In the year 1001, after the battle of Alton, in which the men of Hampshire were utterly broken by Sweyn and his Danes, this road was filled with the routed Saxons in flight pouring into the city of Winchester.

Sweyn of Denmark invades England to avenge the massacre of his people.

After various repulses and successes Sweyn takes nearly the whole of England; King Ethelred and his Queen flee to her brother Richard, Duke of Normandy.

Death of Sweyn.

Ethelred returns to England; he battles with the Danes, under Sweyn's son, Canute, who is driven from the country.

Death of King Canute; his sons, Hardicanute in Denmark, Harold in England, and Sweyn in Norway, succeed him.

Sweyn and Olave agreed to the terms, and peaceably took up their quarters at Southampton, where the sum of sixteen thousand pounds was paid to them.

Sweyn and his Danes, who wanted but a pretence for invading the English, appeared off the western coast, and threatened to take full revenge for the slaughter of their countrymen.

[x]; leaving three sons, Sweyn, Harold, and Hardicanute.

Sweyn, King of Norway, the eldest son of Canute, was absent; and as the two last kings had died without issue, none of that race presented himself, nor any whom the Danes could support as successor to the throne.

Edwin and Morcar appeared at the head of this rebellion; and these potent noblemen, before they took arms, stipulated for foreign succours from their nephew Blethyn, Prince of North Wales, from Malcolm, King of Scotland, and from Sweyn, King of Denmark.

In the spring came Sweyn with his Danes, all eager for plunder; and Hereward had much ado to prevent them from plundering Crowland Abbey, only succeeding by promising them a richer booty in Peterborough.

And in Ely a great council was held, after which Sweyn and all his Danes returned home.

For as Sweyn truly said, "While William the Frenchman is king by the sword, and Edgar the Englishman king by proclamation of earls and thanes, there seems no room here for Sweyn, nephew of Canute, king of kings."

For as Sweyn truly said, "While William the Frenchman is king by the sword, and Edgar the Englishman king by proclamation of earls and thanes, there seems no room here for Sweyn, nephew of Canute, king of kings."

Olaf afterwards, however, embraced Christianity and gave up fighting as a business, leaving the ring entirely to Sweyn, his former partner from Denmark, who continued to do business as before.

In 1003, Sweyn, with revenge in his heart, began a war of extermination or subjugation, and never yielded till he was, in fact, king of England, while the royal intellectual polyp, known as Ethelred the Unwholesome, fled to Normandy, in the 1013th year Anno Domini.

In 1031 he had some trouble with Malcolm, King of Scotland, but subdued him promptly, and died in 1035, leaving Hardicanute, the son of Emma, and Sweyn and Harold, his sons by a former wife.

Harold succeeded to the English throne, Sweyn to that of Norway, and Hardicanute to the throne of Denmark.

In 1068 A.D., Edgar Atheling, Sweyn of Denmark, Malcolm of Scotland, and the sons of Harold banded together to drive out the Norman.

It was here that the greater West Saxon, Alfred, defeated the Danish invaders, and here again Sweyn turned the tables and burnt and slew in true pirate fashion.

The ties of affinity (for many of them had married and settled in the country) were disregarded; even Gunhilda, sister to Sweyn, King of Denmark, though a Christian, was not spared, and with her last breath she declared that her death would bring the greatest evils upon England.

Sweyn, burning for revenge and glad of a pretext for war, soon made his appearance on the south coast, and during four years he spread devastation through all parts of the country, until the King Ethelred agreed to give him £30,000 and provisions as before for peace, and the realm thus had rest for two years.

It was at Bath that King Edgar was crowned in 973; and at the same place at a later date (1013) the Danish king, Sweyn, received the submission of the western thegns.

Its name is perhaps connected with the Danish chief Swegen (Sweyn); and it was the birthplace of William Prynne (b. 1600).