England Under the Danes

Vikings—primarily Danes, but also some Norwegians—began plundering England's coasts in 793. By 877, Danes held East Anglia, Northumbria, and much of Mercia. In 878 Alfred the Great of Wessex, after a great victory at Edington, compelled the Danes to withdraw from Saxon lands in the west into an area in the east that came to be called the Danelaw.

Alfred's West Saxon successors finally established their supremacy over the Danelaw in 954, when a united England under Anglo-Saxon rule came into being. In 994 the Danes began the conquest of England. It was completed in 1016 when Knut (Canute) became the first of three Danish kings of England. Danish rule ended in 1042 when Hardecanute died and Edward the Confessor, a Saxon, became king.