This mariage was thought to be right necessarie, honorable, and profitable for the realme of England, because of the great puissance of the Norman princes in those daies: but as things afterward came to passe, it turned to the subuersion of the whole English state: for by such affinitie and dealing as happened hereby betwixt the Normans and Englishmen, occasion in the end was ministred to the same Normans to pretend a title to the crowne of England, in prosecuting of which title, they obteined and made the whole conquest of the land, as after shall appeare. Egelred being greatlie aduanced (as he thought) by reason of his mariage, deuised vpon presumption thereof, to cause all the Danes within the land to be murthered in one day. Herevpon he sent priuie commissioners to all cities, burrowes and townes within his dominions, commanding the rulers and officers in the same, to kill all such Danes as remained within their liberties, at a certeine day prefixed, being saint Brices day, in the yeare 1012, and in the 34 [Sidenote: 1012. The 18 of Nouember. The murder of the Danes.] yeare of king Egelreds reigne. Herevpon (as sundrie writers agree) in one day & houre this murther began, and was according to the commission and iniunction executed. But where it first began, the same is vncerteine: some say at Wellowin in Herefordshire, some at a [Sidenote: Hownhill, or Houndhill, a place within Merchington parish beside the forest of NÈedwood, somewhat more than two miles from Vtoxcester.] place in Staffordshire called Hownhill, & others in other places, but whersoeuer it began, the dooers repented it after.