Sweyn Forkbeard invades England

1003

Infuriated by the St. Brice's Day killings, the Danish king landed on the Wessex coast and burned his way through Wilton and Salisbury. Ethelred's government bought him off with Danegeld, a precedent that would become a ruinous annual habit and eventually bleed the Anglo-Saxon treasury dry. The tribute paid in 1003 alone amounted to twenty-four thousand pounds of silver.