But in spite of all this activity the news of a fresh invasion found England more weak and broken than ever.

The rise of the "new men" only widened the breach between the court and the great nobles, and their resentment showed itself in delays which foiled every attempt of AEthelred to meet the pirate-bands who still clung to the coast.
[Sidenote: Swein] They came probably from the other side of the Channel, and it was to clear them away as well as secure himself against Swein's threatened descent that AEthelred took a step which brought England in contact with a land over-sea.

Normandy, where the northmen had settled a hundred years before, was now growing into a great power, and it was to win the friendship of Normandy and to close its harbours against Swein that AEthelred in 1002 took the Norman Duke's daughter, Emma, to wife.

The same dread of invasion gave birth to a panic of treason from the northern mercenaries whom the king had drawn to settle in the land as a fighting force against their brethren; and an order of AEthelred brought about a general massacre of them on St.Brice's day.

Wedding and murder however proved feeble defences against Swein.