Treachery was rife in the English forces and again and again the ealdormen failed in the hour of need. Danegeld after Danegeld was paid in the vain hope of buying off further attacks, and the almost incredible sum of 158,000 pounds of silver (i.e. some half million sterling) was paid as Danegeld during a period of little more than 20 years. Once or twice Ethelred showed signs of energy; once in 1000 when a fleet was sent to Chester, which ravaged the Isle of Man while an army devastated Cumberland, and again in 1004 when a great fleet was made ready but ultimately proved of no use. Ethelred's worst stroke of policy was the order given in 1002 for the massacre on St Brice's Day of all Danes settled in England. His orders were carried out only too faithfully and among the slain was Svein's sister Gunnhild, the wife of a Danish jarl in the king's service. Svein's vengeance was relentless, and during the next ten years the land had no peace until in 1013 Ethelred was driven from the throne, and Svein himself became king of England. Svein died in 1014 and his son Cnut succeeded to his claim. Ethelred was invited by the _witan_ to return, and ultimately Wessex fell to Cnut, while the district of the Seven Boroughs (the old five together with York and Chester) and Northumbria passed into the hands of Ethelred, or rather of his energetic son Edmund. This division of the country placing the district once settled by Danes and Norsemen under an English king while the heart of England itself was in the possession of a Scandinavian king shows how completely the settlers in those districts had come to identify themselves with English interests as a whole. Mercia was nominally in Ethelred's power, but its ealdorman, Eadric Streona, was the most treacherous of all the English earls. On Ethelred's death in 1016 the _witan_ chose Edmund Ironside as king and a series of battles took place culminating in that at Ashingdon in Essex where the English were completely defeated through the treachery of Eadric. A division of the kingdom was now made whereby Wessex fell to Edmund, Mercia and Northumbria to Cnut--thus easily was the allegiance of the various districts transferred from one sovereign to another. Edmund only lived a few months and Cnut then became king of all England. For twenty years the land enjoyed peace and prosperity. In 1018 the greater part of the Danish army and fleet returned to Denmark, some forty ships and their crews sufficing Cnut for the defence of his kingdom. During the next four years he received the submission of the king of Scotland and made a memorable pilgrimage to Rome. The most important event of his later years was however his struggle with Olaf the Stout, the great St Olaf of Norway.