Canute the Great
(1017–1035)
Canute, or Knut, the son of Sweyn, was in England when his father
died. The Danes immediately elected him king, and he lay at Lindsey
with his fleet when Ethelred returned to claim the kingdom. Canute was
one of the greatest kings who ever ruled in England. Though he began
his reign with an exhibition of ruthless cruelty by mutilating the
high-born young nobles whom Sweyn had placed in his charge, cutting
off their ears and noses, and afterwards boasting of his act, which
made the English fear that they had in him a cruel master, as time
went on his mind seems to have widened out into channels of broad and
humane government. Even the English in the end agreed in styling him
Canute the Great, a title they had heretofore given only to their own
Alfred and Athelstan, the most constant enemies of the Danes. Canute’s
ambitions were immense; he dreamed of no less a kingdom than the whole
North of Europe, from England and Scotland on the west to Sweden on
the East. Denmark and Norway he intended to weld into one country,
over which he was to reign from England; for it was his intention no
longer to rule England as a foreign conqueror, but to identify himself
with the country to which he had come and to be in every way an
Englishman. He determined that the country over which he ruled should
retain its own laws, and that the Church should be fostered and all
ancient dues discharged and rights respected. In the fifteenth year of
his reign he expressed his ideas of government in a letter which he
wrote to his people from Rome. It is worth while to listen to what he
says. “I call to witness and command my counsellors, to whom I have
entrusted the counsels of the kingdom,” he writes, “that they by no
means, either through fear of myself or favour to any powerful person,
suffer, henceforth, any injustice, or cause such to be done, in all my
kingdom.... I command all sheriffs or governors throughout my whole
kingdom not to commit injustice towards any man, rich or poor, but to
allow all, noble and ignoble, alike to enjoy impartial law, from which
they are never to deviate, either in hope of royal favour or for the
sake of amassing money for myself; for I have no need to accumulate
money by unjust exaction.... You yourselves know that I have never
spared, nor will I spare, either myself or my labours for the needful
service of my whole people.... I have vowed to God Himself, henceforth
to reform my life in all things, and justly and piously to govern the
kingdoms and the peoples subject to me, and to maintain equal justice
in all things.”
These are the words of a high-minded man and a good sovereign; and our
English annals tell us that they were not mere words, but were borne
out by all Canute’s acts.
Yet at the beginning of his reign there was little sign that the King
would rise above the level of his father Sweyn’s mode of life. His
mutilation of the young hostages was only one example of this. When
he began to reign he divided the kingdom into four parts, retaining
Wessex, and placing Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria each under
a separate chief. Two of these chiefs, Eirik and Thorkill the Tall,
are well known in Norse history. Earl Eirik, or Eric, as he is called
in the English chronicles, had been, as we have read, fighting on
the side of the Danish King, Sweyn, against his own sovereign, Olaf
Trygveson, at the battle of Svold.[36] He was son of Earl Hakon, the
most powerful lord in Norway and the ruler of Norway before Olaf came
to the throne[37]; after his fall and Olaf’s succession Earl Eirik and
his brother, with many valiant men who were of their family, had left
the country and gone over to Denmark. Eirik entered Sweyn Fork-beard’s
service and married his daughter in 996; he spent his time in cruising
and harrying, until he joined Sweyn in his wars against Olaf; and after
Olaf’s disappearance at the battle of Svold Earl Eirik became owner
of his war-vessel the _Long Serpent_, and of great booty besides. He
and Sweyn and the Swedish King divided Norway between them, and Eirik
got a large share and the title of earl, and he allowed himself to be
baptized.
Earl Eirik had ruled peacefully over Norway for twelve years when
a message came to him out of England from King Canute, who was his
brother-in-law, that he should go to him in England and help him to
subdue the kingdom. Eirik would not sleep upon the message of the King,
but that very day he got his ships together and sailed out of Norway,
leaving his son, another Hakon, who was but seventeen years of age, to
rule in his stead. He met Canute in England, and was with him when he
took the castle of London, and he himself had a battle in the same
place, a little farther up the Thames. He remained in England for a
year, fighting on Canute’s behalf at one place and another; and on the
division of the kingdom by Canute he was made ruler of Northumbria.
But no sooner had Canute bestowed these possessions on his followers
than he seems to have regretted it and desired to get them back into
his own keeping. There is no doubt that there was growing up in his
mind a design of ruling over a united England from Northumbria to the
English Channel. In later days he attempted to add Scotland also to his
dominions.
Determined, then, to extend his personal rule over the whole country,
he began by causing Edric, Lord of Mercia, to be put to death. Edric
was a man of evil life, and both Danes and English were glad to be rid
of him. According to one account, he had brought, about the death of
the brave Edmund Ironside, Ethelred’s son, who had all this time been
the great antagonist of Canute, and who had engaged him in a series of
battles after the death of Sweyn, and in the end divided the kingdom
with him. It seems not impossible that Canute himself had connived
at the murder of Edmund, for Edric was then Canute’s friend; however
this may have been, it now served Canute’s purpose to accuse Edric
of compassing Edmund’s death and to punish him for it. Next, Eirik
was driven out of England at the end of the winter, and Canute added
Northumbria to his own dominions.[38] There now only remained Thorkill
the Tall to dispose of, who had long reigned over the East Angles, and
had proved himself a great warrior. On the first opportunity Canute
outlawed him and drove him out of the land; but no better fortune
awaited him in Denmark. Fearing that so mighty a warrior, in order to
revenge himself on King Canute, would excite rebellions and war in
their country, some of the Danish chiefs met Thorkill at the shore and
put him to death before he could step on land (1021).[39] Thus Canute
became sole King of England and Denmark.
His next step was to banish Ethelred’s son Edwy out of England, and to
marry his step-mother, Ethelred’s widow, who, strange as it may appear
to us, consented to wed with the enemy of her husband and family. The
marriage was a politic one for Canute, for it brought to his allegiance
many of the English who had hitherto looked upon him as a foreign
conqueror and foe; and when in course of time Emma bore him a son and
daughter they began to look upon the son as the rightful heir to the
English crown. His father named him Hardacanute. Canute had also a son
by a former wife, whose name was Harald, who immediately succeeded his
father.
The sons of Ethelred the Unready who had fled to Rouen to their uncle,
Richard, Duke of Normandy, did not at once give up hopes of regaining
the kingdom. Northern story says that Olaf of Norway was again cruising
in those waters when the sons of Ethelred arrived.[40] He was not at
all unwilling to enter into a compact to help them, if in return he
were rewarded for it; and they came to an agreement that, if they
succeeded, Olaf should have Northumbria as his portion. This was before
St Olaf had gained his kingdom of Norway from young Earl Hakon. They
sent Olaf’s foster-father, a man called Hrane, into England to sound
the people and to collect money and arms for the expedition. Hrane
was all winter in England, and several of the thanes joined him and
promised their aid; for they would have been glad again to have a
native king. But others had become so accustomed to the Danish rulers
that they were not inclined to revolt and bring about fresh war and
bloodshed in the country. So in the spring, when Olaf the Thick and
the sons of Ethelred set out and landed in England, though at first
they won a victory and took a castle, King Canute came down with such
a powerful host that they saw they could not stand before it, and they
turned back and sought safety in Rouen again.
King Olaf did not return with them, for he bethought him that it was
time to seek his own dominions. He sailed first to the North of England
to see the country of the Northumbrians that had been promised to him.
There he left his long-ships in a harbour, and took with him only two
heavy seafaring vessels with 260 picked men in them, armed and stout.
They set sail then, but in the North Sea they encountered a tremendous
storm, and if they had not had “the king’s luck” with them all would
have been lost. But they made the shore in the very middle of Norway,
at a place called Saela. The King said it was a good omen that they
landed at this place, for Saell means “Lucky,” and he thought luck
would be with them. As they were landing the King slipped on a wet
piece of clay, and nearly fell, but he supported himself with the
other foot. “Alas! if the King falls!” exclaimed Olaf. “Nay,” cried
Hrane, “the King falls not, but sets his foot fast in the soil.” The
King laughed at that, and said: “If God will, it may be so.”[41]
It was not long before they captured Earl Hakon, Eirik’s son, who was
ruling the country, by drawing a cable across the Sound between their
two ships as he was sailing by; for he thought they were two merchant
vessels, and had no suspicion that they were Olaf’s boats. As he passed
they drew up the cable tight beneath his vessel, so that it was lifted
half out of the water and could not pass, and the earl was taken
prisoner and brought before Olaf. This Earl Hakon, son of Earl Eirik,
was still only a youth as he stood before King Olaf. Olaf said he would
give him his life if he swore to give up the kingdom to him and leave
the country and never take up arms against him; and this he promised to
do, and swore an oath upon it. He turned his ships toward England, and
entered King Canute’s service; and Canute received him well, and placed
him at his Court, and there he dwelt a long time.