f a good child had made it), they would
not have been at such great pains to repeat it. I fancy I see them all
on the sea-shore together; the King's chair sinking in the sand; the King
in a mighty good humour with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretending
to be quite stunned by it!

It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go 'thus far, and no farther.'
The great command goes forth to all the kings upon the earth, and went to
Canute in the year one thousand and thirty-five, and stretched him dead
upon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman wife. Perhaps, as the King
looked his last upon her, he, who had so often thought distrustfully of
Normandy, long ago, thought once more of the two exiled Princes in their
uncle's court, and of the little favour they could feel for either Danes
or Saxons, and of a rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards
England.

CHAPTER VI--ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD THE
CONFESSOR

Canute left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but his
Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of only
Hardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions to be divided between the
three, and had wished Harold to have England; but the Saxon people in the
South of England, headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called the
powerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to have been originally a poor
cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to have, instead, either Hardicanute,
or one of the two exiled Princes who were over in Normandy. It seemed so
certain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that
many people left their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps.
Happily, however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great
meeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should have all the country
north of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and that
Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so arranged; and,
as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very little about
anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin
governed the south for him.

They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had hidden
themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the elder of the two
exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few followers, to claim
the English Crown. His mother Emma, however, who only cared for her last
son Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as