EDMUND IRONSIDE AND CANUTE.

A Double Election—Battles of Pen Selwood and Sherstone—Treacheries of Edric—Division of the Kingdom—Death of Edmund—Election of Canute—His Treatment of his Rivals—The Four Earldoms—Canute's Marriage with Emma—His Popular Government—His Expeditions to Northern Europe—Submission of the King of Scots—Canute at Rome—The Story of his Rebuke to his Courtiers—His Death.

Immediately on the death of Ethelred, his son Edmund, who had given so many proofs of courage and devotion to this unhappy country, was elected king by the citizens of London. But most of the chief men of the kingdom, weary of the war, elected Canute, and joined him at Southampton, where they swore allegiance to him. Thus there were two kings in England, and of the two Edmund had a great advantage in being the holder of London.

This city the Danish monarch felt it necessary to possess; and in the absence of the new king, who was gathering troops in Wessex, he laid siege to it with a very considerable force; but the citizens defended themselves so well, that Canute broke up the siege and went back into Wessex in search of Edmund.

Both parties were impatient to decide their claims by battle. The armies met at Pen Selwood, where the English gained a victory. After which a second battle took place at Sherstone, in Wiltshire, and so obstinately was it contested that neither side could claim the victory, although the English, it is recorded, were nearly being defeated by the cunning of Edric Streona, who fought on the side of the Danes. Perceiving that the English troops fought with such desperate courage, he cut off the head of Osmer, a soldier who so resembled Edmund that he might easily have been mistaken for him. Placing the bleeding head upon his lance, he advanced with it to the front of the English army, and exclaimed, "Fly, English, fly! Edmund is dead." This stratagem had nearly succeeded; the soldiers of Edmund began to waver, on seeing which the king threw aside his helmet and rode bareheaded through the ranks, when he was received with cheers of delight.

The battle lasted till night, without any decisive advantage on either side. In the morning Edmund intended to renew the battle, but Canute, who had other intentions, retired to his ships and set sail, hastily landed his forces, and besieged London a second time with no better success than the first.

As soon as Edric saw that Canute's fortunes were on the decline, he changed sides again, and Edmund, yielding to the extraordinary influence which this villain appears to have possessed, admitted him into his confidence. He soon had to rue his folly, for after winning three battles against the Danes, and freeing London of their presence, Edmund would have utterly overthrown them at Otford had not the advice of Edric dissuaded him from continuing the pursuit. His pretext was that, if hardly pressed, despair might cause them to rally, and convert defeat into victory. Perhaps his idea was to weary out both sides, and so establish himself upon the ruins of their power.

A fifth battle was accordingly fought at Ashdon, in Essex, and here Edric once more acted the part of a traitor, for perceiving that the Danes were being put to flight, he drew off his men, and Canute finally won a crushing victory, slaying many of the chief men on the side of the English. It is hard to believe that his conduct on this occasion can have been as openly base as the chroniclers represent it, for we find that he is still trusted by the king, who, undaunted by his previous disasters, prepared to renew the conflict yet a sixth time. The two armies, therefore, confronted one another yet again, but no battle took place. A famous story is told concerning the two kings on this occasion, but it is not found in the more trustworthy accounts. It is said that Edmund proposed that they should decide their claims to the crown in single combat; an offer which his rival declined, under the plea that he was small of stature and of a sickly constitution; but added that, if the English king wished to avoid the effusion of blood, he was quite willing to consent to a division of the kingdom.

The more probable account of what occurred is that Edric Streona persuaded Edmund that it would be unwise to risk another battle, and that he had better agree to a partition of the kingdom. Anyhow, no battle was fought, and the two kings met on the island of Olney, in the Severn, and agreed that Edmund should be over-king, and should possess Wessex, Essex, and East Anglia, with London, while Canute should have Mercia and Northumberland. As Professor Freeman points out, the division differed from that made between Alfred and Guthrum, for Edmund gave to Canute all that part of Mercia which Alfred had kept, while he retained East Anglia and Essex, which by the old partition had belonged to Guthrum.

Edmund did not live to enjoy the rest he had won so dearly for many weeks, for on St. Andrew's Day, 1017, he died, and his death, like other unexpected events of the period, was attributed to Edric Streona. Upon this point, however, nothing can be asserted with safety, despite the circumstantial accounts of the chroniclers. Edmund had reigned only seven months, but in that brief space he had proved himself a very different man to his father.

On the death of Edmund Ironside, Canute's position in England was naturally much stronger than when he was maintaining an obstinate contest with the brave English king. Edmund's children were very young, and their claims were not to be entertained when it was of the utmost importance to have a man of courage and resource at the head of affairs. There was, however, a formidable competitor in Edwy, the late king's brother, who was much beloved by the people. But the Witena-gemot, weary of the contest for the kingdom, was convened at London, and Canute was chosen king over all England. It is said that in order to weaken the claims of his rivals he exacted from the assembly a promise that none of Edmund's sons or brothers should be king, and they even advised that Edwy should be outlawed. The pretext for this exclusion was that no mention had been made of the members of the line of Wessex in the treaty between Canute and Edmund.

Edwy was outlawed in 1017, and shortly afterwards died, murdered apparently by order of Canute, although there is another story that an unsuccessful attempt at his assassination was made shortly before his outlawry. In any case he disappears from history. The children of Ethelred and Emma were in Normandy with their mother. Edmund's two sons, Edward and Edmund, were sent to the King of Sweden, with secret orders, it is said, that they should be put to death. But Olaf, though placed in an embarrassing position by this infamous request, resolved to spare them. However, to avoid being drawn into war with his powerful neighbour he in his turn sent them to Stephen, King of Hungary, to be educated at his court. There Edmund died young; but Edward lived and married Agatha, the niece of Stephen's queen. She bore him Edgar Atheling, of whom we shall hear again, and Margaret, who afterwards became Queen of the Scots.

Canute, having rid himself of his rivals, divided England into four parts, keeping Wessex under his immediate rule, making Danes the Earls of East Anglia and Northumberland, and giving Mercia to Edric Streona. But he speedily caused Edric to be put to death, "and very rightly too," says the Chronicle, because no doubt he feared to have such a perfidious man among his chief men and Edric's body was thrown into the Thames. These earldoms continued until the Conquest, and their holders played a great part in the history of the subsequent reigns. It is remarkable that this arrangement of the government of the kingdom was very much in agreement with the policy of Dunstan.

In the same year Canute put away his Danish wife and contracted an alliance of a very wise character if regarded as a measure of precaution. Alfred and Edward, Ethelred's sons, were still a source of anxiety to him, and a quarrel was, above all things, to be avoided with Richard Duke of Normandy. In order to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid addresses to Queen Emma, the widow of Ethelred, and the curious marriage was concluded. It is said, but the story is probably without foundation, that she made him promise that the crown of England should go to the issue of her second marriage, to the exclusion of her children by Ethelred and of Canute's two sons.

Canute was an admirable ruler, although we find him, in 1018, laying a very heavy tax upon the kingdom, especially in London, which, it will be remembered, had held out so bravely for Ethelred. The money, however, which amounted to £83,000, was used for a good purpose, namely, to pay off the Danish fleet. With the fleet departed the larger part of the Danish army, a bodyguard remaining which was known as the King's House-carls, and which formed a little standing army. Canute had doubtless seen that the English national levies were not to be relied upon at a pinch, and wished to have a trusty force with which to oppose a sudden invasion.

Having thus established himself upon the throne, he proceeded to rule England by the English and for the English. The chief Danes were banished from the kingdom, or put to death one by one, and their places were taken by Englishmen. Leofric became Earl of Mercia in the room of Edric Streona, and the famous Godwin was made Earl of Wessex, which the king no longer kept under his special care. He also renewed the English laws and customs, King Edgar's laws, as they were called, and made no distinction between Dane and Englishman in the administration of justice. He sought also to gain the favour of the people by religious foundations, by gifts to monasteries and churches, by doing reverence to the saints and holy places they revered, by preferring the churchmen they honoured, and by many other gracious acts. A very politic proceeding was his translation of the bones of St. Alphege from Greenwich to Canterbury, by which he sought to bury the bitter memories of the past.

But though Canute spent most of his time in England, and valued his English possessions more than any other of his lands, he was during the greater part of his reign occupied in foreign wars with the object of building up a grand empire in northern Europe. It was in the first of these wars that Earl Godwin gained his confidence. In 1019, Canute having settled his power beyond all danger of a revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to make a campaign against the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a large body of the English, under the command of Earl Godwin. The Earl was stationed next the Swedish camp; and observing a favourable opportunity, which he was obliged suddenly to seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove them from their trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his advantage, and obtained a decisive victory over them. Next morning, Canute, seeing the English camp abandoned, imagined that those disaffected troops had deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably surprised to find that they were at that time engaged in pursuit of the discomfited Swedes. He was so pleased with this success, and with the manner of obtaining it, that he bestowed his niece in marriage on Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence and regard.

The wars with Sweden terminated in the submission of that kingdom to Canute as over-king, and in 1028 he attacked Norway, and drove the just, but unwarlike Olaf from the land. Canute was thus ruler over Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and none of the English kings, either before or since his time, have ever been rulers over so large a portion of Europe.

It was not likely that so powerful a monarch would tolerate the existence of an independent kingdom to the north of England, and Malcolm of Scotland forced an issue by invading Northumberland at the beginning of the reign. In 1031, therefore, Canute found occasion to approach the Scottish frontier with a powerful army. The King of Scots had no choice but to submit, and acknowledge Canute as his lord, and his nephew, Duncan, did homage for Cumberland at the same time. Duncan is well known to us through Shakespeare's play, and it is remarkable that among the under-kings who did homage to Canute was a certain MÆlboethe, who is doubtless identical with Macbeth.

Meanwhile England was at peace, in spite of a threatened invasion from Normandy in 1028, which was driven back by storms in the Channel. Canute, despite the crimes which had stained his earlier career, was developing more and more into an admirable monarch and good man. In 1027 he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and wrote from thence a letter to the English people full of penitence for his past misdeeds, promises for the future, and much elevated moral sentiment.

In particular he ordered the royal officers to do justice to all men of whatever estate, and not to exact money wrongfully under pretext of the royal necessities. "I have no need," he says, "of money gathered by unrighteousness." There is also a famous story told of him by Henry of Huntingdon, which shows that he was not blinded by the greatness of his position, but estimated his authority at its true value. He was at Southampton; and there, in answer probably to some over-charged flatteries from his courtiers, bade a chair be placed at the water's edge, challenging the sea at the same time to wet the feet of him whose ships sailed over it, and against whose land it dashed. The tide came rushing in, and soon it had wetted the feet and clothes of the king. Then he turned to his followers and said, "Behold how feeble is the power of kings and of men, for the waves will not hear my voice. Honour the Lord only, and serve him, for to him all things give obedience."

Men lived hard in those days, and the span of life was short, for when Canute died, in 1035, he was only forty years old.