The Normans obviously came from a region called Normandy, a region in northern France, an extensive Viking settlement.
In 911 French Carolingian ruler Charles the Simple had allowed a group of Vikings, under their leader Rollo, to settle in northern France with the idea that they would provide protection along the coast against future Viking invaders.
This proved successful, and the Vikings in the region became known as the Northmen from which Normandy is derived.

The Normans quickly adapted to the indigenous culture, renouncing paganism and converting to Christianity in their new home.
They later adopted the Langues d'oïl, a collection of ancient languages, and adding features from their own Norse language, giving raise to the Norman Language of the time, and that continues today in the modern world.

The Norman settlers further blended into the culture by intermarrying with the local population, and used the territory granted them as a base to extend the frontiers of the Duchy to the west, annexing territory including the Bessin, the Cotentin Peninsula and the Channel Islands, and incorporating them into their own language.

Meanwhile however towards the late 10th Centaury, around 980, a series of raids had begun on England from the Vikings.
Initially only small adventuring parties they raided coastal downs such as Hampshire, Thanet, and Cheshire which were all attacked in 980. Devon and Cornwall were attacked in 981 and finally Dorset in 982.

A period of 6 years then passed before, in 988, another coastal attack was recorded taking place to the south-west where the Vikings marched to attack Devon. Although one of the attacks in this 8 year period had any significant effect on England as a whole, they did bring England into diplomatic contact with Normandy.

During this period, the Normans, who remembered their origins as a Scandinavian people, were well-disposed to their Danish cousins who, occasionally returning from a raid on England, would seek port in Normandy.
This led to grave tension between the English and Norman courts, and word of their enmity eventually reached Pope John XV.
The pope was disposed to dissolve their hostility towards each other, and took steps to engineer a peace between England and Normandy, which was ratified in Rouen in 991.

However, in August of that same year a sizable Danish fleet began a sustained campaign in the south-east of England.
It arrived off Folkestone, in Kent, and made its way around the south-east coast and up the river Blackwater, coming eventually to its estuary and occupying Northey Island. About 2 km east of Northey lies the coastal town of Maldon, where Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, was stationed with a company of thegn soldiers.

Byrhtnoth lead his company in defence of Maldon first by trapping the raiders at the single causeway across the water from Maldon.
This tactic seemed to work as it was impossible for the Danish to cross, blocked by the army on the other side.
When they asked to cross however to fight on equal terms Byrhtnoth agreed - a tactic that very quickly lead to his death as the Danish ran across the causeway as the falling tides revealing the causeway for them to cross.

It was after this defeat that King Ethelred of England agreed to pay a tribute to the Danes equal to 10,000 Pounds to sway future assaults. He also agreed to marry Emma, the daughter of the Duke of Normandy, to cement a blood-tie alliance for help against the Danish raiders attacking England. Unfortunately however these assaults continued even in-despite of the Tribute.

It is presumed it was the same Danes that attacked Maldon that ravaged the English cost for the next three years. In 994, the Danish fleet, which had swollen in ranks since 991, turned up the Thames estuary and headed towards London. A battle which was inconclusive, but did allow Ethelred to meet with the leaders of the attacking Danes, foremost among them Olaf Tryggvason.

The two arranged an uneasy treaty in which was stated that all attacks from the previous year would be forgotten and a further tribute of 22,000 pounds would be paid to sway future attacks. Later in the year Olaf was confirmed a Christian at a ceremony in Andover, which after receiving the tribute, and other gifts agreed never to turn to England in hostility, and left for Norway.

Other components of the army remained however, and in 997 raids begin once again attacking various coastal towns.
This continued through 998, and in 999 the raiders marched on Kent. However they left in the year 1000; perhaps because they were refused another tribute to pay for truce with England.

This sudden relief from attacks gave King Ethelred time to gather his thoughts, resources, and armies - and for a reason lost to time he used these armies to attack Strathclyde, a region of Scotland at the time.

However this short break was exactly that.. short; for in 1001 a Danish Fleet, perhaps the same from 1000 returned to England and ravaged the towns in West Sussex, regularly returning to it's base at the Isle of Wight to re-supply.
There was later an attempted attack in the south of Devon; however they met heavy resistance at Exeter where the English had mounted an army in defence of the town, which was able to repel the Danish assault.

Regardless of this success however King Ethelred continued the tribute to the Danes, buying a truce for 24,000 Pounds.
Even in despite of this truce however it would have seemed no amount of money could have completely stopped the attacks, and in fact may have encouraged them for in 1003 Danish Armies were once again on the move; commanded by Swein Forkbeard who had been one of the leaders of the armies that attacked London in 994.

By 1004 Swein was in East Anglia, where he sacked Norwich. Although later in the year a Noblemen of East Anglia, Ulfcytel Snilling, had managed to pull together a small army, and met with Swein in force. Though Ulfcytel was eventually defeated outside of Thetford, he caused the Danes heavy losses and was able to destroy a number of their ships.
In 1005 what remained of the Danish Armies left for their home of Denmark, perhaps because of their injuries sustained in East Anglia, or perhaps from the very severe famine which afflicted the continent and the British Isles in that year.

During the next twelve years England was devastated by a succession of large Danish armies, either under the leadership of King Sweyn I of Denmark or of other commanders such as Thorkell the Tall, which Ethelred's government failed to combat effectively.
They were only swayed from attacking following large tributes, each more than the last although they always returned a year or two later, possibly in search of a larger tribute.

Finally in 1013 the English resistance collapsed and Sweyn conquered the country, forcing Ethelred and his sons into Exile.
But after his victory Sweyn lived for only another five weeks, and in 1014 Sweyn's Son, Canute the Great was proclaimed King of England by the Danish army in England, but was forced out of England that same year by Ethelred.

Canute launched a new invasion in 1015, by which time Ethelred who had already taken ill was steadily losing control of England once again when he died at London on 23 April 1016, where he was succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside.

After Edmund succeeded to the throne he mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England.
While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where he gathered an army. When the Danes pursued him he fought them to a standstill before raising against the renewed Danish siege of London and won repeated victories over Canute.

However, on October 18 Canute decisively defeated him at the Battle of Ashingdon in Essex, possibly as because in the heat of battle the Earl of Mercia, Eadric Streona betrayed his English countrymen, with he and his men retreating in the heat of battle.
His army beaten, Edmund Ironside, likely to have been a casualty himself, made his escape; to be caught near the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, where there was likely to have been a final struggle made in an attempt by the English to protect their king.

 Canute was ultimately able to manoeuvre negotiations, with a rendezvous on an island in the Severn River; where the two kings negotiated a peace called the Treaty of Olney in which Edmund kept Wessex while Canute held the lands north of the River Thames. In addition, they agreed that if one of them should perish, territories belonging to the deceased would be ceded to the living. It wasn't long after this over that in November of the same year Edmund died, perhaps by natural causes, or assassination from one of Eadric's Men; although the exact cause is unclear.

In July 1017, Canute married Emma of Normandy, the widow of Ethelred, and daughter of Richard the Fearless, the first Duke of Normandy. This was a move to elevate his line above the heirs of England's overthrown dynasty, as well as to protect himself against his enemies in Normandy, where Emma and Ethelred's sons Edward the Confessor and Alfred Atheling were exiles.

Canute put forward his son with Emma, Harthacanute as his heir and sent him to Denmark when he was still a boy where he could be brought up as Canute himself, as a Viking. Shortly after this England was practically split into four sub-divisions called Earldoms.

The county of Wessex was kept as his own, while Mercia was given to Eadric, East Anglia to Thorkel, and Northumbria to Erik.
This was the basis for the system of feudal baronies, which underlay sovereignty of English rulers for centuries, while the formation of the Norman counties - stronger, yet synonymous versions of the Anglo-Saxon shires - came to countermand the political might of the great Earls. Even under Canute these men were a real threat.

Edmund Ironside's, as well as Canute's betrayer, Streona, was not Earl of Mercia for long. He was executed in 1017, with a beheading; his body was left on the ground for the crows, and the head was stuck on a pole for all to see. Mercia went to a noble family of Hwicce, probably to Leofwine, and by the 1030s, to his son Leofric, who's wife was one Lady Godiva, a figure of English folklore, renown for her protest against the heavy taxes of her husband.

Canute was generally thought to be a wise and successful king of England, although this view may in part be attributable to his good treatment of the Church, keeper of the historic record. Either way, he brought decades of peace and prosperity to England.

 His numerous campaigns abroad meant the tables of Viking supremacy were stacked in favour of the English, turning the prows of the longships towards Scandinavia. The medieval Church was adept to success, and put itself at the back of any strong and efficient sovereign, if the circumstances were right for it. Thus we hear of him, even today, as a religious man, despite the fact that he was in an effectively sinful relationship, with two wives, and the executions of his fellow Christian political opponents.

Canute died in 1035, at Shaftesbury, Dorset. He was buried in the Old Minster Cathedral in Winchester.
On his death Canute was succeeded in Denmark by Harthacanute, reigning as Canute III.

Harthacanute had succeeded to the throne of Denmark in 1035, reigning as Canute III, yet a war against Magnus I of Norway meant he could not secure his claim to the throne of England. Consequently, it was agreed that his elder illegitimate half-brother Harold Harefoot was to be regent there to oversee the country for the time being.

Harold took the English crown for himself in 1037 — Harthacanute being "forsaken because he was too long in Denmark"
The Queen-mother, Emma, who had previously been resident at Winchester with some of her son's housecarls,
was made to flee to Bruges, in Flanders to get away from Harold.

 Harthacanute settled his difficulties in Scandinavia through a treaty he had made with Magnus in 1038, which stated that they agreed that if one of them were to die without an heir the other should be his successor. Harthacanute then began to prepare for an invasion of England, and the deposition of Harold from the kingship.

Harold, however, died on March 17, 1040, before any conquest could occur. Harthacanute was then invited to England, and the landing at Sandwich on June 17, 1040 with a fleet of 62 warships was a peaceful one. He did though, with apparent scorn, commanded that Harold's body was to be taken from its tomb and cast in a fen with the animals.

In 1041, Harthacanute invited his half-brother Edward the Confessor (his mother Emma's son by Ethelred the Unready) back from exile in Normandy to become a member of his household, and probably made Edward his heir. Harthacanute was unmarried and had no known children although it is rumoured he fathered an illegitimate son, William Canute.

On June 8, 1042, Harthacanute died at Lambeth, apparently standing over his drink at first only to fall to the ground convulsing.
Those that were close by took hold of him trying to steady his movements, although he was completely silent after a few moments.
He was buried at Winchester, his father's place of rest, and his mother's, on her death.
Edward The Confessor assumed the throne on Harthacanute's death, restoring the Saxon royal line of Wessex.

Meanwhile back in Denmark the king of Norway, Magnus I, became king of Denmark also as was agreed with Harthacanute when they made peace in 1038. Since Harthacanute died without an heir Magnus became king of there too at the same time as Edward was crowned king of England in 1942.

It is shortly after Edward The Confessor's death that the Norman Invasion began with three different sides fighting for the crown.
It is then after his death that we continue our little history article .. In Edition 15 of the Regnum Journal! - Stay Tuned.