[E] A Scandinavian word, meaning a general assembly of householders; here used of an army, and to-day retained in connection with political elections. The humiliation had been in vain. Sweyn himself invaded England next year, and now at last the patience of the people with their incapable king was at an end. The whole north and east at once submitted to Sweyn. He then began to waste Wessex, and Wessex, too, yielded. All England was his almost without a blow, except London, which held its own ‘in full fight against him, for therein was King Aethelred and Thorkil with him.’ But the stout _burh-ware_ were exasperated by the bad discipline of Thorkil’s mercenaries, and when they withdrew to Greenwich, London, too, submitted. Aethelred fled to Normandy. Sweyn himself lived only a few weeks, fortunately for England, for he was little more than a savage pirate leader. His army, and the English who were with it, elected as king his son Cnut, but the Witan of Wessex and Mercia sent to Aethelred--so hard to quench was English loyalty!--‘saying that no lord was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would govern them better than he did before.’ So at Lent Aethelred came home ‘to his own people,’ and for once acted with vigour. He promptly marched against Cnut, who was at Gainsborough, caught him unprepared, and forced him to fly out to sea. He touched at Sandwich, and in his rage and disappointment committed the worst of the comparatively few crimes that stain his memory. He cut off the noses, hands, and ears of his hostages, put them ashore, and sailed away to Denmark. For about a year England was free from invaders, but not from faction-strife. Money was needed for Thorkil’s mercenary fleet--21,000 pounds of silver. Eadric Streona murdered his personal foes without hindrance. Finally, the Kings gallant son, Eadmund, sick of the endless disorder, took up a position of open hostility to his wretched father. Aethelred was already sickening to death, and when Cnut appeared again at Sandwich in the autumn the army raised to fight him broke up owing to the treachery of Streona, who deserted to Cnut, with Jarl Thorkil and his mercenaries. Wessex submitted to the Danes once more. Aethelred was carried to faithful London; Eadmund retreated northward. There he rallied the Anglo-Danish levies to punish Eadric, and early next year attacked West Mercia; but Cnut marched northward through the Danelaw upon York, and the Northumbrians, under Earl Uhtred, hurried back to defend their homes. Uhtred found the situation so hopeless that he submitted ‘for need,’ as the Chronicle pathetically says. But his submission was merely the signal for his murder--by the advice of Eadric, of course. Eadmund took refuge in London with the remains of his army, and Cnut, leaving Jarl Eric Haakonson in charge of Northumbria, prepared to follow him. Eadmund appears to have reached the faithful city early in April, and on the 16th the wretched Aethelred died.