In fact, the Danish north was now far more ready to welcome the kindred Scandinavian than the West Saxon stranger.

AEthelred's realm practically shrank at once to the narrow limits of Kent and Wessex.
The Danes, however, were by no means content even with these successes.
Olaf Tryggvesson, king of Norway, and Swegen Forkbeard,[1] king of Denmark, fell upon England.

The era of mere plundering expeditions and of scattered colonisation had ceased; the era of political conquest had now begun.

They had determined upon the complete subjugation of all England.

In 994 Olaf and Swegen attacked London with 94 ships, but were put to flight by a gallant resistance of the townsmen, who did "more harm and evil than ever they weened that any burghers could do them." Thence the host sailed away to Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, burning and slaying all along the coast as they went.