Einar Thambarskelfir - Turn of The Tide

Turn of The Tide

However, around 1045 the aging Einar ran out of luck. At this point, Olaf Haraldsson's half-brother Harald Sigurdsson, later dubbed Hardrada, returned with a vast fortune amassed as a military commander in Byzantium. According to the succession laws put in place by the earlier monarch Harald Fairhair, Harald had a legitimate claim to the throne, a claim he did not hesitate to put forward. Fearing that Harald would turn his economic power into military power, Magnus against Einar's advice let Harald become joint monarch in late 1046. Only a year later, Magnus died, and the strong-willed Harald became sole monarch.

Harald was determined to centralize power, and had little patience with the quarreling nobles and peasant leaders. Thus, he was bound to end up on a collision course with the equally determined Einar Thambarskelfir. Conflict ensued, threatening civil war, and Einar began raising another peasants' army against the increasingly unpopular and tyrannical Harald. However, before this work was completed, Harald appeared to seek reconciliation. He asked Einar for a meeting at his farm in Nidaros, so that the two could sit down and broker an agreement. Harald, of course, had no such intentions. He had decided that Einar had to be removed before his support was too powerful. Thus, when arriving at the king's farm, Einar and his son Eindride were assassinated.