Eadric Streona
Eadric was one of at least eight children and had relatively humble beginnings: his father Ethelric attended the court of King Æthelred the Unready, but was of no great significance and is not known to have had any titles.
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.
Although instrumental in serving Æthelred for many years, Eadric ultimately ended up changing his allegiance several times, and betraying his wife's family.
When all were busy with the hunt, one Godwine Porthund (which means the town dog) a Shrewsbury butcher, whom Eadric had dazzled long before with great gifts and many promises so that he might perpetrate the crime, suddenly leapt out from the ambush, and execrably slew the ealdorman Ælfhelm.
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.Eadric does appear among the thegns in 1007 at St Albans Abbey,[5] in which year he was appointed Ealdorman of Mercia.
At this time, Ethelred ordered a new fleet of warships to be built, on a national scale, but this was weakened when Wulfgeat, who was accused by Eadric's brother Brihtric of treason, turned to piracy.
[9] Cnut arrived from Denmark in August 1015 at Sandwich in Kent with an invasion force of about 200 ships, but immediately went off plundering in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset.
Edmund went on to assemble another army and, with the assistance of Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, plundered Eadric's lands in Staffordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire.
The first day was bloody but inconclusive; on the second, Edmund had the upper hand but Eadric:[13] cut off the head of a man named Osmear, whose face and hair were very like king Eadmund's, and, holding it up, cried out that it was useless for the English to fight, saying, "Oh!
When the English heard these words they were terror-struck — more by the atrocity of the act, than by Eadric's threatening words.Edmund's forces did flee initially, but when they realised he was still alive, fought with him until dusk.
Edmund soon went on to rescue London, driving Eadric and Cnut away and defeating them after crossing the Thames at Brentford; but he suffered heavy losses.
On 18 October 1016, the Danes were engaged by Edmund's army as they retired towards their ships, leading to the Battle of Assandun – fought more probably at Ashingdon, in south-east, or Ashdon, in north-west Essex.
[16] According to the Encomium Emmae it was done under claim that those executed had not fought "faithfully" for their liege Edmund and "whom he (Cnut) knew to have been deceitful, and to have hesitated between the two sides with fraudulent tergiversation.
"[b] The Encomium also says that Cnut ordered Earl Eric Haakonsson to "pay this man what we owe him" and then chopped off Eadric's head with his axe.
[c][17] The exact date of Eadric's death is not given by any source, but John of Worcester states that Cnut gave the order on Christmas Day, therefore it is likely he died on 25 December 1017.
His position was at some point filled by Leofric, the brother of Eadric's knight Northman, the family of whom held Mercia until after the Norman conquest.
he was a man, indeed, of low origin, but his smooth tongue gained him wealth and high rank, and, gifted with a subtle genius and persuasive eloquence, he surpassed all his contemporaries in malice and perfidy, as well as in pride and cruelty.This fellow was the refuse of mankind, the reproach of the English; an abandoned glutton, a cunning miscreant; who had become opulent, not by nobility, by specious language and impudence.
In 2005, Eadric Streona was selected by historians for a poll conducted by the BBC History Magazine as the 11th century's worst Briton.
