the old inhabitants of Danish blood who had settled in AElfred's time--but of the new-comers. Svend returned to avenge his countrymen. AEthelred had in an earlier part of his reign levied a land-tax known as the Danegeld to pay off the Danes--the first instance of a general tax in England. He now called on all the shires to furnish ships for a fleet; but he could not trust his ealdormen. Some of the stories told of these times may be exaggerated, and some may be merely idle tales, but we know enough to be sure that England was a kingdom divided against itself. Svend, ravaging as he went, beat down resistance everywhere. In =1012= the Danes seized AElfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury, and offered to set him free if he would pay a ransom for his life. He refused to do so, lest he should have to wring money from the poor in order to pay it. The drunken Danes pelted him with bones till one of the number clave his skull with an axe. He was soon counted as a martyr. Long afterwards one of the most famous of his successors, the Norman Lanfranc, doubted whether he was really a martyr, as he had not died for the faith. 'He that dies for righteousness,' answered the gentle Anselm, 'dies for the faith,' and to this day the name of AElfheah is retained as St. Alphege in the list of English saints. In =1013= Svend appeared no longer as a plunderer but as a conqueror. First the old Danish districts of the north and east, and then the Anglo-Saxon realm of AElfred--Mercia and Wessex--submitted to him to avoid destruction. In =1013= AEthelred fled to Normandy. [Illustration: Martyrdom of St. Edmund by the Danes. (From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)] 7. =AEthelred Restored. 1014--1016.=--In =1014= Svend died suddenly as he was riding at the head of his troops to the attack of the monastery of Bury St. Edmunds. A legend soon arose as to the manner of his death. St. Edmund himself, the East Anglian king Eadmund who had once been martyred by Danes (see p. 58), now appeared, it was said, to protect the monastery founded in his honour. 'Help, fellow soldiers!' cried Svend, as he caught sight of the saint. 'St. Edmund is coming to slay me.' St. Edmund, we are told, ran his spear through the body of the aggressor, and Svend died that night in torments. His Danish warriors chose his son Cnut king of England.[5] The English Witenagemot sent for AEthelred to return. At last, in =1016=, AEthelred died before he had conquered Cnut or Cnut conquered him. [Footnote 5: Genealogy of the Danish kings:-- Svend | (1) AElfgifu = CNUT = (2) Emma | 1016-1035 | | | HAROLD HARTHACNUT Harefoot 1040-1042 1035-1040]