The political and cultural grouping which we call the Anglo-Danes was born out of the trauma of some of the earliest Viking attacks on England.
In 865 a Viking army (known to the Anglo-Saxon chroniclers as The Great Army) and led by Ivarr the Boneless landed in East Anglia. For 11 years (with fresh reinforcements from Scandinavia each summer) they ranged at will across the whole of England, and when they had taken enough food, silver and slaves from the English, they took all that remained - the land. Across a large area of the East Midlands and East Anglia they moved in and built new farms, settlements, villages and towns. Their families came over from Scandinavia, and a whole new region came into being, the Danelaw.
For 30-odd years they were left to run their own affairs. They had different laws, customs and owed military service in a different manner to the rest of England. These differences were in the early days a source of much strength for the settlers. As equal members of a conquering army the land they held was theirs by right of conquest, and any threat to one former member of the army was a threat to all.
Although relations between the Danelaw and Wessex (all that remained of the old English kingdoms) were usually amicable, the old raiding spirit could not be extinguished. In 909 a Viking army crossed into Wessex and and raided as far as the Avon at Bristol. By now however, Alfred the Great's reforms had reorganised the Fyrd and the Viking army was caught on the way home at Tettenhall and destroyed. The damage to the Danelaw was irreparable. By 918 the whole of the Danelaw had acknowledged King Edward as their lord and the new English kingdom had come into being. But even Edward could not completely extinguish the Viking spirit, and even as late as 1067, when William the Conqueror was drawing up his laws, things were different in the Danelaw.
In 980 though the 'real' Vikings returned to plague the English coast. They had clearly received news of Æthelraed's rise to the throne, of his weak and vacillating nature, and for most of the next 20 years they raided wherever they chose. Sixty years of relative peace had seen England grow into one of the wealthiest kingdoms in Northern Europe. There was so much silver to be had that in 991 the raiders were paid 22,000 pounds of silver and gold to buy peace, followed in 994 by another 16,000 pounds.
But still England had money to spend. It was at this time that, in order to give his hard-pressed Thegns some respite from the raiders, Æthelraed began to employ 'Danish' mercenaries in some numbers. There was a sizeable camp of them in West London at Ravenscourt Park. Most of these men were true Scandinavians but they were joined by others who had families still living in the Danelaw. This happy state of affairs came to a sudden and brutal end on 13th November 1002.
Æthelraed had become convinced (or was advised) that his mercenaries were plotting with the raiders to overthrow him, so he ordered the murder of all Danes then living in England. This event, known as 'The St Brice's Day Massacre' saw the killing of many hundreds of Danes, who were dragged from their homes and cut down in the street without warning or any assessment of their guilt. In Oxford a group of them managed to reach the church in the middle of the town where they barricaded themselves in and claimed sanctuary. The mob would not allow this and simply burnt the church down with all those inside it. Unfortunately for Æthelraed, amongst those killed in Oxford was Gunnhild, sister of Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark, along with her husband and infant son.
Swein swore revenge. The following summer he gathered an army and struck first at Exeter. Then they raided as far as Wilton and Salisbury. In 1004 they attacked East Anglia and sacked Norwich. Outside Thetford they defeated the local Fyrd led by Ulfkell Snelling, but their losses were so great that they returned home for reinforcements. In 1006 they were back, more confident than ever, and in a daring campaign raided Hampshire and Berkshire as far as Reading, and then crossed the Chilterns to Wallingford. They paused at Avebury to defeat the Wiltshire Fyrd, and then swept on past Winchester to the coast. Their reward was yet another payment, this time 36,000 pounds.
1009-1012 saw further raids, but at Canterbury, Thorkell the Tall lost control of his men who murdered Archbishop Ælfeah. When they left they took with them another 48,000 pounds of silver, but they left behind Thorkell and his 45 ships who took service with Æthelraed. Under the Viking code of honour, Thorkel's previous lord, King Swein of Denmark, again had a fully justified excuse for invading England, and in 1013 he did just that. When he landed at Gainsborough, English morale collapsed, and the whole of the Danelaw took him as their King. Oxford and Winchester followed suit when he appeared outside their gates, and he marched on London. Æthelraed still had at his command a large force of Danish mercenaries under Thorkell, and they proved decisive in holding London against Swein, but the damage was done. By Christmas 1013, London too had accepted Swein as King and Æthelraed fled to Normandy in the ships commanded by Thorkell.
Swein died early in 1014 and his son Knut was not prepared to risk a claim to the throne until he had confirmed his status in Denmark. In the summer of 1015 he returned, and after a confused campaign he finally came to terms with Æthelraed's son Edmund Ironside and divided the country between them. Fortunately for Knut, Edmund died early in 1016 and Knut was proclaimed King of the whole country.
With the above history in mind, the Temesvikings portray a group of Anglo-Danes at the time of the great upheavals of the years 994-1014. Sometimes we are assumed to be in service to Æthelraed and sometimes part of the armies which caused him and his son so many problems. All members are assumed to have a strong family connection to the inhabitants of the Danelaw, while accepting that their hopes of land and a prosperous future often lie with Æthelraed.