England, (Danish) Kingdom of
State | Defunct
1014 CE to 1042 CE
The Kingdom of England is a sovereign state in northwest Europe from the 10th century to 1707.
Occupying the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, the kingdom includes modern-day England, Wales and for a brief period in the 15th century, the Southern Uplands.
The kingdom shares a border with Scotland to the north, but otherwise is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean.
At the start of the period its capital and chief royal residence is Winchester, but Westminster and Gloucester are accorded almost equal status, with Westminster gradually gaining preference and becoming the de facto administrative capital by the beginning of the 12th century.The kingdom broadly traces its origins to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Heptarchy of petty states that follows.
The territory of what becomes England is unified into a single kingdom during the early 10th century.
Worlds
The Atlantic Lands
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By 1014, England has completely submitted to the Danes.
However, distance and a lack of common interests prevents a lasting union, and Harald's son Cnut the Great barely maintains the link between the two countries, which completely break up during the reign of his son Hardecanute.
A final attempt by the Norwegians under Harald Hardrada to reconquer England fails, but does pave the way for William the Conqueror's takeover in 1066.
Following the death of Canute the Great, Denmark and England are left divided and despite some attempts are never reunited.
Atlantic West Europe (964 – 1107 CE): Capetian Takeoff, Norman and Breton Power, and the Poitou–Bordeaux Arteries
Geographic and Environmental Context
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Anchors: Paris–Seine, Upper Loire (Orléans–Blois–Tours), Poitou–La Rochelle, Bordeaux–Gironde–Bayonne, Brittany/Normandy coasts, Flanders/Artois and Low Countries.
Climate and Environmental Shifts
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Warm, stable conditions favored grain/vine expansion; new embankments and dikes reclaimed Flanders and the Aunis/Saintonge marsh fringe.
Societies and Political Developments
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Capetian monarchy (from Hugh Capet, 987) consolidated the Île-de-France.
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Normandy matured into a ducal powerhouse; William the Conqueror’s victory (1066) bound the Channel world.
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Anjou under Fulk III “Nerra” (d. 1040) and successors castle-built across Anjou–Touraine–Maine, reshaping frontier lordship.
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Duchy of Aquitaine (Poitiers–Bordeaux) reached cultural and political prominence under William IX and X.
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Flanders prospered through comital patronage and urban charters.
Economy and Trade
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La Rochelle and Bordeaux developed as wine–salt ports; Nantes exported salt fish and grain; Rouen handled Seine riverine commerce.
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Flanders/Low Countries: cloth industry based on English wool; canal networks multiplied.
Belief and Symbolism
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Romanesque abbeys and pilgrim routes (the Via Turonensis through Tours and Poitiers) to Santiago de Compostela energized the west.
Long-Term Significance
By 1107, Capetians anchored the Seine–Loire heartland; Normans dominated the Channel; Aquitaine flourished; Flanders led Europe’s cloth—setting up the 12th-century surge.
The dominance and independence of England is maintained by the kings that follow.
It was not until 978 and the accession of Æthelred the Unready that the Danish threat resurfaces.
Two powerful Danish kings (Harold Bluetooth and later Sweyn, his son) both launch devastating invasions of England.
Anglo-Saxon forces are resoundingly defeated at Maldon in 991.
More Danish attacks follow, and their victories are frequent.
Æthelred's control over his nobles begins to falter, and he grows increasingly desperate.
His solution is to pay the Danes off: for almost twenty years he pays increasingly large sums to the Danish nobles in an attempt to keep them from English coasts.
Known as Danegelds, these payments slowly cripple the English economy and eventually become too expensive.
He now makes a great error: in 1002 he orders the massacre of all the Danes in England, which has serious consequences.
It angers Sweyn, who unleashes a decade of devastating attacks on England.
Northern England, with its sizable Danish population, sides with Sweyn.
By 1013, London, Oxford, and Winchester have fallen to the Danes.
Æthelred flees to Normandy and Sweyn seizes the throne.
Sweyn suddenly dies in 1014, and Æthelred returns to England, confronted by Sweyn's successor, Cnut.
However, in 1016, Æthelred also suddenly dies.
Cnut swiftly defeats the remaining Saxons, killing Æthelred's son Edmund in the process.
Cnut seizes the throne, crowning himself King of England.
Cnut is succeeded by his sons, but in 1042 the native dynasty is restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor.
Edward's failure to produce an heir causes a furious conflict over the succession on his death in 1066.
His struggles for power against Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the claims of Cnut's Scandinavian successors, and the ambitions of the Normans whom Edward has introduced to English politics to bolster his own position causes each to vie for control Edward's reign.
William of Normandy, Harald Hardråde (aided by Harold Godwin's estranged brother Tostig) and Sweyn II of Denmark all assert claims to the throne.
By far the strongest hereditary claim is that of Edgar the Ætheling, but his youth and apparent lack of powerful supporters cause him to be passed over, and he does not play a major part in the struggles of 1066, though he is made king for a short time by the Witan after the death of Harold Godwinson.
With him is Earl Tostig, who has promised him support.
Harold Godwinson defeats and kills Harald III of Norway and Tostig and the Norwegian force at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.
On October 14, after having marched his exhausted army all the way from Yorkshire, Harold fights the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, where England's army is defeated and Harold is killed.
Further opposition to William in support of Edgar the Ætheling soon collapses, and William is crowned king on Christmas Day 1066.
He immediately revolts on all sides and a half-hearted Danish invasion, but after four years he is able to subdue all resistance and establish an enduring regime.
He now goes about imposing his superiority over Scotland and Wales, forcing each to recognize him as overlord.
Ireland’s High King Brian Boru divorces Queen Gormflaith some time during the 1010s, and she begins to engineer opposition to the High King.
Relations between Brian and Leinster have become so strained that revolt breaks out among the Leinstermen around 1012.
Eric Haakonsson leaves Norway in 1014 or 1015 and joins Cnut, later known as Canute the Great, for his campaign in England.
The Scandinavian invasion fleet lands at Sandwich in midsummer 1015 where it meets little resistance.
Cnut's forces move into Wessex and plunder in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset.
Alderman Eadric Streona assembles an English force of forty ships and submits to Cnut.
The Scandinavian army moves over the Thames in early 1016 into Mercia, plundering as it goes.
Prince Edmund attempts to muster an army to resist the invasion but his efforts are not successful.
Cnut's forces continue unhindered into Northumbria where Uhtred the Bold, earl of Northumbria, is murdered.
The great north English earldom is given by Cnut to Eric after he wins control of the North.
The invading army turns south again towards London.
King Æthelred the Unready dies before they arrive, and Prince Edmund is chosen king.
The Scandinavian forces besiege London.
After several battles, Cnut and Edmund reach an agreement to divide the kingdom, but Edmund dies a few months later.
Cnut, as the undisputed king of all England in 1017, divides the kingdom into four parts.
Wessex he keeps for himself, East Anglia he gives to Thorkell, Northumbria to Eric and Mercia to Eadric.
Cnut has Eadric executed as a traitor later in the same year.
Cnut, supported by the capricious mercenary Thorkell and by another great warrior, Erik, Earl of Hlathir, the pro-Danish ruler of the Trondelag, had returned late in 1015, wintering at Poole Harbor and marching north in the spring to take control of Northumbria.
Bedfordshire, a region in England’s southern Midlands drained by the Great Ouse River and settled first by the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons, is first mentioned in 1016 when King Cnut lays waste to the whole shire.