Gainsborough, Lindsey, and elsewhere, 1013-1015 AD
Gainsborough, Lindsey, and elsewhere, 1013-1015 ADWithout leaving Gainsborough, King Sweyn was accepted as king successively by the leading nobles of Northumbria, Lindsey, and the Five Boroughs, so he had judged well the mood of the men of Danish England. Folcwin knew that Sweyn was a good general and guessed that one of his principal motivations for the invasion was to punish Thorkell. The members of the army that had invaded in 1009 owed loyalty to the Forkbeard. By becoming Aethelred’s man, Thorkell the Tall had given Sweyn ample justification for an attack on Aethelred’s country. The Danish king had thought matters through carefully, and apart from the support of the English Danes, he knew that the harrying of the last three years had
