>>15038634The Vikings were opportunistic pirates that took a short break from killing each other and got organized thanks to the threat posed by Charlemagne. When Charlemagne's Son died his rich empire descended into civil war and became vulnerable. Meanwhile in the British isles the kingdom of Mercia had lost control over Wessex and East Anglia, Northumbria was in a three way civil war and Ireland was just as divided as ever. It was the perfect time for the ascendant Danes that had become the dominant power in Scandinavia to get rich plundering the wealthy Franks and Anglo-Saxons. That is when the Great heathen army invaded and founded the Danelaw. They failed to conquer Wessex and Alfred eventually fought them to a stalemate. Afterwards his descendants did wreck the Vikings living in the Danelaw. Eventually the Danes started raiding again when a weak child king named Athelred was crowned. He failed to stop the raids from Denmark and eventually took out his frustration on the Danish families that had settled the Danelaw years earlier by ordering their genocide. This led to a full-scale Danish invasion led by Svein Forkbeard. He managed to conquer all of England but died soon after. His son Canute took over and ruled all of England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Scotland, Ireland, and Sweden. Canute was a Christian by the way. He married his daughter to the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany and even made a pilgrimage to Rome. That means that the most successful Danish King of the Viking age was a devout Christian and the Anglo-Saxons were not the original aggressors. In fact, when Charlemagne was forcibly converting Saxons in Germany, it was the Anglo-Saxon clergy that were trying to restrain him and convince him of the merits of peaceful conversion.
