Culture and class split the English Nobility, or what remained after fifty years of fighting, many chose not to act against William until it was too late.

During the ensuing row, Eadric is said to have argued that he had assassinated King Edmund Ironside for Canute's benefit - a fact of which Canute had been unaware - and Canute had him executed on the spot. Canute, the son of Sweyn, landed in England in August accompanied by an invasion force of about 200 ships. I agree with you to the extent that ther’s definately something missing in our understanding of the events. Soon enough, the monotonous rhythm of plodding hooves, snapping twigs, and screeching birds erased the echoes of Godwin’s pissing from Eadric’s ears. If we had stayed on the main road,” said the executioner, “then at least we might have found a place to stay for the night.When she awoke this morning, she did so with the determination to save her baby brother no matter what. Eadric features as the central villain in the anonymous play Edmund Ironside, now part of the Shakespeare Apocrypha.

The ‘beheading’ incident, I believe was at an earlier battle – Penselwood or Sherston, I can’t remember which. It is thought that the entries for Ethelred’s reign were written from notes in one go, probably about 1020 and in London. Wulfnoth's father was Aethelmaer se Greata (usually translated as "the Great", but more correctly "the Fat") and he was the son of Aethelweard the Historian, a descendant of Ethelred I. He was growing sick, and he slept much more than a baby should sleep, and every instance he squirmed and cried came as a relief. Accompanying his new liege Cnut, Eadric went on a campaign of plundering throughout England until in the summer of 1016, when a series of major battles were fought with Edmund Ironside, the successor of the deceased king Æthelred.Eadric Streona was at this time a close associate of one of the Jomvikings, Thorkell the Tall, who had fought in the Battle of Hjorungavagr in 985, in which a primitive crossbow, known as the Skåne Lockbow was used and so might have had access to such an infernal device.

Her Eadric is a fascinating figure, an amoral yet sensitive man in a chaotic world, trying desperately, and not always successfully, to tame hot passions with cold calculation.

If that is true then he would be a natural supporter of Edmund or as he puts it his “ natural Lord”. Prince Edmund joins Earl Uhtred in Northumbria and instead of attacking Eadric and Cnut in the east of England they travel into Eadric’s lands of West Mercia and plunder and kill while Cnut does the same in the east. This was sealed when Edmund rebelled against his father and married Aelgifu, the daughter of one of Eadric Streona's victim's in his role as Ethelred's hitman, giving him a northern power base.

By the time King Aethelred the Unready died in April of that year, Canute was entrenched in Wessex, with London as his aim. died on 23 April in London; his son Edmund was elected king of what was left of his father's kingdom. After a short space of time his sons, Wulfheah and Ufegeat, were blinded, at King Æthelred’s command, at Cookham, where he himself was then staying.Why Edmund kept forgiving him and trusting him remains a mystery—unless it’s because Eadric was married to his sister.