Several hours after bowing to Hodolf’s demand, he discovered young Havelok. Realising the gravity of the situation, the pair fled across the North Sea, with 15 men and Havelok’s mother, Queen Eleyn, in toe.

Sadly, the Queen was lost overboard during a Viking attack before the vessel was then shipwrecked in a storm and the survivors were forced to abandon ship and scramble ashore in the direction of a murky marshland on England’s east coast…