Canute the Great Part 27

[447] _Annales Monastici_, ii., 16.

[448] Matthew Paris, _Chronica Majora_, i., 509.

[449] Munch, _Det norske Folks Historie_, I., ii., 814.

[450] Taranger, _Den angelsaksiske Kirkes Indflydelse paa den norske_, 176.

[451] Snorre, _Saga of Saint Olaf_, c. 244. For the preliminary steps see cc. 239-243.

[452] Matthew Paris, _Chronica Majora_, v., 42.

[453] Daae, _Norges Helgener_, 48-60.

[454] _Corpus Poetic.u.m Boreale_, ii., 144.

[455] _Ibid._, 161.

[456] Snorre, _Saga of Magnus the Good_, cc. 4, 5.

[457] Manitius, _Deutsche Geschichte_, 411-412.

[458] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_,1035; _Encomium Emmae_, iii., c. I.

[459] _Knytlingasaga_, c. 18.

[460] _Historia Rameseiensis_, 135.

[461] _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1052.

[462] C. 20.

[463] _Gesta_, schol. 38.

[464] The story must have arisen soon after the Danish period; it is first told by Henry of Huntingdon who wrote two generations later.

_Historia Anglorum_, 89.

CHAPTER XV

THE COLLAPSE OF THE EMPIRE

1035-1042

King Canute was dead, but the great king-thought that he lived for, the policy of his dynasty, their ambition to unite the Northern peoples in the old and new homes under one sceptre persisted after his death.

Historians have generally believed that Canute had realised the impossibility of keeping long united the three crowns that he wore in his declining years, and had made preparation for a division of the empire among his three sons. In the year of his death one son is found in England, one in Denmark, and one in Norway; hence it is believed that like Charlemagne before him he had executed some sort of a part.i.tion, so as to secure something for each of the three. Such a conclusion, however, lacks the support of doc.u.mentary authority and is based on a mistaken view of the situation in the empire in 1035.

We should remember in the first place that when Harthacanute and Sweyn received the royal t.i.tle (in 1028 and 1030), Canute cannot have been more than thirty-five years old, and at that age rulers are not in the habit of transferring their dominions to mere boys. In the second place, these two sons were sent to the North, not to exercise an independent sovereignty, but to represent the royal authority that resided at Winchester. Finally, there is no evidence that Canute at any time intended to leave England or any other kingdom to his son Harold. The probabilities are that he hoped to make the empire a permanent creation; perhaps he expected it to become in time wholly Scandinavian, as it already was to a large extent, except in the comparatively small area of Wess.e.x.

Canute's policy is revealed in the act at Nidaros, discussed in an earlier chapter, when in the presence of lords from all his realms, he led Harthacanute to the high seat and thus proclaimed him a king of his own rank. That Denmark was intended for the young King is undisputed.

England was to be added later. The Encomiast tells as that when Harthacanute had grown up (evidently toward the close of Canute's reign) all England was bound by oath to the sovereignty of Harthacanute.[465]

The early promise that Canute made to Queen Emma was apparently to be kept. Most likely, the loyalty that G.o.dwin and other West Saxon magnates showed to the King's legitimate heir is to be explained, not by a.s.suming a pro-Danish sentiment, but by this oath, surely taken in England, perhaps earlier at Nidaros.

The situation in Norway, however, made it difficult to carry out Canute's wishes. On the high seat in the Throndelaw sat Magnus the son of Saint Olaf. To be the son of a saint was a great a.s.set in the middle ages; in addition Magnus had certain native qualities of the kingly type and soon developed into a great warrior. Knowing that war was inevitable, Magnus began hostilities and carried the warfare into Danish waters.[466] It was this difficulty that prevented Harthacanute from appearing promptly in England in the winter of 1035-1036, when Harold Harefoot was planning to seize the throne.

After the flight of her son Sweyn in the summer of 1035, Elgiva is almost lost to history. Apparently she retired to England, where she played the part of Queen-mother during the reign of her son Harold: in a will of Bishop Alfric we find the testator giving two marks of gold to King Harold and one mark to my lady.[467] As we do not find that the King had either wife or children the presumption is that the lady was his mother, the woman from Northampton.

We may then conjecture that the struggle for the English crown in the winter following Canute's death was at bottom a fight between the two women who bore Canute's children, each with a son to place in the high seat, each with a party devoted to her cause, each with a section of the country ready to follow her lead. Elgiva had her strength in the Danelaw; there were her kinsmen, and there her family had once been prominent. Queen Emma was strongest in the south; on her side were Earl G.o.dwin and the housecarles.[468]

The sources that relate the events of these months are anything but satisfactory and their statements are sometimes vague or ambiguous. But it is clear that soon after the throne became vacant (thirteen days, if the Chronicler is accurate)[469] a meeting of the "wise men" was held at Oxford, the border city where Danes and Saxons had so frequently met in common a.s.sembly. At this meeting, as the _Chronicle_ has it, the northern magnates led by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and supported by the Danes in London, "chose Harold to hold all England, him and his brother Harthacanute who was in Denmark." To this arrangement G.o.dwin opposed all his influence and eloquence; but though he was supported by the lords of Wess.e.x, "he was able to accomplish nothing." It was finally agreed that Queen Emma and the royal guard should continue to hold Wess.e.x for Harthacanute.[470] The north was evidently turned over to Harold.

The decision reached at Oxford has been variously interpreted. At first glance it looks as if the kingdom was again divided along the line of the Thames valley. The statement of the Chronicler that Harold "was full King over all England" seems not to have been strictly contemporary but written after the King had seized the whole. What was done at Oxford was probably to establish an under-kingship of the sort that Canute had provided for Norway and Denmark. The overlordship of Harthacanute may have been recognised, but the administration was divided. This did not necessarily mean to the Scandinavian mind that the realm was divided; in the history of the North various forms of joint kingship are quite common.

For one year this arrangement was permitted to stand; but in 1037, Harold was taken to king over all England--the nation forsook Harthacanute because he tarried too long in Denmark.[471] Emma was driven from the land, perhaps to satisfy the jealousy of her rival Elgiva. The cause for the revolution of 1037 is unknown; but we may conjecture that intrigue was at work on both sides. Possibly the appearance of Emma's son Alfred in England the year before may have roused a sense of fear in the English mind and may have hastened the movement.

Sorrows now began to fall heavily upon England. In 1039, the Welsh made inroads and slew several of the Mercian lords. A "great wind" scattered destruction over the land. A remarkable mortality appeared among the bishops, four dying in 1038 and one more in 1039. The following year died Harold, whose unkingly and un-Christian behaviour was no doubt regarded as the cause of these calamities. He died at Oxford and was buried at Westminster. The same year Harthacanute joined his mother at Bruges, whither she had fled when exiled from England.[472]

It was neither listless choice nor lack of kinglike interest that had detained Harthacanute in Denmark; it was the danger that threatened from Norway. Hostilities seem to have begun in the spring of 1036 and to have continued for about two years. The war was finally closed with an agreement at the Brenn-isles near the mouth of the Gaut River in south-western Sweden. According to this the two young kings became sworn brothers, and it was stipulated that if the one should die leaving no heirs, the other should succeed him.[473] It was not so much of a treaty on the part of the kings as of the chief men of the kingdoms, as both peoples were evidently tiring of the warfare.

Perhaps that which most of all determined the Danes to seek peace was the news that Harold had seized the government of all England the previous year. This must have happened late in the year, as the Chronicler tells us that Queen Emma was driven out of England "without pity toward the stormy winter." In Norway there was no party that still favoured the Knytlings; the situation in England looked more favourable.

Evidently Harthacanute's counsellors had concluded that his inherited rights in Britain should be claimed and defended.

Harthacanute came to Bruges with a small force only; but it was probably the plan to use Flanders as a base from which to descend upon England.

Nothing seems to have been done in 1039, however, except, perhaps, to prepare for a campaign in the coming spring. But for this there was no need: before the winter was past, Harold lay dead at Oxford. History knows little about the fleet-footed Prince; but from what has been recorded we get the impression of a violent, ambitious youth, one to whom power was sweet and revenge sweeter. So far as we know, government in his day was poor both in state and church. Oxford, it seems, was his residential city.

After Harold's death messengers came from England to Bruges to summon Harthacanute. The succession was evidently not settled without some negotiations, for Harthacanute must have waited two months or more before he left Flanders. No doubt the chiefs who had placed his half-brother on the throne were unwilling to submit without guarantees; their behaviour had not been such as to render their future secure. Just before midsummer Harthacanute finally arrived in England with sixty ships; he was crowned probably on June 18th.[474] For two years he ruled the country but "he did nothing kinglike."[475] Partly as a punishment, perhaps, he made England pay for the expedition that he had just fitted out, and consequently forfeited what favour he had at the very beginning.

Harthacanute is described as a sickly youth, and a Norman historian a.s.sures us that on account of his ill-health he kept G.o.d before his mind and reflected much on the brevity of human life.[476] He seems to have been of a kindly disposition, as appears from his dealings with his half-brother Edward. His sudden death at a henchman's wedding is not to be attributed to excesses but to the ailment from which he suffered. But the drunken laugh of the bystanders[477] indicates that the world did not fully appreciate that with Harthacanute perished the dynasty of Gorm.

Three men now stood forth as possible candidates for the throne of Alfred: Magnus the Good, now King of Denmark and Norway, Harthacanute's heir by oath and adoption; Sweyn, the son of Canute's sister Estrid, his nearest male relative and the ranking member of the Danish house, a prince who was probably an Englishman by birth, and whose aunt was the wife of Earl G.o.dwin; and Edward, later known as the Confessor, who strangely enough represented what national feeling there might be in England, though of such feeling he himself was probably guiltless. It may be remarked in pa.s.sing that all these candidates were sons of men whom Canute had deeply wronged, men whom he had deprived of life or hounded to death.

There is no good evidence that Edward was ever formally elected King of England. Harthacanute died at Lambeth, only a few miles from London.

"And before the King was buried all the folk chose Edward to be King in London," says one ma.n.u.script of the _Chronicle_. If this be true, there could have been no regular meeting of the magnates. The circ.u.mstances seem to have been somewhat in the nature of a revolution headed no doubt by the anti-Danish faction in London.

That Edward was enabled to retain the crown was due largely, we are told, to the efforts of Canute's two old friends, Earl G.o.dwin and Bishop Lifing.[478] The situation was anything but simple. The election of Magnus would restore Canute's empire, but it might also mean English and Danish revolts. To elect Sweyn would mean war with Magnus, Sweyn claiming Denmark and Magnus England. At the time the Danish claimant was making most trouble, for Sweyn seems to have arrived in England soon after Edward was proclaimed. All that he secured, however, was the promise that he should be regarded as Edward's successor.[479] It was doubtless well known among the English lords that the new King was inclined to, and probably pledged to a celibate life. We do not know whether Englishmen were at this time informed of the ethelings in Hungary. To most men it must have seemed likely that Alfred's line would expire with Edward; under the circ.u.mstances Sweyn was the likeliest heir.

With the accession of Edward, the Empire of the North was definitely dissolved. Fundamentally it was based on the union of England and Denmark, a union that was now repudiated. Still, the hope of restoring it lingered for nearly half a century. Three times the kings of the North made plans to reconquer England, but in each instance circ.u.mstances made successful operations impossible. After the death of Magnus in 1047, the three old dynasties once more controlled their respective kingdoms, though in the case of both Denmark and Norway the direct lines had perished. The Danish high seat alone remained to the Knytlings, now represented by Sweyn, the son of Estrid and the violent Ulf for whose tragic death the nation had now atoned.

FOOTNOTES:

[465] _Encomium Emmae_, ii., c. 19.

[466] Snorre, _Saga of Magnus the Good_, c. 6.

[467] Kemble, _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 759.