Sweyn Forkbeard

Picture: Sweyn and the Jomsvikings at the funeral ale of his father Harald Bluetooth.

Sweyn I Forkbeard (Old Norse: Sveinn Tjúguskegg; c. 960 − 3 February 1014) was king of Denmark and England, as well as parts of Norway. His name appears as Swegen in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

He was a Viking leader and the father of Cnut the Great. On his father Harald Bluetooth's death in late 986 or early 987, he became King of Denmark; in 1000, with allegiance of the Trondejarl, Erik of Lade, he was ruler over most of Norway. After a long effort at conquest, and shortly before his death, in 1013 he became the first of the Danish Kings of England.

On the northern edges of the relatively recent Holy Roman Empire, with its roots in Charlemagne's conquests hundreds of years prior to Sweyn's time, Sweyn Forkbeard had coins made with an image in his likeness. The Latin inscription on the coins read, "ZVEN REX DÆNOR", which translates as "Sven, king of Danes".

Sweyn's father, Harald Bluetooth, was the first of the Scandinavian kings to officially accept Christianity, in the early or mid-960s. According to Adam of Bremen, an 11th-century historian, Harald's son Sweyn was baptised Otto, in tribute to the German King Otto I, who was the first Holy Roman Emperor. Forkbeard is never known to have officially made use of this Christian name. He did not use it on the coins he proudly sent forth, and when he was given the English crown by the Witenagemot of Anglo-Saxon nobles, in 1013, he took the crown as King Sweyn.

Many details about Sweyn's life are contested. Scholars disagree about the various, too often contradictory, accounts of his life given in sources from his era of history, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, and the Heimskringla, a 13th-century work by Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson. Conflicting accounts of Sweyn's later life also appear in the Encomium Emmae Reginae, an 11th-century Latin encomium in honour of his son King Cnut's queen Emma, of Normandy, along with Chronicon ex chronicis by Florence of Worcester, another 11th-century author.

In some of the old sources, such as the Jómsvíkinga saga, Sweyn appears as an illegitimate son of Harald Bluetooth, raised by the legendary Jomsviking and Jarl of Jomsborg, Palnatoke. Sweyn is also depicted as a rebellious son, who led an uprising against his father in 987, and chased him out of the court, forcing him to abandon his kingdom. Harald apparently spent the rest of his days with the Slavs in Wendland, within modern-day Germany.

According to the chronicles of John of Wallingford, Sweyn was involved in raids against England during 1002–1005, 1006–1007, and 1009–1012, to revenge the St. Brice's Day Massacre of England's Danish inhabitants in November 1002. Historians have considered the massacre as similar to a large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Danes in England orchestrated by Æthelred the Unready. Sweyn was believed to have had a personal interest in the atrocities due to his sister Gunhilde being amongst the victims. Sweyn was active in Wessex and East Anglia in 1003–1004 but a famine forced him to return home in 1005.

Some scholars have argued that Sweyn's participation may have been prompted by his state of impoverishment after having been forced to pay a hefty ransom. He needed revenue from the raids. He acquired massive sums of Danegeld through the raids. In 1013, he is reported to have personally led his forces in a full-scale invasion.

The contemporary Peterborough Chronicle (also called the Laud Manuscript), one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, states, "before the month of August came King Sweyn with his fleet to Sandwich. He went very quickly about East Anglia into the Humber's mouth, and so upward along the Trent till he came to Gainsborough. Earl Uchtred and all Northumbria quickly bowed to him, as did all the people of Lindsey, then the people of the Five Boroughs. He was given hostages from each shire. When he understood that all the people had submitted to him, he bade that his force should be provisioned and horsed; he went south with the main part of the invasion force, while some of the invasion force, as well as the hostages, were with his son Cnut. After he came over Watling Street, they went to Oxford, and the town-dwellers soon bowed to him, and gave hostages. From there they went to Winchester, and the people did the same, then eastward to London."

But the Londoners put up a strong resistance, because King Æthelred and Thorkell the Tall (see "The Long Ships" by F. Bengtsson), a Viking leader who had defected to Æthelred, were in the city, and held their ground against him. Sweyn then went west to Bath, where the western thanes submitted to him and gave hostages. The Londoners followed suit, fearing Sweyn's revenge if they resisted any longer. King Æthelred sent his sons Edward and Alfred to Normandy, and retreated to the Isle of Wight, and then followed them into exile. On Christmas Day 1013 Sweyn was declared King of England.

Based in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Sweyn began to organize his vast new kingdom, but he died there on 3 February 1014, having ruled England unopposed for only five weeks. His embalmed body was returned to Denmark, to be buried in the church he built in Roskilde. He was succeeded as King of Denmark by his elder son, Harald II, but the Danish fleet (Jomsvikings) proclaimed his younger son Cnut king. In England, the councillors had sent for Æthelred, who upon his return from exile in Normandy in the spring of 1014 managed to drive Cnut out of England. But Cnut returned and became King of England in 1016, while also ruling Denmark, Norway, parts of Sweden, Pomerania, and Schleswig.

His son Cnut and grandsons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut ruled England for 26 years. After Harthacnut's death, the English throne reverted to the House of Wessex. Sweyn's descendents through his daughter Estrid continue to rule Denmark to this day. One of his descendants, Margaret of Denmark, married James III of Scotland, introducing Sweyn's bloodline into the Scottish Royal blood line. After James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne in 1603, Sweyn's ancestry was introduced into the English royal bloodline as well. Therefore, from 1603 on, all English and British monarchs are descended from King Sweyn of England, among others.