Little Arthur's history of England

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.