A .D. 1014.] RETURN ΟΓ ETHELRED. 285 Richard her brother, who received them with honour and respect. Eadric too, king Ethelred's kinsman, crossed over with the queen and a hundred and forty soldiers, and resided with her two years, attending her with great state. They crossed the sea in the month of August, and when king Ethelred heard of the honourable reception they had met with, he followed himself in the month of January following, and laid all his troubles before the noble duke, who much compassionated his calamities, and soothed his grief with words of consolation. Miserable death of Sweyn, and flight of his people. A.D . 1014. Sweyn the odious tyrant, as we have already said, invaded England, which he oppressed with slaughter and rapine, seizing the substance of the people, proscribing their nobles, and carrying oif to his vessels both private and public property, thus making it evident that he was not the natural sovereign but a tyrant. The people knew not what to do, because if they determined to resist they had no one to lead them, and if they preferred submission they had a tyrant for a ruler. In this necessity divine mercy delivered England from so many calamities ; for on the Purification of the blessed Mary Sweyn ended his fife disgracefully, the cause of his death being uncertain according to some ; but in the book of the miracles of the king and martyr St. Eadmund it is found written, that while the said Sweyn was exacting an immense sum from the town where the body of the said martyr rests, and from all his lands, and moreover affirmed that the martyr himself was no saint at all, he was pierced by an arrow from the town, and after dreadful bodily suffering departed to hell on the third of February. On his death all the Danes fled to his son Cnute, who was then in Lindesey, whither his father had sent him with the fleet and the hostages, and on their arrival they chose him for their king and lord. King Ethelred returns to England and defeats Chute. After these things the English nation sent messengers into Normandy to king Ethelred, declaring that they loved no one better than himself their natural sovereign, if he would only treat them with more mildness than before ; on hearing which king Ethelred sent his son to them with the