CANUTE (CNUT), known as "the Great" (c. 995-1035), king of Denmark and
England, second son of King Sweyn Forkbeard and his first wife, the
daughter of the Polish prince, Mieszko, was born c. 995. On the death
of his father he was compelled to quit England by a general rising of
the Anglo-Saxons, on which occasion in a fit of rage, for he was not
naturally cruel, he abandoned his hostages after cutting off their
hands, ears and noses. In the following year, 1015, he returned with a
great fleet manned by a picked host, "not a thrall or a freedman among
them." He speedily succeeded in subduing all England except London, now
the last refuge of King Aethelred and his heroic son, Edmund Ironside.
On the death of Aethelred (23rd of April 1016) Canute was elected king
by an assembly of notables at Southampton; but London clung loyally to
Edmund, who more than once succeeded in raising the western shires
against Canute. Edmund indeed approved himself the better general of the
two, and would doubtless have prevailed, but for the treachery of his
own ealdormen. This was notably the case at the great battle of
Assandun, in which by the desertion of Eadric an incipient Anglo-Saxon
victory was converted into a crushing defeat. Nevertheless, the
antagonists were so evenly matched that the great men on both sides,
fearing that the interminable war would utterly ruin the land, arranged
a conference between Canute and Edmund on an island in the Severn, when
they agreed to divide England between them, Canute retaining Mercia and
the north, while Edmund's territory comprised East Anglia and Wessex
with London. On the death of Edmund, a few months later (November 1016),
Canute was unanimously elected king of all England at the beginning of
1017. The young monarch at once showed himself equal to his
responsibilities. He did his utmost to deserve the confidence of his
Anglo-Saxon subjects, and the eighteen years of his reign were of
unspeakable benefit to his adopted country. He identified himself with
the past history of England and its native dynasty by wedding Emma, or
Aelgifu, to give her her Saxon name (the Northmen called her Alfifa),
who came over from Normandy at his bidding, Canute previously
repudiating his first wife, another Aelgifu, the daughter of the
ealdorman Aelfhem of Deira, who, with her sons, was banished to Denmark.
In 1018 Canute inherited the Danish throne, his elder brother Harold
having died without issue. He no