tioned by another writer. They may have been afterwards increased. The smaller number would suffice for putting down any casual outbreak, or for forming the nucleus of a larger army when such might be wanted. And their cost would certainly be as much as could be easily borne by the moderate revenues of an English king in the eleventh century.

Of the relations in which they stood to the people we know little or nothing. We may be sure that they would need to be kept in strict order, and we may also feel tolerably certain that Canute was the man to do this very effectively. Stories are told of their violence to the English, and it is not impossible that these may be true. Soldiers in a conquered country are apt to be violent, and England was, in a degree, a conquered country, though Canute did his best to bring about a better state of things. Perhaps it would be safe to conjecture that during his reign such misconduct would be the exception, because regarded with disfavour by a master whom the Carles did not venture to despise, that in the days of his worthless sons it came to be the rule.

An interesting story is told of Canute's own relation to this force. In a fit of passion the King killed one of the Carles with his own hand. When he came to himself, he felt the deepest repentance for his violence, and submitted himself to the judgment of the whole body. They were embarrassed at having to deal with so powerful a criminal, and refused to pronounce any sentence. Then the King took the law into his own hands, and imposed upon himself a

CANUTE FAVOURS THE CHURCH.

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fine for bloodshed nine times greater than that which would ordinarily have been paid.

Among the good resolutions which Canute announced in his famous letter from Rome was one, that thereafter the Church should have its dues regularly paid. This he seems to have kept, and more than kept, for he was a liberal benefactor to religious persons and foundations. It was, indeed, to monks and monasteries that this liberality was chiefly shown. This was the feeling of his time. The strict rule and ascetic life of these inhabitants of the cloister appealed to the feelings of men who lived in the world, and spent their days, for the most part in violence and rude pleasures. The secular clergy seemed, and indeed may often have been, too much like themselves. Canterbury, Winchester, and Ramsey 2 are mentioned as some of the monasteries on which the King and his Queen Emma bestowed their bounty. Another foundation which he had many reasons for favouring was that of St. Edmund, the East Anglian king and martyr. The saint had met his death from Danish hands, and had showed, according to the story which has already been told, that he had not forgotten his wrongs, and was able to avenge them. Accordingly we find Canute rebuilding the church which had been dedicated to the saint in the town now called St. Edmundsbury. And

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This fine, a very ancient and wide-spread custom, was called the 'were-gild," and varied according to the rank of the person slain, from the "were-gild" of a king, which was fixed at £360, to that of a churl, fixed at £10.

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969.

Ramsey is in Huntingdonshire.

The abbey was founded in

he had, if we may believe tradition, a special liking for Ely. A stanza is said to have been improvised by him as he was passing in his barge along the Cam, the river which flows by Ely. It may be thus modernized:

(The letters peculiar to old English have been changed to their modern equivalents.)

Though we are chiefly concerned with Canute's doings as an English king, we must not forget that he had other dominions. Denmark he inherited from his father, of Norway he possessed himself after a fierce struggle with that turbulent saint, Olaf of Norway. He made a claim to this kingdom in 1024, and enforced it by an expedition in 1027 (apparently after his return from Rome), and again by another, made with a much stronger force, in the year following. Olaf was quite unable to make any resistance, and fled into Sweden. Two years afterwards he was invited back by some discontented nobles, and was defeated, not so much by the forces of Canute, as by the Norwegian peasants at the

The form in which these verses come down to us is much later than Canute's time, indeed is not earlier than the thirteenth century.

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battle of Vaerdalen (1030). Sweden has been said. to have been one of his kingdoms. This is an error, though he possibly was master of some few places which are now included in the Swedish territories. Besides being king of England, he was overlord of Scotland, his power, reaching as far as the Hebrides, which, indeed, had for many years been largely occupied by men of Danish race. Ireland also owned his supremacy, for we find that coins were minted in his name at Dublin. Altogether, at least during the latter years of his life, he had a wide-reaching and solid dominion, and may well have cherished the idea which has been attributed to him, of founding a great northern empire.

Of his relations with foreign powers not much is known. When he was at Rome he met the Emperor, Conrad II., and, indeed, was present at his coronation, With this prince he made a treaty by which some portions of Denmark, which had been seized by one of Conrad's predecessors, were to be restored. The alliance was strengthened by the betrothal of one of Canute's daughters to the Emperor. Of his dealings with the Norman Dukes a not very clear story is told. It seems evident that there was some quarrel between Canute and Duke Robert, who had succeeded his father, Richard, in 1028. Robert had married Estrith, Canute's sister, and widow of Earl Ulf. He is said to

Otherwise called Sticklestead. The adherence of the peasants to the cause of Canute may be taken as a proof of the popularity of his rule; but it doubtless had something to do with the quarrel between Christianity and Paganism. The Norwegian people were still, in a great measure, heathen, while Olaf was an enthusiastic champion of Christianity, which he preached in a somewhat violent way.