Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In 841 and 851 London suffered Danish Viking attacks, and it may have been in
response to these raids that the Saxons decided to reoccupy the walled Roman city.
By 871 the
Danes
were confident enough to attack and established London as their
winter base, but in 886 Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, recaptured the city, rebuilt
the walls and formally re-established London as a fortified town and a trading port.
After a lull, the Vikings returned once more during the reign of Ethelred the Unready
(978-1016), attacking in 994, 1009 and 1013. Finally the Danes, under Swein
Forkbeard, captured London, and Swein was declared King of England. He reigned
for just five weeks before he died, allowing Ethelred to reclaim the city in 1014, with
help from King Olaf of Norway.
In 1016, following the death of Ethelred, and his son, Edmund Ironside, the
Danish leader Cnut (or Canute), son of Swein, became King of All England, and
made London the
national capital
(in preference to the Wessex base of Winchester),
a position it has held ever since. Danish rule lasted only 26 years, however, and with
the death of Cnut's two sons, the English throne returned to the House of Wessex,
and to Ethelred's exiled son,
Edward the Confessor
(1042-66). Edward moved the
court and church upstream to Thorney Island (or the Isle of Brambles), where he
built a splendid new palace so that he could oversee construction of his “West
Minster” (later to become Westminster Abbey). Edward was too weak to attend the
o
cial consecration and died just ten days later: he is buried in the great church he
founded, where his shrine became a place of pilgrimage for centuries. Of greater
political and social significance, however, was his geographical separation of power,
with royal government based in the
City of Westminster
, while the
City of London
remained the commercial centre.
1066 and all that
On his deathbed, in the new year of 1066, the celibate Edward made
Harold
, Earl
of Wessex, his appointed successor. Having crowned himself in the new abbey -
establishing a tradition that continues to this day - Harold went on to defeat his
brother Tostig (who was in cahoots with the Norwegians), but was himself defeated
by
William of Normandy
(aka William the Conqueror) and his invading Norman army
at the Battle of Hastings. On Christmas Day of 1066, William crowned himself king
in Westminster Abbey. Elsewhere in England, the Normans ruthlessly suppressed all
opposition, but in London, William granted the City a charter guaranteeing to
preserve the privileges it had enjoyed under Edward. However, as an insurance policy,
he also built three forts in the city, of which the sole remnant is the White Tower, now
the nucleus of the
Tower of London
.
Over the next few centuries, the City waged a continuous struggle with the monarchy
for a degree of self-government and independence. After all, when there was a fight
over the throne, the support of London's wealth and manpower could be decisive, as
King Stephen
(1135-54) discovered, when Londoners attacked his cousin and rival for
the throne, Mathilda, daughter of Henry I, preventing her from being crowned at
Westminster. Again, in 1191, when the future
King John
(1199-1216) was tussling
with William Longchamp over the kingdom during the absence of Richard the
Lionheart (1189-99), it was the Londoners who made sure Longchamp remained
1089
1189
1209
1215
Cluniac Monastery
established in
Bermondsey
Henry Fitz-Ailwin
becomes the first Mayor
of London
Old London Bridge
completed
Magna Carta signed -
Mayor of London is one
of the signatories
