The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England

by Marc Morris

But it was at this point that the violent factional rivalries at Æthelred’s court started to spin out of control. The rise of Eadric the Grabber had also led to the promotion of his many brothers, who soon came into conflict with the king’s other counsellors. In the same spring of 1009, the Chronicle records that one of the brothers, Brihtric, accused a Sussex thegn named Wulfnoth of some unspecified offence before the king. Wulfnoth, who was evidently a man of some status, responded by persuading the crews of twenty of the ships stationed at Sandwich to support him, and led them on a destructive raid along the south coast, ‘doing all manner of damage’. Brihtric, ‘intending to make a big reputation for himself’, took a further eighty ships and set off in pursuit, convinced it would be an easy matter for them to defeat the deserters and bring in Wulfnoth dead or alive. In their eagerness, however, the pursuers sailed into a terrible storm: those vessels that were not dashed to pieces by the waves were cast ashore, where they were subsequently burned by Wulfnoth. As a result, without so much as a single viking in sight, Æthelred lost more than half his newly constructed fleet.