The nearer we approach London by the Thames, the more memorials we find of the Danes. Just before we reach the metropolis, we sail past Greenwich on the left, called by the northmen “Grenvik” (nearer, perhaps, “Granvigen,” the pine-bay), whose celebrated hospital contains in our days a little host of England’s superannuated seamen, who have fought in defence of her honour, and who, supported by the public, enjoy an old age free from care. In the eleventh century Grenvik was also for a long time the resting-place of a host of naval warriors, who were supported at the public expense; but that was a host of bold Danish Vikings, who, after having fearfully devastated England under their chief, Jarl Thorkel the Tall, had now, in 1011, allowed themselves to be bought off for an immense sum of money, and to settle down peaceably in the service of the English king Ethelred. From this time it became the custom for the English monarchs to have continually a standing army, composed mostly of Danes, “Huskarlene,” or “Thingmen,” as they were called (Þingmannalið), whose duty it was to keep the country quiet, and to defend it against foreign invasion; whence they sometimes came to fight against their own countrymen. King Athelstan (925-941) had, however, almost a century earlier, made use of Danish warriors to suppress revolt in his kingdom; for which purpose it was ordered that one of these men should be maintained in every house, in order that they might be always ready for the king’s service. The Thingmen were to the English kings much what the Varangians were to the Greek emperors in Constantinople. They had certain rights and privileges, and later, in particular, two places were assigned to them for their headquarters—London in the south of England; and in the north, Slesvig (Nottinghamshire). Under King Canute, they played, as is well known, a considerable part. The name of Canute the Great is connected not only with the town of Brentford (Brandfurda), on the Thames, near the western parts of London, and with Ashingdon (Assatun), in Essex, to the north-east of London, and, as the legend says, to the north of “Daneskoven” (the Danish forest), in which places he fought bloody battles with Edmund Ironsides, before he subdued England; but it is also connected in the closest manner with London itself.