CHAP. IX. cloths, it may be from the Lombard looms, sacks of The Reign of wool, the lowly forerunners of England's own great a Cnut. 1016 1035. 2 export in later days, iron-work from Liége, butts of h 1 Now represented by its ward. 4 2 When it was held by Queen Matilda. 3 Our Portsoken ward. 4 Stow's "London" (ed. Thoms), p. 46. اوا CHAP. IX. Cnut. 10161035. Street, and can therefore hardly have been peopled at an earlier time than the reign of Eadgar and The Reign of Ethelred. If much of this sudden growth of London was due to the new trading energy, much was due to an actual settlement of Danes. Malmesbury indeed speaks of London as having become half-barbarized at this time by the abundance of its Danish inhabitants; their influence is shown by the conversion of its Portmannimot into a "Husting"; while the churches of St. Magnus and St. Olave at either end of the Bridge suggest that the steep slope down to the river along which Thames Street runs on either side Walbrook, as well as the similar slope across the water, were both peopled by northmen at about this period. It is possible indeed that the district that lies between the present Thames Street and the river was only reclaimed in the days of Cnut; none of the dedications of the parishes in this region point to an earlier date. The wealth which had been brought to London by this rapid developement of trade may be estimated by the tribute demanded from it even in the first year of Cnut's reign; while the whole of England had to pay a Danegeld of seventy-two thousand unds, the townsmen of London were taxed at ten "ousand five hundred pounds. And with the up'owth of commercial activity and wealth there had ome, as we have seen, a new political importance which from the time of the later Danish wars London as never again to lose. Under Cnut it became not ly the commercial but the military centre of the 1 Will. Malm. "Gest. Reg." (Hardy), i. 318. H H Importance of London. CHAP. IX. kingdom, and soon rose to be its political centre as The Reign of well. When the King of the West-Saxons became Cnut. 10161035. Cnut's pilgrimage. finally in fact as well as in name King of all England, Winchester could no longer serve as the seat of the royal power, the capital of the larger state; and the new necessities of the time led to the rapid rise in political importance of London, whose position, commanding the highway of the Thames and the great lines of communication which struck from the chief port of the realm across the island, made it the natural centre of the English provinces, while it was no less fitted by position to become the centre of the great empire which Cnut was building up on either shore of the North Sea. 1 The firm hold which Cnut had gained on England during the eight years which followed his coronation now left him free to turn to the affairs of his northern realm. He was already master of Denmark, but Norway had risen in revolt the year after his conquest of England, 1017, and had driven out his nephew, Jarl Hakon, who held it in the Danish name. For a time Cnut took no measures of revenge, but remained firm to his policy of the consolidation of his power in England and Denmark. In 1025, however, the peace and security of his empire left him free to turn his thoughts to the assertion of his supremacy, and to make a formal demand for the submission of Norway. The mocking answer of its native ruler, the famous St. Olaf, was not followed at / once by open war, but led to a train of negotiations in which the prudence and skill of Cnut showed themselves. While attempting to break the alliance CHAP. IX. Cnut. 10161035. between Sweden and Norway, and to spread disaffection and distrust among the Norwegians, he The Reign of sought to strengthen his hold in Denmark itself by leaving as its ruler his son Harthacnut, a child of seven years old, in the charge of his brother-in-law, Ulf. His next step showed the large political conceptions which ruled his action. The Scandinavian kingdoms had up to this time lain outside the European commonwealth, the terror and scourge of Western Christendom. Heathenism still held its ground in the forests of the North, and the peoples of Europe saw in the pirates the deadly enemies alike of their civilization and of their religion. Cnut's first aim was by a decisive act on his own part to bring his northern kingdom into a new union with Christendom. He undertook a pilgrimage to Rome. As a West-Saxon king he was indeed but following in the steps of his predecessors for more than three hundred years past, but no Danish king or jarl had ever yet left the shores of Denmark as a pilgrim; and there was no longer any doubt as to the character which the young king meant to impress on the government of his northern realm when at twenty-six he set sail for Rome. From the moment of his landing on the coast of Flanders the political character of his journey was clearly marked, whether he turned aside to secure the friendship of Count Albert at Namur, or astonished Bishop Fulbert of Chartres by the wisdom and splendour of a king who had till now been in the eyes of Europe but a leader of heathen pirates. As he journeyed along the pilgrims' route, he secured by treaties with the masters of the Alpine passes safety CHAP. IX. Cnut. for English merchants and travellers to the Papal The Reign of City, and in Rome itself won from the Pope immunity from all tolls and taxes for the Saxon school which had grown up there. 10161035. His Northern His political work was completed in the spring by his meeting at Rome with the Emperor Conrad, when the master of the two kingdoms of Denmark and England was strong enough to wring from the Emperor the restoration of the land beyond the Eider which had been seized by Otto the Second, and to throw back the German frontier to that river; while a treaty was arranged for the future marriage of Cnut's daughter to the son of Conrad, afterwards the Emperor Henry III. But from his triumphant pilgrimage Cnut returned to fresh troubles at home. England indeed remained peaceful; but Denmark had revolted in favour of the child Harthacnut and the regent Ulf, and torn by civil strife was in no state to resist the combined attack with which it was threatened by Norway and Sweden. Cnut, however, backed by the steady loyalty of his English realm, and strengthened by the new naval power which it had developed in these years of prosperity, was able to make himself quickly master of Denmark and to repulse the invasion of the allied fleets; and in the following year, 1028, he sailed from England to Norway with fifty great ships, and drove King Olaf out of the land, over which he set his nephew, Hakon, as jarl. A last rising of the Norwegians against his power, in 1029, was at once stamped out, and till his death Norway owned his rule. Lord of three realms, Cnut could now turn to the |