Monarch - Æthelred the Unready (to December 1013), Sweyn Forkbeard (to 3 February 1014), Æthelred the Unready (23 April 1016), Edmund Ironside (to 30 November 1016), Canute
It was founded in 999 by Saxon settlers, with a charter by King Aethelred II.
Practically the entire code of Æthelberht, for instance, is a tariff of fines for crimes, and the same subject continues to occupy a great place in the laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, Ine and Alfred, whereas it appears only occasionally in the treaties with the Danes, the laws of Withraed, Edward the Elder, Æthelstan, Edgar, Edmund I and Æthelred.
In the year 1002 Codicote enters the written records for the first time when King Æthelred the Unready, its owner, sold it by means of a charter for the sum of 150 mancusae, or 900 shillings of pure gold to his 'faithful minster' Ælfhelm.
In 1008, King Æthelred the Unready ordered the construction of a fleet, and the following year 300 ships assembled at Sandwich in Kent to meet a threatened Viking invasion.