By the death of Edmund, Canute became king of all England in the twentieth year of his age. Before his coronation took place, he assembled the Saxon nobles and bishops, and Danish chiefs in London, who had been witnesses to the treaty entered into between himself and Edmund, when the kingdom was divided; and either by intimidation, persuasion, or presents, succeeded in obtaining their unanimous assent to his succession to the crown. In return for this acknowledgment, he promised to act justly and righteously, and placed his bare hand upon the hands of his chiefs and nobles as a token of his sincerity. But in spite of these promises, the commencement of his reign was marked by acts of unnecessary severity and cruelty. Those who had been in any way related to either Ethelred or Edmund, he banished; and many who had taken a prominent part in the late struggles to support the Saxon monarchy, he put to death. He also decreed that Edwig, the half-brother of Edward, should be slain. The late king had left two children, one of whom was named Edmund after himself, and the other Edward; Canute, with the approbation of the Saxon nobles, became their guardian; and no sooner were they placed within his power, than he meditated their destruction; but a fear that his throne was not sufficiently established to prevent the Saxons from rising to revenge their death, caused him to postpone it; and under the plea of securing their safety, the children were committed to the charge of the king of Sweden; the messenger who accompanied them at the same time giving instructions that they were to be secretly killed. But the Swedish sovereign was not willing to become a murderer at the bidding of Canute, and therefore committed the children to the care of the king of Hungary, by whom they were preserved and educated. Edmund died, but Edward lived to marry the daughter of the emperor of Germany, and from their union sprang Edgar Atheling, a name that afterwards figures in the pages of History.
Edward and Alfred, the remaining sons of Ethelred, were still safe at the court of their uncle, Richard, duke of Normandy, with their mother, Emma, the dowager queen; and scarcely was Canute seated upon the throne before the Norman duke despatched an embassy to the English court, demanding that the crown of England should be restored to his eldest nephew. Emma, it will be remembered, was herself a Norman, and although she became the wife of Ethelred, her sympathies never seem to have leaned much on the side of the Saxons. As early as the time of the invasion of Swein, she had fled to her brother's court with her children, nor does it appear that she returned with her husband, Ethelred, when he was reinstated upon the throne. Whether the proposition first emanated from Canute, or her brother, the Norman duke, is somewhat uncertain; but whichever way it might be, it was soon followed up by the marriage of Emma, the widow of Ethelred, the dowager-queen of the Saxons, with Canute, the Danish king, and now the sole sovereign of England. The murdering, the banishing, the usurping Dane, became the husband of "The Flower of Normandy." After her union, it is said that she paid no regard to the Saxon princes whom she left at her brother's court, but, like an unnatural mother, abandoned them to chance; and that, as they grew up, they forgot even the language of their native country, and followed the habits and customs of the Normans, for Emma soon became the mother of a son by Canute, and disowned for ever her Saxon offspring.
After his marriage with Emma, Canute disbanded the greater portion of his Danish troops, and reserving only forty of his native ships, sent back the remainder of his fleet to Denmark. Canute then chiefly confined his government to that part of the island which Alfred the Great had reigned over; for it is on record that he ever held in the highest veneration the memory of this celebrated king. He made Turketul, to whom he was greatly indebted for the subjection of England, governor of East Anglia. To Eric, the Norwegian prince, he gave the government of Northumbria, and to the traitor, Edric, Mercia. Although he had in turn deserted Ethelred, Edmund, and even Canute himself, he entrusted to him the government of this kingdom. The traitor, however, was not allowed to retain the dignities of his new dukedom long: a quarrel is said to have taken place between him and Canute, in the palace which overlooked the Thames at London. Edric is said to have urged his claim to greater rewards, by exclaiming, in the heat of his passion, "I first deserted Edmund to benefit you, and for you I killed him." Canute paced the apartment, angrily, coloured deeply, bit his lips, and while his eyes, which were always unnaturally fierce and bright, seemed to flash fire, he replied, "'Tis fit, then, you should die, for your treason to God and me. You killed your own lord! him who by treaty and friendship was my brother! Your blood be upon your own head for murdering the Lord's anointed; your own lips bear witness against you." Such a sentence came but with an ill grace from one who had encouraged, countenanced, and rewarded villany; but Canute, though young, was a deep adept in the blackest arts of kingcraft. He either called in, or gave a secret signal to Eric, the Norwegian, who most likely was present at the interview; for, having killed one king, we should hardly think Canute considered himself safe, alone with a murderer; but be this as it may, Eric laid him lifeless with one blow from his battle-axe; and, without creating any disturbance in the palace, the body of Edric was thrown out of the window into the Thames. The old historians considerably differ in their descriptions of the manner of his death, though the majority agree that the deed was done in the palace at London.
In 1019, so firmly had Canute established himself upon the throne of England, that he paid a visit to his native country of Denmark, where he passed the winter. But the government of England appears not to have been conducted to his satisfaction during his absence, for on his return he banished the duke Ethelwerd, whom he had left in a situation of great trust, and, shortly after, Turketul, the governor of East Anglia. A Swedish fleet, soon after this period, is said to have attacked the forces of Canute, and the victory, on the side of the English, is rumoured to have been owing to the valour of Godwin, who, at the close of the reign of Edmund, was a humble cowherd, but had, in the space of a few brief years, risen to the dignity of an earl. In his conflict with the Swedes, Ulfr, the patron of Godwin, was instrumental in saving Canute's life. After this they quarrelled at a feast. It appears that they were amusing themselves with some game at the time, and that Ulfr, well acquainted with the natural irritability of the Dane's temper, had either retired, or was about to retreat, when Canute accused him of cowardice. Ulfr, ill-brooking an accusation which he seems never to have merited, angrily exclaimed, "Was I a coward when I rescued you from the fangs of the Swedish dogs?" As in the case of Edric, the Dane liked not to have those about him to whom he had been obliged; it was indifferent to him whether they did his work by valour or treachery; thus, shortly after, Ulfr was stabbed by the command of Canute, while performing his religious duties in a neighbouring church.
He next turned his attention towards Norway, over which Eglaf, or St. Olave, as he has been called by some, now reigned. The Dane is said to have commenced his attack by corrupting the Norwegian subjects with presents of money. This done, he went boldly over, with a fleet of fifty ships, carrying with him many of the bravest of the Saxon nobles. From the preparations which he had made, and the formidable force with which he appeared, he was received with that apparent welcome which necessity is sometimes compelled to accord, and, wherever he approached, was hailed as "Lord." After having carried away with him as hostages the sons and relations of the principal Norwegian chiefs, he appointed Haco, the son of that Eric whose battle-axe was ever ready to do his bidding, governor of the kingdom. Haco returned to England for his wife, who was residing at the castle of his father, the governor of Northumbria, but a heavy storm coming on, he was unable to land. His ship was last seen looming in the evening sunset, off Caithness, in Scotland, while the wind was blowing heavily in the direction of Pentland Frith, but neither Haco, his crew, nor his ship, were ever beheld again, after the sun had sunk behind the billows.
After this, Eglaf returned to the throne of Norway, and was put to death by the hands of his subjects for making laws and founding institutions which were calculated to accelerate the progress of learning and civilization. Norway, which had for centuries sent from its stormy shores such swarms of sea-kings and pirates, could not be brought to understand that they should ever reap such benefits, if they changed their habits of rapine and robbery for those of honesty and industry, and the more rational pleasures of civilized life. They understood the laws of "strandhug," and they acknowledged no other. If they landed upon a hospitable shore, amongst a nation with whom they were at peace, and found their provisions growing short, they recruited their stock from the flocks and herds they saw grazing in the neighbouring pastures, paid whatever amount they pleased as the value of the animals they had slaughtered, carried off corn and drink under the same free-trade tariff; and sometimes, when remonstrated with on the smallness of the amount paid, settled the balance by the blow of a battle-axe.
Although Canute was the son of a pagan, he became a zealous Christian, rebuilt many of the monasteries which his father had burnt, endowed others, and, either from a feeling of piety, or to ingratiate himself with the Saxons, he erected a monument to Elfeg, the archbishop, at Canterbury, whose violent death had doubtless been accelerated by those very veterans who had assisted him in conquering the Saxons.
Not content with honouring the murdered archbishop with a monument, he resolved that the body should be placed in the abbey which had witnessed the services of so pious a primate; so he demanded the body of the bishop from the inhabitants of London, who had purchased it from the Danes, and buried it in their own city. The Londoners, however, refused to deliver it up; when the Dane, mingling the old habits of the sea-king with his devotions, put on his helmet and breastpiece, placed himself at the head of his troops, carried off the coffin by force, and, between two long lines of his armed soldiers, that were drawn up on each side of the street which led from the church to the Thames, had the dead body of the archbishop borne to the war-ship, which stood ready to receive it. There is something of magnificence in such an act of barbarous veneration as this, which was accomplished without either injury or bloodshed; and we can imagine that in every corner of the London of that day, nothing was talked of but the daring piety of Canute, which had led him to carry off the body of their reputed saint; that public opinion would be divided in the motives it attributed to such an act; that little groups would assemble at the corners of the streets, and that long after twilight had settled down upon the old city, their conversation would still be about Canute and his soldiers, and the enormous war-ship, with its gilt figure-head, that resembled a dragon, and the dead bishop it would carry away; then the city-gates would be closed, and over all would reign the ancient midnight silence and darkness, while the dragon-headed ship and the Danes went slowly down the silver Thames, freighted with the king, and the coffin, and the murdered man.
There appears, at a first glance, something incongruous in such an act as that of Canute's carrying off the dead body of the bishop by force, when it was done with the intent of making a favourable impression upon the Saxons; yet we must not forget the stout resistance made by the capital in the defence of Edmund, which the Danish king seems also to have borne in mind, when he exacted from the city the sum of eleven thousand pounds.
Canute seems to have been a man in whom the elements of refinement and barbarism, which our ancient writers love to dwell upon in their moral masks, were oddly blended; he was one who believed that cruelty was necessary in the administration of justice, but looked with horror upon a deed that was committed without the pale of this shadowy boundary.
In a moment of unguarded passion, he with his own hand slew one of his soldiers; thereby committing a deed which, according to his own laws, the penalty was, in its mildest form, a heavy mulct. After reflecting upon the crime he was guilty of, and the evil example he was setting to others, he assembled his army, and, arrayed in his royal robes, descended from his gorgeous throne in the midst of the armed ranks; expressed his sorrow for the deed he had done, and demanded that he should be tried and punished like the humblest subject over whom he reigned. He further offered a free pardon to his judges, however severe might be the judgment they passed upon him; then throwing himself prostrate upon the ground, in silence awaited their verdict. Many a hardy soldier, whose weather-beaten cheeks were seamed with the scars of battle, is said to have shed tears as he beheld the royal penitent thus prostrate at his feet. Those who were appointed judges retired for a few moments to deliberate; but either believing that Canute was not sincere, or having the example of those before their eyes who had formerly done his bidding, they timidly resolved to allow him to appoint his own punishment. This he did, and as the fine for killing a man was then forty talents of silver, he sentenced himself to pay three hundred and sixty, beside nine talents of gold. It would, perhaps, be uncharitable to say that the whole affair was a mere mockery; but when we remember that a word from his lips could wring a thousand times that amount from the oppressed Saxons, and that he himself had compelled them to pay heavier taxes than had ever been demanded by their own native kings, we are surely justified in concluding, that after all, he acquitted himself on very moderate terms.
During the ravages of the Danes, the tribute which the Saxons paid to Rome had been suspended. This Canute resolved to revive; and, as if to make up for the ravages of his countrymen, the sea-kings, for the monks they had murdered, and the churches they had destroyed, he inflicted a tax of a penny on every inhabited house, which was called Peter's-pence; thus further punishing the poor Saxons, by levying a fine upon them "to the praise and glory of God," for so was the royal ordinance worded, that they might show their gratitude to mother church, through the hands of those who had been instrumental in slaughtering their priests, overthrowing their altars, and desolating their land. In brief, it was the descendant of the murderer levying a tax upon the relatives of the murdered to purchase forgiveness for the slayer—one of those crooked paths by which, in that barbarous age, men hoped to reach Heaven.
The plan he adopted to reprove his flattering courtiers displayed, at best, much unnecessary show. A man who, by his valour and abilities, had ascended a throne which had been occupied by a long line of kings, and although an open enemy, had compelled a powerful nation to acknowledge him as their sovereign—one who had himself ridden over the stormy sea, and been tossed like a weed from billow to billow, can never be supposed to have entertained the thought for a moment that the angry ocean with its rising tide would obey him, or roll back its restless waves when he commanded. It was the same love of display which caused him to erect the throne in the midst of his army, and step forth in his royal robes, the haughty king, while he assumed the part of the humble penitent for having slain one of his soldiers. The same theatrical display which caused him to order his lumbering throne to be placed beside the sea-shore, and to sit down in all his kingly dignity, robed, crowned, and sceptered—the gilt and tinsel that are so effective beyond the footlights—induced him to adopt this stage effect; for Canute, in the dress of a common man, with his foot in the spray, would not have produced half that impression upon his audience, many of whom, we can readily imagine, must have felt disgusted at such useless parade. In a pompous manner, he is said to have thus addressed his courtiers:—"Confess ye now how frivolous and vain is the might of an earthly king compared to that Great Power who rules the elements, and can say unto the ocean, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.'" We should not probably err much if, instead of the words uttered by the Danish king, something like the following was the real language of his inward thought, and that, as he looked sternly upon them, he said to himself, "Think not that I believe you such idiots as to suppose that the sea will obey my bidding—a breath of mine would sever the proudest head that now rises above the beach. I alone am king, more powerful than any present, and I only want to prove that there is but One mightier than I am, and that while the waves wash my feet, they would surely drown such common rascals as you all are." In a word, the whole scene is too rich a piece of mockery to be treated seriously. It is as if a man mounted a lofty steeple, and threw down his hat, merely to convince the spectators below that if his head had been in it, it would assuredly have been broken. It is but the old cry of the Mahometan fruit-seller, which ends with, "In the name of the prophet—figs." Another proof of his overbearing vanity is given in his conduct to Thorarin, the Danish bard. The poet had written some verses in praise of Canute. It appears that the king was either engaged or seated at the banquet when the scald intreated of him to listen to the verses which he had written, urging as a reason, what a patron in modern times would most likely have listened to—namely, that they were but short. The Dane, however, true to his character, in a love of display and praise, turned round indignantly upon Thorarin, and in an angry tone exclaimed, "Are you not ashamed to do what none but yourself would dare—to write a short poem upon me? Unless by to-morrow at noon you produce above thirty verses on the same subject, your head shall be forfeited." The poor bard retired, and having whipped his muse into the finest order for lying and flattering, he by the next day produced such a splendid piece of adulation, that the praise-loving monarch rewarded him with fifty marks of silver.
Following the example of the Saxon kings, Canute made a pilgrimage to Rome, to visit the tombs of the saints: although accompanied by a large train of attendants, he himself bore a wallet upon his shoulder, and carried a long pilgrim's staff in his hand. On every altar he, with his own hand, placed rich gifts—doubtless, wrung from many a poor Saxon—pressed the pavement with his lips, and knelt down before the shrines; he purchased the arm of St. Augustine, for which he paid a hundred talents of gold and the same number of talents in silver, and this he afterwards presented to the church of Coventry. He then despatched a letter to England, which has been frequently quoted by ancient historians. It is curious as a specimen of early epistolary art, and places the character of Canute in a much more favourable light than the incidents which we have above described; and as we obtain through it glimpses of the manners and customs of this remote period, we shall present it entire:—
"Knut, king of England and Denmark, to all the bishops and primates and all the English people, greeting. I hereby announce to you that I have been to Rome for the remission of my sins, and the welfare of my kingdoms. I humbly thank the Almighty God for having granted me, once in my life, the grace of visiting in person his very holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints who have their habitation, either within the walls, or without the Roman city. I determined upon this journey because I had learned from the mouths of wise men, that the apostle Peter possesses great power to bind or to loose, and that he keeps the keys of the celestial kingdom; wherefore, I thought it useful to solicit specially his favour and patronage with God.
"During the Easter solemnity was held here a great assembly of illustrious persons,—namely, pope John, the emperor Kunrad, and all the chief men of the nations from Mount Gargano to the sea which surrounds us. All received me with great distinction, and honoured me with rich presents. I have received vases of gold and silver, and stuffs and vestments of great price; I have conversed with the emperor, the lord pope, and the other princes, upon the wants of all the people of my kingdoms, English and Danes. I have endeavoured to obtain for my people justice and security in their pilgrimages to Rome, and especially that they may not for the future be delayed on their road by the closing of the mountain passes, or vexed by enormous tolls. I also complained to the lord pope of the immensity of the sums extorted, to this day, from my archbishops, when, according to custom, they repair to the apostolical court to obtain the pallium. It has been decided that this shall not occur for the future.
"I would also have you know that I have made a vow to Almighty God to regulate my life by the dictates of virtue, and to govern my people with justice. If during the impetuosity of my youth I have done anything contrary to equity, I will for the future, with the help of God, amend this to the best of my power; wherefore, I require and command all my councillors, and those to whom I have confided the affairs of my kingdom, to lend themselves to no injustice, either in fear of me, or to favour the powerful. I recommend them, if they prize my friendship and their own lives, to do no harm or violence to any man, rich or poor: let every one, in his place, enjoy that which he possesses, and not be disturbed in that enjoyment, either in the king's name, or in the name of any other person; nor under pretext of levying money for my treasury, for I need no money obtained by unjust means.
"I propose to return to England this summer, and as soon as the preparations for my embarkation shall be completed. I intreat and order you all, bishops and officers of my kingdom of England, by the faith you owe to God and to me, to see that before my return all our debts to God be paid—namely, the plough dues, the tithe of animals born within the year, and the pence due to Saint Peter from every house in town and country; and further, at mid-August, the tithe of the harvest, and at Martinmas, the first fruit of the seed; and if, on my landing, these dues are not fully paid, the royal power will be exercised upon defaulters, according to the rigour of the law and without any mercy."
Canute died in the year 1035, and was buried at Winchester.
While even the succession to the Saxon throne was sometimes disputed when not a doubt remained about the right of a claimant to the crown, it will not be wondered at, as at his death Canute left three sons, two of whom were beyond doubt illegitimate, that there should be some difference of opinion among the chiefs and earls respecting the election of a new sovereign. Hardicanute was the undoubted offspring of Emma and Canute; she, it will be remembered, being the widow of Ethelred at the time of her marriage with the Danish king. There is a doubt whether Harold, who ascended the throne after the death of Canute, was in any way related to the Danish king; or that his pretended mother, whose name was Alfgiva, and who was never married to Canute, finding that she was likely to have no children, passed off the son of a poor cobbler—whom she named Harold—as her own. It is said that Swein, the other reputed son of Canute, was introduced by her in the same way. The latter, Canute placed upon the throne of Norway during his lifetime, also expressing a wish before his death that Harold should rule over England, and that Hardicanute, his undisputed son, should succeed him as king of Denmark. Beside these claimants, it must be borne in mind that the children of Ethelred were still alive, although, as we have before shown, wholly neglected by the twice-widowed queen, Emma. The witena-gemot assembled at Oxford to elect a new sovereign; and as there were by this time several Danish chiefs among the council, a division at once took place, the Danish party making choice of Harold, while the Saxons, headed by the powerful earl Godwin, once the humble cowherd, preferred Hardicanute, because his mother had been the wife of a Saxon king. A third party advocated the claims of the sons of Ethelred, who were still in Normandy. Leofric, earl of Mercia, ranged his forces on the side of Harold; and even London shook off its allegiance to the old Saxon line, and proclaimed in his favour.
Although Hardicanute was in Denmark, earl Godwin resolved to maintain his right to the throne; and it was not until the country was on the very eve of a civil war, and when many of the inhabitants had fled into the wild parts to avoid its ravages, that the Saxon earl compelled the partisans of Harold to give up all the provinces south of the Thames to Hardicanute. Thus Godwin and Emma ruled in the south, in behalf of Hardicanute, and held their court at Winchester; while Harold, with London for his capital, and the whole country north of the Thames for his dominions, was acknowledged king of England; although it is on record, that the archbishop refused to crown him, because the children of Ethelred were still alive; that he even forbade any of the bishops to administer the benediction, but placing the crown and sceptre upon the altar, left him to crown, anoint, and bless himself as he best could.
But whoever's son Harold might be, he resented this slight with all the spirit of a true sea-king. He crowned himself without the aid of the Saxon bishops; despised their blessings, and, instead of attending church, sallied out with his hounds to hunt during the hours of divine service; and so fleet was he of foot in following the chase, that he obtained the surname of Harefoot. He set no store by the Christian religion, but defied all the bishops in Christendom, sounded his hunting horn while the holy anthem was chaunted, and conducted himself in every way like a hard-drinking, misbelieving Dane.
We again arrive at one of those mysterious incidents which occasionally darken the pages of history, and render it difficult to get at the real actors of the tragedy. A letter is written—the sons of Ethelred are invited over to England. One arrives—he is to all appearance hospitably received; in the night his followers are murdered, and he himself shortly after put to a most cruel death. That the events we are about to record took place, has never been doubted; the obscurity that will, probably, for ever reign around them, conceals the real instigator of the deed.
Emma, it appears, was at this time living at the court of Harold in London, when a letter arrived at Normandy (as if from her), earnestly urging her sons, Edward and Alfred, to return to England—stating, that the Saxons were already weary of the Danish king, and were anxious to place the crown upon either of their heads. The letter was answered by Alfred, the youngest, appearing in person, accompanied by a troop of Norman soldiers; which was contrary to the advice of the letter, as the instructions it contained especially requested them to come secretly. He first attempted to land at Sandwich, but why he altered his mind, and went round the North Foreland, has never been satisfactorily accounted for; for we cannot see what difference it made whether earl Godwin received him at one point or the other. It is, however, just probable that a party of Danes, or those who were favourable to Harold, may by chance, or by command, have been stationed at the spot Alfred first selected for debarkation, the secret having got bruited abroad.
But be this as it may, the Saxon prince at last landed somewhere between Herne-bay and the Isle of Sheppy, and when he had advanced a short distance into the country he was met by earl Godwin, who swore fealty to him, and promised to bring him safely to his mother Emma, wishing him, however, to avoid London, where Harold then resided, and with whom there is some slight reason to believe Godwin was now in league, though this suspicion hangs by a very slender thread. It is probable that the powerful earl took a dislike to the strong body of Normans who accompanied Alfred; and, jealous that the power he sought to obtain by raising the Saxon prince to the throne of England might be weakened by these retainers, he resolved to cut them off at once, then make the best terms he could.
The Saxon prince and his followers, who amounted to about seven hundred, were quartered for the night in the town of Guildford, just as accommodation could be found for them, in parties of ten and twelve—in every lodging abundance of meat and drink was provided. Earl Godwin was in attendance upon Alfred until late at night, and when he departed, he promised to wait upon him early in the morning. Morning came, but the earl made not his appearance, and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the partisans of Harold had heard of the arrival of Godwin, that they entered Guildford in the night, and that Godwin and his followers, who were unequal to cope with the Danish force, escaped. Further, that these were the Danes whom Alfred had seen while off Sandwich, and, since the course of his steering round the North Foreland, and landing near the Isle of Sheppy, they had crossed the country. If so, the Saxon prince and his Norman followers must have marched through Kent and into Surrey, within a few miles of the Danish army, who were probably watching the motions of both Godwin and Alfred. Harold may have caused the letter to have been written, and confided his plans to Godwin, and the latter have resolved to rescue the son of Ethelred from the snare that was set to entrap him, for Godwin was fully competent to execute such an act if a favourable opportunity offered itself. Emma may have been in earnest, yet her purpose before accomplished might have been betrayed, for although she is accused of having been an unkind mother, there is no proof of that cruelty of disposition evinced, which would justify us in concluding that she countenanced the murder of her son. She might cling more fondly to Hardicanute, who was her youngest child, than to the rest—such a feeling is not uncommon. But these doubts and reasons might be multiplied into pages, and then we should probably be as wide apart from the truth.
In the old town of Guildford, above 900 years ago, nearly seven hundred foreigners, most of them strangers to England, retired to rest, some fondly dreaming of the possessions they should obtain when the prince whose fortunes they followed ascended the throne. Weary with their long journey, others would fall at once to sleep, without bestowing a thought upon the morrow, for that night there appears to have been no lack of either food or wine. When hark, hark! it is the dead midnight, and the chambers in which they sleep are filled with armed men—figures in armour, some holding lights, others with their swords pointed, bend over them—men who grasp strong spears are stationed at the doors—some bind their arms with cords—they attempt to reach their weapons, but find they have been removed—some struggle for a few moments, but are speedily overpowered. Chains and ropes are at hand, stern-looking men set their teeth together, and kneel upon them until their limbs are bound—and in every house at the self same hour they are all secured and made prisoners. A few defended themselves and were slain. What a night must that have been in the old town of Guildford—what Saxon hearts must have ached at day-dawn, when the maidens beheld the young and handsome foreigners led to execution! for some, doubtless, over their cups, had boasted, that when the Saxon prince had "regained his own," they would return again—and fond, foolish old mothers, whose hearts beat in favour of the royal Saxon, may have wetted their lips, and drank destruction to the Danes, and talked about what they had heard their great-grandmothers say of Alfred the Great, and hoped that he who then aspired to the throne would be found worthy of the name he bore:—for a hundred years would only have added to the fame of the great king, and in that old Saxon town there were doubtless many living whose ancestors had fought under Alfred the Great.
The morning that dawned upon the grey country witnessed the execution of the Normans; they were led to death in tens, and one out of every ten was left alive—the rest perished; but whether beheaded by the battle-axe, or pierced through with the sword or spear, or hung upon the nearest oak, history has not recorded. But whether Godwin or Harold was the cause of their death will never now be known. Vengeance, who is never silent, bore their dying groans to the shores of Normandy, and from that hour Revenge rose up, and, with his red right arm bared, pointed with his bloody sword to the shores of England. For thirty years that grim landmark stood pointing over the sea, until at last it leaped from the stormy headland, and led the way to the blood-stained shores of Britain.
Meantime, the Saxon prince was carried captive to London, when, after having endured the insults and reproaches of Harold, he was hurried off to Ely, to be tried by a mock court of Danish judges, who, after having offered him every insult they could invent, cruelly sentenced him to lose his eyes. The barbarous sentence was fulfilled, and a day or two after its execution death put an end to the sufferings of Alfred.
After the death of Alfred, Emma was banished from England by the command of Harold; an act which goes far to prove that she had been instrumental in tempting her ill-starred son to visit England, though it seems somewhat strange that she should take up her residence at Bruges, while her son Edward, who was the true heir to the English throne, yet resided in Normandy. She, however, despatched messengers to Denmark, intreating her son Hardicanute to revenge the death of his maternal brother Alfred, who, she said, had been betrayed by earl Godwin, and assassinated by the command of Harold. During the remainder of the reign of Harold Harefoot, we lose sight of earl Godwin, so that if even he had any share in the plot which terminated in the murder of the young prince, it appears not to have advanced his interests at the court of Harold; who, before the close of his reign, attained the full title of king of England. Nor does it appear that Hardicanute ever set foot on the territory allotted to him by the council of Oxford, on the south of the Thames; and which, as we have shown, was held for a time on his behalf by Godwin, and his mother, Emma of Normandy. The son of Canute was at Bruges with his mother, having retired thither to consult her previous to his meditated invasion of England, when a deputation arrived there, from England, announcing the death of Harold. He had already left a strong fleet at the mouth of the Baltic, ready at his command, when the first favourable wind blew, to commence hostilities against Britain; nine ships, well armed, had also accompanied him on his visit to his mother, in Flanders, when, just as his plan of attack was decided upon, and all was in readiness for the invasion, Harold's brief and blood-stained reign terminated, in the year 1040, and he was buried at Westminster.
Nearly the first act that disgraced the reign of Hardicanute, was his disinterment of the body of Harold; which, after having exhumed and decapitated, he commanded to be thrown into the Thames, from which it was taken out by a Danish fisherman, and again interred in a cemetery in London, where the Danes only buried their dead. His next act was to summon earl Godwin before a court of justice, in which he was accused of being instrumental in procuring the death of Alfred. At the appointed day Godwin appeared; and, according to a law which was at that period extant, procured a sufficient number of witnesses to swear that they believed he was innocent of the crime of which he was accused. Godwin stepped forward, and swore, by the holy sacrament, "In the Lord: I am innocent, both in word and deed, of the charge of which I am accused." The witnesses then came forward, and taking the oath, exclaimed, "In the Lord: the oath is clean and upright that Earl Godwin has sworn." Simple and inefficient as such a mode of trial may appear, it must be borne in mind that perjury was in those days visited with the severest punishment; not confined merely to bodily pain, the infliction of a heavy penalty, or the loss of worldly goods—but a perjured man was classed with witches, murderers, sorcerers, the wolf heads, and outcasts of society; and if slain, no one took cognizance of his death; he was debarred even from the trial of ordeal, and whether he was murdered or died, was refused the rites of Christian burial. Although Alfred had established the trial by jury, such a judicial custom as Godwin availed himself of continued to exist after the Norman conquest.
Such a legal proof, however, was not sufficient to satisfy the cupidity of Hardicanute; and the earl was compelled to purchase his favour by presenting him with a splendid ship, richly gilt, and manned by eighty warriors, armed with helmet and hauberk, each bearing a sword, a battle-axe, and a javelin, and their arms ornamented with golden bracelets, each of which weighed sixteen ounces. A Saxon bishop was also accused of having been leagued with Godwin, and he followed the example of the earl, by purchasing the king's favour with rich presents, which at this period appear to have been the readiest mode of procuring an acquittal. The two brief years that Hardicanute reigned, he seems to have passed in feasting and drinking; his banqueting table was spread out four times a-day, and his carousals carried far into the night. Such excesses could only be kept up by constant supplies of money; his "Huscarles," or household troops, were ever out levying taxes; and as these armed collectors were all Danes, many of them descendants of the old sea-kings, it will be readily imagined that the Saxons were the greatest sufferers, and compelled to contribute more than their share to this infamous Dane-geld, as the tax was called. But these marauders, although armed by kingly authority, did not always escape scathless. The inhabitants of Worcester rose up and killed two of the chiefs, who were somewhat too arbitrarily exceeding their duty. Hardicanute ordered a Danish army to march at once against the rebels, but when the authorized forces came up, they found the city abandoned; the inhabitants had forsaken their houses, and strongly entrenched themselves in a neighbouring island, and though a great part of the city was destroyed, the people remained unconquered. Such a brave example was not lost upon the Saxons. Opposition was now offered in many quarters, and the Danish yoke at last became lighter; for Hardicanute seemed to care but little how his kingdom was ruled, so that his table was every day laden with good cheer, and his wine-cup filled whenever he called for it; for he had been nursed in the cradle of the sea-kings, and his chief delight was to sit surrounded by these stormy sons of the ocean, and to drink healths three fathom deep. Altogether, Hardicanute seems to have been a merry thoughtless king. He invited his half-brother, Edward, the son of Ethelred, over to England, and gave him and his Norman followers a warm welcome at his court; left his mother Emma, and earl Godwin, to manage the kingdom as they pleased, and died as he had lived, a hard-drinker, with the wine-cup in his hand.
It was at a marriage-feast, somewhere in Lambeth, in the year 1042, when Hardicanute drank his last draught. At a late hour in the night he rose, staggering, with the wine-cup in his hand, and pledged the merry company that were assembled—then drinking such a draught as only the son of a sea-king could swallow, he fell down senseless upon the floor, "and never word again spake he." He was buried near his father Canute, in the church of Winchester. With his death ended the Danish race of kings; and Edward, the son of Ethelred, the descendant of a long line of Saxon monarchs, ascended the throne of England.
Edward, surnamed the Confessor, had resided in England for some time, when the throne became vacant by the death of Hardicanute; and the Danes, left without a leader by the sudden and unexpected demise of their king, had no means of resisting the Saxon force, which all at once wheeled up on the side of Edward, and, led on by Godwin, placed the crown of England upon the head of the son of Ethelred. To strengthen the power which he already possessed, the earl Godwin proposed that the king should marry his daughter, Editha, who appears to have been a lady of high intellectual attainments: it was said of her, in contrast to the stern and ambitious character of her father, that, as the thorn produces the rose, so Godwin produced Editha. Ingulphus, one of the most celebrated historians living at this period, after describing her as being very beautiful, meek, modest, faithful, virtuous, a lady of learning, and the enemy of no one, says, "I have very often seen her, when, only a boy, I visited my father in the royal court. Often, as I came from school, she questioned me on letters and my verse; and willingly passing from grammar to logic, she caught me in the subtle nets of argument. I had always three or four pieces of money counted by her maiden, and was sent to the royal larder for refreshment." But all these amiable qualities were not sufficient to bring happiness to the royal hearth; the earl was ever stepping in between Edward and Editha, for Godwin became jealous of the Normans, who were constantly coming over, and obtaining dignities and honours from the court. Norman soldiers were placed over the English fortresses; Norman priests officiated in the Saxon churches, and, as the Danish power waned, and the offices which Hardicanute had given to his own countrymen became vacant, Edward filled up the places with his Norman favourites. Those who had befriended him in his exile came over—such as had grown up side by side with him till they reached manhood—had shared his sports and pastimes—dined at the same table with him when, without friend or companion, except his brother Alfred, he landed a stranger upon the shores of Normandy;—all such as had clung to him, and assisted him while he was in exile, now came over to congratulate their old acquaintance who had so suddenly emerged from his obscurity, and become, by the voice of the whole Saxon nation, and the tacit consent of the overawed and powerless Danes, the undisputed monarch of England. Edward, on the other hand, landed in his native country almost a stranger; he brought with him foreign habits, foreign manners, and even spake the Norman-French more fluently than the plain Saxon tongue of his ancestors. He was but a child when he left England, and nearly thirty years residence in a foreign court must have caused his native language to have sounded harshly on his ears when he again landed on the shores of Britain. With the exception of those who accompanied him, England would seem like a strange country; he found none there whose habits and tastes were congenial to his own, none with whom he had interchanged the warm friendship which is natural to youth; and he must instinctively have shunned the advances made to him by earl Godwin, standing suspected, as he did, of having indirectly contributed to the death of his brother Alfred, or, at the least, of having deserted him in the night, and left him in the hands of the Danes. Either Edward must have stood far aloof from such suspicion, or, when he consented to marry the daughter of Godwin, have purchased the crown of England by making a sacrifice of his feelings and of his honour. Edward's mother, it will also be remembered, was a Norman, and while the friends of her son poured into the English court, she herself was followed by those who claimed kindred with her race, until even the very language of the Norman usurped that of the Saxon.
The Norman costume now became fashionable; those who were ambitious of rising in the king's favour, or who wished to stand high in the estimation of his favourites, began to speak in broken Norman, until, in the neighbourhood of the court, the Saxon seemed to have grown into an unfashionable language. One man alone, and he, the most powerful in the kingdom, still stuck sturdily to the old Saxon habits, and openly expressed his dislike of the Norman favourites. This was the cowherd, the son of Ulfnoth, whose daughter the king of England had married; and he, with his sons, who had proved themselves second to none in valour in the hard-fought field, rose up, and made head against the Norman encroachments. The Saxon earl, and his tall sons, boldly shouldered their way through the crowded court, where their sister and daughter reigned as queen; they lowered their helmets to no one, but rudely jostled as they passed the groups of knaves and place-seekers who infested the palace. Thus, without, at the folk-moots, and the guilds, the Saxon earl and his sons were the favourites of the people; while within, and about the palace, they were bitterly hated by the Norman favourites. Such was the state of parties at the English court nearly a thousand years ago, and it will be necessary for the reader to bear them in mind, for the better understanding of the changes which they lead to—the invasion of England by the Normans—a period at which we are now rapidly arriving.
Whether Edward believed that his mother Emma had a share in the death of her son Alfred, or was stung with the remembrance that she had left them to the mercy of a strange court, and that his position in England was rendered uneasy by those who had followed him with their clamorous claims across the ocean, or he disliked her for the favour which she had shown to her Danish son, Hardicanute, or envious of the immense wealth and possessions she is said to have accumulated during the reckless reign of the hard-drinking sea-king—whether led by one or another of these motives of dislike and suspicion, or actuated by a wish to resent the neglect with which she had treated him, he seized upon her possessions, lessened her power, and either confined her in the abbey of Wearwell, or limited her residence within the compass of the lands he granted her near Winchester. This act was countenanced by Godwin, who, though he studied his own aggrandisement, seems never wholly to have neglected the interests of the Saxons. Her alleged intercourse with the bishop of Winchester—her passing through the ordeal of fire unscathed, with naked feet over burning plough-shares, are dim traditions entirely unauthenticated by any respectable historian, although such trials were not uncommon, as we shall show, when we come to treat of the manners and customs of the Anglo-Saxons. After this period, Emma of Normandy is scarcely mentioned again by our early historians.
During the second year of his reign, Edward was menaced with an invasion by Magnus, king of Norway and Denmark, who sent letters to England demanding the crown of Edward; to which the English king replied by mustering a large fleet at Sandwich, and declaring himself ready to oppose his landing. But the attention of Magnus was soon diverted from England to secure his new territory of Denmark, as Sweyn, the son of Ulfr, (the latter being the same sea-king whom the cowherd Godwin guided to the Danish camp when he had lost his way in the forest,) now aspired to the sceptre of Denmark. The son of Ulfr requested aid from Edward to support his claim to the Danish sceptre; and this request was strongly backed by earl Godwin, who, whatever other stain he may have had upon his character, cannot in this instance be accused of ingratitude, for he earnestly pleaded that fifty ships should be fitted out, and sent to the aid of the son of his early patron. Godwin's proposition was, however, overruled by Leofric and Siward, earls of Mercia and Northumbria, who will frequently be seen to stand between earl Godwin and his claims upon the throne. What aid Godwin afforded the son of Ulfr of his own accord we know not, though it is on record that Sweyn obtained the crown of Denmark on the demise of Magnus, which happened shortly after the application he made for aid to Edward of England. With the death of Magnus ended all attempts upon the English crown on the part of the Danes, and we hear no more of the ravages of these stormy sea-kings, nor of the civil wars in England between these two nations, who had, through the alternations of war and peace, been settled in various parts of England long before the star of Alfred the Great rose up and illumined the dark night of our history. A new enemy was now, with slow and silent step, coming stealthily into England; he had already obtained a footing in the palace and in the church; he had left his slimy trail in the camp, and on the decks of the Saxon vessels; he had come with a strange voice, and muttered words which they could not understand.
Those who had often quarrelled were now neighbours; the difference in language and manners was beginning to disappear; for as they, to a certain extent, understood each other's dialect, the Saxon and the Danish idioms began to assimilate; they, with few exceptions, lived under the same common law; their children mingled and played together in the same streets, in the same fields and forests, became men and women, married, and forgot the quarrels of their forefathers, and at last began to settle down like one nation upon the soil. Thus, each party looked upon the Norman favourites with the same jealous eye.
With the exception of the bickerings both on the part of the Saxon and Danish chiefs against the Normans whom Edward countenanced, all went on in tolerable order at the Saxon court for seven or eight years; for Leofric and Siward were ever throwing their formidable weight into the opposite scale, and thus keeping an even balance between the power of Godwin and the throne. Edward had rendered himself popular with both the Danes and the Saxons; he had revived the old laws of his ancestors, abolished the odious tax of Dane-geld, without retaliating upon such of his subjects as belonged to that nation, as Canute and Harold had beforetime done while lording it over the Saxons. An event at last occurred which scarcely any one would have foreseen or have guarded against, and which reads more like a drunken frolic, or a common street brawl, than the grave record of history, although it ended by embittering the feelings of the Saxons against the Normans, and was another of those almost invisible steps which eventually led to the conquest of England. Amongst the foreigners who came to pay their court at this time to the king of England, was Eustace, count of Boulogne, who had married a sister of Edward, but whether maid or widow at the time of her union with the French count, is not very clearly made out; nor is it recorded whether she was the daughter of Emma of Normandy, though she laid claim to Ethelred as her father. Eustace, proud to claim such a relationship, whatever it might be, mounted the two slips of feathered whalebone in his helmet, and with a showy train of followers visited the English court, where he and his retinue were hospitably entertained by Edward. Here he met with Normans and French who spoke nearly the same language as himself, and there is but little doubt that such an assembly did not fail to show their contempt for everything that was Saxon, voting vulgar a court in which a cowherd had risen to the rank of earl; and probably extolling their own ancestry, who, time out of mind, had been brought up to the more "polite" profession of murder and robbery both by sea and land. While returning on his visit from Edward, he commanded his train to halt before they entered Dover, and putting on his coat of mail, ordered his followers to do the same; and thus armed, they entered the town. They then commenced riding up and down the streets, insulting the inhabitants, and selecting the best houses in which to take up their quarters for the night; for such had been the custom of the Danes, who made the houses of the Saxons their inns, sometimes permitting, as a great favour, the owner and his family to share the meal which they had compelled them to provide. It is pretty clear that the deeds of these "good old times" had furnished the topic of conversation amongst the visitors at the Saxon court, made up as it would be of Normans and Northmen, and descendants of the Vikingrs, who now found it dangerous to follow the "honourable" employment of their ancestors—men who mourned over the changes which no longer allowed them with impunity to insult the wife and daughter of the Saxon, whom they compelled to be their host—to eat the meal which they forced him to provide, and for which they considered they made him an ample return if they did not stab him upon his own hearth, and then set fire to his house. These cruel and bloody deeds, which had been counted valorous, had often, doubtless, furnished the midnight conversation of the cruel sea-kings, as they congregated around their fire, seated upon—