The Danes were nibbling at the shores of England as rats would gnaw at a biscuit. They grew more and more troublesome. Over in Normandy, Richard the Good was treating these same Danes like friends, and allowing them to come into his harbors to trade with the Norman merchants. In the Côtentin country they found a people much like themselves, preserving many old traditions, and something of the northern speech. The Côtentin lands were poor and rocky, but the hills were crowded [Pg104] with castles, well armed and well fortified, and the men were brave soldiers and sailors, true descendants of the old vikings. They sought their fortunes on the sea too, and we can trace the names of these Côtentin barons and their followers through the army of William the Conqueror to other castles in the broad English lands that were won in less than a hundred years from Æthelred's time. Very likely some of these Côtentin Normans were in league with the northern Danes who made their head-quarters on the Norman shores, and went plundering across the Channel. Soon Æthelred grew very angry, which was to be expected, and he gathered his fleets at Portsmouth, and announced that he should bring Duke Richard back a captive in chains, and waste the whole offending country with fire, except the holy St. Michael's Mount.
[Illustration: QUEEN EMMA OR ÆLFGIFU (FROM THE REGISTER OF HYDE ABBEY).]
The fleet obeyed Æthelred's foolish orders, and went ashore at the mouth of the river Barfleur, only to find the Normans assembled from the whole surrounding country—not a trained army by any means, but an enraged peasantry, men and women alike, armed with shepherds' crooks, and reaping-hooks and flails, and in that bloody battle of Sanglac, they completely routed the English. All the invaders who escaped crowded into six of their vessels and abandoned the rest, and hurried away as fast as they could go. This was a strong link in the chain that by and by would be long enough to hold England fast, and put her at the mercy of the Normans altogether. There was peace made before very long, though the Normans considered themselves [Pg105] to have been grievously insulted, and laughed at the English for being so well whipped. Perpetual peace, the contract unwisely promises, and the pope interfered between the combatants, to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. After the promises were formally made, Æthelred tried to make the alliance even closer. He had children already—one, the gallant Eadmund Ironside, who might have saved the tottering kingdom if he had only held the authority which was thrown away in his father's hands. The name of Æthelred's first queen has been lost, but she was "a noble lady, the daughter of Thored, an Ealdorman," and had been some time dead, so with great diplomacy King Æthelred the Unready, "by the grace of God Basileus of Albion, King and Monarch of all the British Nations, of the Orkneys and the surrounding Islands," as he liked to sign himself, came wooing to Normandy. Emma, the duke's sister, married him and went to England.