His fleet reached the coast in 1003, and for four years he marched through the length and breadth of southern and eastern England, "lighting his war-beacons as he went" in blazing homestead and town.

Then for a heavy bribe he withdrew, to prepare for a later and more terrible onset.

But there was no rest for the realm.

The fiercest of the Norwegian jarls took his place, and from Wessex the war extended over Mercia and East-Anglia.

In 1012 Canterbury was taken and sacked, AEltheah the Archbishop dragged to Greenwich, and there in default of ransom brutally slain.