The sixteen-year-old king had grown to fit his beautifully embroidered boots, and the crown seemed to glitter more brightly on his auburn-haired head than it ever had on their father’s. After a final defeat at Otford, Eadric met Edmund at Aylesford and was accepted back into Edmund's good graces. He was required to declare his loyalty to the noblemen, to bring in reforms regarding everything that they previously disliked, and to forgive all that had been said and done against him in his previous reign. And if all that wasn’t torturous enough, he had to tarry while listening to the wet splash of Godwin urinating. This claim is, however, unlikely as John of Worcester and Symeon of Durham, both name the agent of Uhtred's death as one Thurbrand the Hold.

Thegns bearing these names occur among the witnesses to the charters issued in the name of King Æthelred II in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1017: "This year King Knute took to the whole government of England, and divided it into four parts: Wessex for himself, East-Anglia for Thurkyll, Mercia for Eadric, Northumbria for Eric. As long as Dunstan lived, things were a little better; but when he was gone, all the badness and weakness of Ethelred’s character came out. But after another unsuccessful assault, the Danes withdrew into Kent, under attack by the loyalists.

William of Malmesbury says Eadric was strangled in the chamber where they sat, and thrown out of the window into the river Thames. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1007: "In this year also was Edric appointed alderman over all the kingdom of the Mercians.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s comment on this act is revealing: “No greater folly was ever agreed to than this one. An Englishman looking back at the events of the 11th century might have wondered how a population of one million could have been so subjugated by a few thousand Normans, certainly the Witan’s idea that William would be another Cnut and let them run the country proved to be highly optimistic.Eadric had his own army and ships and for reasons unknown to history, betrayed his king and country to side with the invading Canute. If that is true then he would be a natural supporter of Edmund or as he puts it his “ natural Lord”.

Eadric became infamous due to his traitorous actions during the Viking re-conquest of England by King Canute.Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. He appears to have endeared himself to Ethelred II - to whom he was (on the whole) loyal - by arranging the assassinations of his internal opponents. This was sealed when Edmund rebelled against his father and married Edith of East Anglia, the daughter of Sigeferth, one of Eadric's victims in his role as Ethelred's butcher, giving him a northern power base. Canute had taken up residence in London and the Saxon king died a couple of months later – some said from exhaustion, or from wounds taken in battle.