The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and other parts adjacent ... Continued to the present time / by Thomas Wright.
- Thomas Allen
- Date:
- 1839
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The history and antiquities of London, Westminster, Southwark, and other parts adjacent ... Continued to the present time / by Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![East-Angllan squadron, which they bravely attacked ; and after a desperate engagement, wherein some thousands were killed, took the ship of the infamous traitor Ealfrick, himself narrowly escaping.^'’ Two years after, Anlaf and Sweyn, kings of Norway and Den- mark, arrived before the city with a fleet of ninety-four ships, and attacked the same with an intent to sack and burn it. Rut the citizens, in its defence, behaving with the greatest intrepidity, the enemy, after many sharp and desperate assaults, meeting with no success, raised the siege; but, to revenge themselves for the great loss they had sustained, they ravaged the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, committing the most unheard- of cruelties, and destroying all with fire and sword.t In the year 1000 an ox was sold at two shillings and six-pence ; a c.ow at two shillings; a sheep at one shilling; and a swine at eight- pence.J Ethelred, with a policy as unwise as cowardly, sought to purchase the departure of the Danes, by presenting them with large sums of money; and for this purpose, he established that oppressive rate, called Dane-gelt. This tax appears to have been imposed in a na- tional council, or wittenagemot, assembled at London,§ where Ethelred usually resided. . Though this purchase cost the nation dear, yet the people imagined themselves happy, in having got rid of their cruel and merciless enemies; as they expected and hoped soon to repair by peace the damage sustained by war. But this dear-bought peace proved of no long duration ; for Ethelred, by a perfidious act of cruelty, brought upon himself and the nation the resentment of Sweyn, king of Denmark, a resentment that was but too well justified ; for that barbarous prince caused all the Danes in Eng- land to be massacred, without distinction of age or sex ; among whom was the princess Gunilda, Sweyn’s sister, with her hus- * Chron. Sax. t Ibid. J Chron. Preci, A. D. 1000. § For the payment of the Dane- gelt, every hide of land in the kingdom was taxed twelve-pence yearly; and as the whole number of hides w^as com- puted to be 243,600, the produce of the tax, at one shilling, was 12,100 Saxon pounds; which was equal in quantity of silver to about 36,6401. sterling, and equivalent in efficiency to about 400,0001. according to the pre- sent value of money. At different pe- riods, Dane-gelt was raised from one up to seven shillings the hide of land, according to the exigencies of the go- vernment, or rather, to the rapacity or generosity of the reigning prince. While the Danish visits were annually repeated, the Saxon sovereign could put little into his coffers of the surplus of the tax, as the whole, and sometimes more, was expended in fighting or bribing the invaders; but when the government of the country became Danish, Dane-gelt became one of the principal sources of revenue to the crown. Edv/ard the Confessor remitted it wholly, but it was levied again under William the Norman and William Rufus; it was once more remitted by Henry the First, and at length finally, by king Stephen, seventy years after the Conquest.— I]enry''s History of Great Ihitabi, Vol. L and Rapin’s Hist, Vvl. I p. Wd^note.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29310775_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
