Why King Ethelred was called the Unready; how the Danes drove away
the English princes, and made Canute king; how Canute rebuked his
courtiers and improved the people, and how the Danes and Saxons made
slaves of their prisoners and of the poor.
The son of the wicked Elfrida was king after his brother Edward. His
name was Ethelred, and he was king a great many years, but never did
anything wise or good. The Danes came again to England, when they
found out how foolish King Ethelred was, and that he was never ready,
either with his ships or his soldiers, or with good counsel; for
which reason he was called ETHELRED THE UNREADY. I should be quite
tired if I were to tell you all the foolish and wicked things that
were done, either by this king, or by the great lords who were his
friends.
He allowed the Danes to get the better of the English everywhere, so
they robbed them of their gold and silver, and sheep and cattle, and
took their houses to live in, and turned them out. They burnt some
of the English towns, and altered the names of others; they killed
the people, even the little children; till at last you would have
thought the whole country belonged to them, and that there was no
king of England at all. You may think how unhappy the people were
then, the cruel Danes robbing and murdering them when they pleased.
The king was so idle, that he did nothing to save his people. There
was no punishment for bad men, and nobody obeyed the laws.
When Ethelred died, the English hoped they would be happier; for his
son, Edmund Ironsides, was a brave and wise prince, and was made king
after his father; but I am sorry to tell you that he died in a very
short time, and then the Danes drove all the princes of England away,
and made one of their own princes king of England.
The princes of Alfred’s family were forced to go into foreign
countries; some went to a part of France called Normandy, and some to
a very distant country indeed, called Hungary.
It is well for England that the Danish king was good and wise. His
name was Canute. When he saw how unhappy the people of England were,
and how ill the Danes treated them, he was very sorry, and made laws
to prevent the Danes from doing any more mischief in England, and to
help the English to make themselves comfortable again. And because
some of King Alfred’s good laws had been forgotten, while the wars
were going on, he inquired of the old judges and the wise men how
he could establish those laws again, and he made the people use
them. Besides this, he restored some of the schools which had been
destroyed in the wars, and even sent young men to the English College
at Rome to study. So that he did more good to England than any king
since Athelstane’s time, except King Edgar.
Have you ever heard the pretty story about Canute and his
flatterers?—I will tell it you; but first you must remember that
flattering is praising anybody more than he deserves, or even when
he does not deserve it at all. One day, when Canute was walking with
the lords of the court by the sea side, some of them, thinking to
please him by flattery, began to praise him very much indeed, and to
call him great, and wise, and good, and then foolishly talked of his
power, and said they were sure he could do everything he chose, and
that even the waves of the sea would do what he bade them.
Canute did not answer these foolish men for some time. At last he
said, “I am tired, bring me a chair.” And they brought him one; and
he made them set it close to the water: and he said to the sea, “I
command you not to let your waves wet my feet!” The flattering lords
looked at one another, and thought King Canute must be mad, to think
the sea would really obey him, although they had been so wicked as to
tell him it would, the moment before. Of course the sea rose as it
does every day, and Canute sat still, till it wetted him, and all the
lords who had flattered him so foolishly. Then he rose up, and said
to them, “Learn from what you see now, that there is no being really
great and powerful but GOD! He only, who made the sea, can tell it
where and when to stop.” The flatterers were ashamed, and saw that
King Canute was too good and wise to believe their false praise.
Canute was King of Denmark and Norway as well as England; and he was
one of the richest and most powerful kings, as well as the best, that
lived at that time. He reigned in England for nineteen years; and
all that time there was peace, and the people improved very much.
They built better houses, and wore better clothes, and ate better
food. Besides they had more schools, and were much better brought up.
Canute was very kind to learned men, and encouraged the English in
everything good and useful.
I am sorry to say, however, that they still had many slaves instead
of servants to wait upon them and to help to till the ground for them.
By slaves, I mean men and women who are the property of others, who
buy and sell them, as they would horses.
Formerly there were white slaves in almost every country: afterwards,
when white slaves were not allowed by law, people went and stole
black men, from their homes and families, and carried them to places
so far from their homes, that they could never get back again, and
made them work for them. And it is very lately that a law has been
made that there shall be no more slavery.
The reason I tell you about slavery in this place is, that the Danes
had a great many English slaves, and the rich English had a great
many Britons, and even poor English, for their slaves; for, although
the Danes and English loved to be free themselves, they thought there
was no harm in making slaves of the prisoners they took in battle,
or even of the poor people of their own country, whom they forced to
sell themselves or their children for slaves, before they would give
them clothes or food to keep them from starving. By degrees, however,
these wicked customs were left off, and now we are all free.
After wise King Canute’s death, there were two more Danish kings in
England, one called Harold Harefoot, and the other Hardicanute; but
they reigned a very short time, and did little worth remembering:
so I shall say nothing more about them. In the next chapter we shall
have a good deal to learn.