In the same year, before the Nativity of St. Mary, the sons of Sweyn, king of the Danes, Harold and Canute, and their uncle earl Osbarn, and Christian their bishop, and earl Turkill, came from Denmark with 240 ships and landed at the mouth of the river Humber. There they were joined by Edgar Atheling, earl Waltheof and Marlesweyn and many others, with a fleet which they had made ready. Earl Cospatric also came with the whole strength of the Northumbrians, and all with one accord joined forces against the Normans.... On Saturday, the 19th September, the Normans who were holding the castles (at York), fearing that the houses near the castles would be of aid to the Danes in filling up the castle-moats, began to set them on fire, and the flames, increasing, raged throughout the whole city and destroyed with it the minster of St. Peter. But divine vengeance was speedily and disastrously wreaked upon them. For before the whole city was burned down, the Danish fleet arrived on the second day of the week, and the Danes on one side and the Northumbrians on the other stormed and burst into the castles on the same day. More than 3000 Normans were slain, the lives of William Malet, who was sheriff at that time, and of his wife and two children, and of Gilbert de Ghent and a few others, being spared; the Danes took ship with their innumerable forces, and the Northumbrians returned to their homes. But when king William heard the news, he at once gathered an army and hastened to Northumberland with exasperation at heart, and all the winter without ceasing laid waste the country, cut men to pieces and committed many other deeds of cruelty. Meanwhile he sent envoys to earl Osbarn the Dane, and promised to give him secretly a large sum of money and to allow his army freely to seize provisions along the sea-coasts, on condition, however, that he should depart without fighting at the close of winter. To these proposals he assented, in his greed for gold and silver, with great dishonour to himself.