a new army and in conjunction with Earl Uhtred of Northumbria ravaged Eadric Streona's Mercian territories, but when Cnut occupied Northumbria Uhtred submitted to him, only to be killed by Cnut. Edmund went to London. King of England Æthelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him, while the rest of the Witan, meeting at Southampton, elected Cnut. Edmund then mounted a last-ditch effort to revive the defence of England. While the Danes laid siege to London, Edmund headed for Wessex, where the people submitted to him and he gathered an army. He fought inconclusive battles against the Danes and their English supporters at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire. He then raised the siege of London, which had been successfully resisted by the citizens, and defeated the Danes near Brentford. They renewed the siege while Edmund went to Wessex to raise further troops, returning to again relieve London, defeat the Danes at Otford, and pursue Cnut into Kent. Eadric Streona now went over to Edmund, but at the decisive Battle of Assandun on 18 October, Eadric and his men fled and Cnut decisively defeated Edmund. There may have been one further battle in the Forest of Dean, after which the two kings, persuaded by the Witan, negotiated a peace dividing the country between them. Edmund received Wessex while Cnut took Mercia and probably Northumbria. Death On 30 November 1016, Edmund died. The location of his death is uncertain, though it is generally accepted that it occurred in London, rather than in Oxford where Henry of Huntingdon claimed it to be in his version of events, written perhaps a century later, which included Edmund's death from multiple stab-wounds whilst he was defecating on a privy. Geoffrey Gaimar narrates a similar occurrence with the weapon being a crossbow; but with a number of other medieval chroniclers, including the Encomium Emmae Reginae, not mentioning murder, it is thought Edmund's cause of death may possibly have been wounds received in battle or some disease. It is certainly possible, however, that he was murdered. Edmund was buried near his grandfather King Edgar the Peaceful at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. However, the abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and any remains of a monument or crypt may have been plundered; hence the location of his