Sweyn II of Denmark

Accession to the throne Sweyn was born in England, as the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, the latter of whom was the daughter of King Sweyn I Forkbeard and sister of Kings Harald II and Canute the Great. Sweyn grew up a military leader, and served under King Anund Jacob of Sweden for a time. The Danish king Harthacnut, Sweyn's cousin, made him a jarl, In 1043, Sweyn fought for Magnus at the Battle of Lyrskov Heath at Hedeby, near the present-day border of Denmark and Germany. Feud with Harald Hardrada Harald, unwilling to relinquish Denmark, attacked Sweyn and fought a long war. Harald sacked Hedeby in 1050, and also sacked Aarhus. When Sweyn and the Danish army did not show up, Harald sent home a large part of his army, only keeping the more professional warriors in his fleet. When Sweyn finally came to meet Harald, his fleet numbered 300 ships to Harald's 150. The fleets met at night and the battle lasted until morning, when the Danes started to flee. In the sagas the Norwegian victory is largely credited to earl Haakon Ivarsson, who disengaged his ships from the Norwegian flanks and started attacking the weakened ships on the Danish flanks. This might be the aiding Norwegian chieftain that Saxo Grammaticus refers to, as turning the tide in Norwegian favour. Sweyn managed to escape the battle, reached land and stopped at the house of a peasant to ask for something to eat. "What was the terrible rumbling in the night?" she asked. "Didn't you know the two kings were fighting all night?" asked one of Sweyn's men. "Who won, then?" the woman asked. "Norwegians," came the reply. "It's a shame on us, for a king we already have. He limps and is timid." "No," King Sweyn explained, "Timid the king of the Danes is assuredly not," defended another of the king's men, "but luck isn't with him and he lacks a victory." The housecarl brought the men water and a towel to wash themselves. As the king was drying his hands, the woman tore the cloth from him, "You should be ashamed of yourself for using the whole towel for yourself," she scolded. "The day will come when I will have your permission to use the whole cloth," was the king's comment. Her husband gave the king a horse,, and Sweyn continued on his way to Zealand. Some time later, the peasant was called to Zealand and given lands there for his service to the king, but his wife had to remain behind in Halland. He set the dioceses up by donating large tracts of land, with the Diocese of Roskilde being the most-favoured one, as he had a good relationship with Bishop Vilhelm. The remains of other Danish kings are also entombed in Roskilde Cathedral. According to the saga, Sweyn's mother was entombed inside a pillar across from the chapel. However, analysis of mitochondrial DNA proved that this person was not the king's mother. ==Legacy==

One of the legacies of King Sweyn was a fundamental change in Danish society which had been based on whether a person was free or a bondsman. Sweyn is often considered to be Denmark's last Viking king as well as the first medieval one. A strengthened church in alliance with the land-owning noble families begin to pit their power against the royal family. The peasants were left to fend for themselves. Sweyn built a strong foundation for royal power through cooperation with the church. He completed the final partition of Denmark into dioceses by corresponding directly with the pope, bypassing the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. During his reign hundreds of small wooden churches were built throughout the kingdom; many were rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. Sweyn sought to create a Nordic Archbishopric under Danish rule, a feat which his son Eric I accomplished. Sweyn seems to have been able to read and write, and was described as an especially educated monarch by his personal friend Pope Gregory VII. He is the source of much of our current knowledge about Denmark and Sweden in the 9th and 10th centuries, having told the story of his ancestry to historian Adam of Bremen around 1070. ==Family==

Sweyn's first marriage was to Gyda of Sweden, daughter of king Anund Jacob of Sweden. His second marriage, in 1050, was to Gunnhildr Sveinsdóttir, the stepmother of Gyda. The Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen ordered that the union be dissolved, According to Adam of Bremen, Sweyn had a certain "Tora" at his court. Historian Sture Bolin argues that this "Tora" is actually Tora Torbergsdatter, the mother of king Olaf III of Norway, linking this to a passage about a king marrying the mother of a king named Olof. He took one mistress after another during his life. Sweyn fathered at least 20 children, of whom only one was born in wedlock. • Niels of Denmark (d. 1134) • Sigrid Svendsdatter (d. 1066), wife of prince Gottschalk • Ingerid, wife of Olav III of Norway • Sweyn the Crusader (d. 1097) • Thorgils Svendsen • Sigurd Svendsen, died in war against the Wends ==See also==