The Danes set him in the midst of their husting, pelting him with bones and skulls of oxen, till one more pitiful than the rest clove his head with an axe.

Meanwhile the court was torn with intrigue and strife, with quarrels between the court-thegns in their greed of power and yet fiercer quarrels between these favourites and the nobles whom they superseded in the royal councils.

The King's policy of finding aid among his new ministers broke down when these became themselves ealdormen.

With their local position they took up the feudal claims of independence; and Eadric, whom AEthelred raised to be ealdorman of Mercia, became a power that overawed the Crown.
In this paralysis of the central authority all organization and union was lost.

"Shire would not help other" when Swein returned in 1013.