Everyone has heard of the invasion and conquest of 1066–72, popularly called the ‘Norman Conquest’; few have ever encountered the Danish conquest, completed with the accession of Cnut in 1016, but based upon campaigns over the preceding decade and earlier. In this volume Dr Howard provides an account of the Scandinavian attacks, the English response, the course of events and their later interpretation by the historical sources at our disposal, which leads to a revision of previous views on an important and neglected subject.

One point to emerge is how different the nature of operations conducted by Swein was from the Viking attacks of Alfred's reign. His was a centralised and powerful monarchy in contrast to the more ‘private enterprise’ activities of the ninth century. Indeed, even to use the word Viking to describe the invasion forces of the early eleventh century is a lazy construct. If it took the Danish king a decade to establish his authority over a country as large as England, this is hardly surprising. William the Conqueror's campaigns took five years, and that with the advantage of knocking out his chief rival at the very beginning.

This ties in with another of Dr Howard's themes on the relative durability of Aethelred II's regime. Although much criticised by English sources in the wake of the conquest, the author's careful scrutiny of all the materials available brings out how much the king did to maintain his rule.