On This Day in History: November 13

Massacre of Danes in England

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You ever see that TV Show Vikings that begins with big hairy murderous Danes sailing to England and the English were all oh me oh my what shall we do? And the Danes said you’re gonna be helpless while we kill, rape, and plunder. Well, King Æthelred later got some revenge for all that with a nice little massacre.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November 13, 1002--

Danes first showed up in England in 786 and said wow these people are fucking wimps, beginning a period of pillage that later turned into colonization. They did similar things to Ireland, the Netherlands, and France. But after a couple centuries, Æthelred had had enough of their shit and ordered the killing of all Danes in England.

Æthelred assumed the throne of England in 978, at the age of around 10. His dad, King Edgar, had reconquered the “Danelaw,” which was the big-ass chunk of England that was ruled by the Danes. But early in Æthelred’s reign the Danes living in Normandy figured ah he’s just a kid let’s test him, so they began a series of coastal raids. As the end of the first millennium approached, these raids grew in frequency and intensity, ravaging the coast of England. Æthelred, now about 34, said enough of these assholes. Having achieved critical “fuck this,” the English king ordered what would become known as the St. Brice’s Day massacre on November 13, 1002. Continues below …

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“Kill all the Danes” was an ambitious order, and also an impossible one. In about a third of England the Danes were too strong to be easily wiped out. But there was still plenty o’ killin’ in towns with Danish communities. And that was it for Danish influence in England. Ha! Nope. It’s believed that one of the victims of the massacre was sister to the king of Denmark, and that’s what prompted said king, Sweyn Forkbeard, to invade England the following year. It wasn’t a rout, but the English did manage to make Sweyn pay for that invasion, and he of the forked beard ended up saying fuck it and sailed back to Denmark a short time later. But the Dane influence in England was far from over.

Sweyn came back in 1013 and kicked so much English ass that Æthelred was forced to flee the country. But then Sweyn died suddenly and Æthelred was all I’m back motherfuckers and Sweyn’s unfortunately-named son Cnut—or maybe that’s a good name, I can’t decide—said not so fucking fast, and Cnut conquered the shit out of England and then Æthelred died in 1016 and Cnut ruled England, Denmark, and Norway, which was called the North Sea Empire, for the next two decades.

They called him Cnut the Great. Nice.

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