"London Bridge is broken down-- Gold is won and bright renown. Shields resounding, War-horns sounding, Hildur shouting in the din! Arrows singing, Mail-coats ringing-- Odin makes our Olaf win!"
For a short while after his return Ethelred displayed a spirit of patriotism and courage beyond any he had hitherto shown. He succeeded in surprising and defeating the Danes in that district of Lincolnshire known as Lindsey, and drove Cnut to take refuge in his ships, and eventually to sail away to Denmark.(50)
It was not long before he again appeared; he was then, however, to meet in the field Ethelred's son, Edmund, whose valour had gained for him the name of Ironside. This spirited youth, forming a striking contrast to the weak and pusillanimous character of his father, had collected a force to withstand the enemy, but the men refused to fight unless Ethelred came with them, and unless they had "the support of the citizens of London."(51) A message was therefore sent to him at London to take the field with such a force as he could gather. Father and son thereupon joined forces; but the king was in ill-health, and it wanted but a whisper of treachery to send him back to the security of London's walls. Thither, too, marched Cnut, but before he arrived Ethelred had died (23rd April, 1016).(52) The late king was buried in St. Paul's.(53)
The city of London had by this time attained a position higher than it had ever reached before. "We cannot as yet call it the capital of the kingdom, but its geographical position made one of the chief bulwarks of the land, and in no part of the realm do we find the inhabitants outdoing the patriotism and courage of its valiant citizens."(54) Under Edgar the foreign trade with the city had increased to such an extent that Ethelred, his son, deemed it time to draw up a code of laws to regulate the customs to be paid by the merchants of France and Flanders as well as by the "emperor's men," the fore-runners of those "easterling" merchants, who, from their headquarters in the Steel-yard at Dowgate, subsequently became known as merchants of the Steel-yard.(55)
Among the multitude of foreigners that in after-years thronged the streets of the city bartering pepper and spices from the far east, gloves and cloth, vinegar and wine, in exchange for the rural products of the country, might be seen the now much hated but afterwards much favoured Dane.(56) The Dane was again master of all England, except London, and Ethelred's kingdom, before the close of his reign, was confined within the narrow limits of the city's walls; "that true-hearted city was once more the bulwark of England, the centre of every patriotic hope, the special object of every hostile attack."(57)