HIS DEATH. CANUTE. 221 whose partizans had been chiefly Anglian, and his enemies Mercian. The partition did not last long. In November of this year, Edmund died at London. His death, by later historians, was ascribed to the treachery of Eadric, but they differ as to its manner, and the fact is far from certain.1 Canute was not slow to profit by the new opportunity. He declared that it had been part of the treaty that whoever survived the other should succeed him as sole king for life, and should be guardian of the young princes. The witan, left without a leader, were unwilling to renew the bloody struggle, and accepted Canute's pretensions, pledging faith to him and his captains by shaking hands with them. There were still some difficulties, but an energetic and unscrupulous man disposed of them easily. The young princes, whom Canute neither dared to keep in the country nor to kill there, were sent to the court of his half-brother, Olaf of Sweden, to be educated, with a hint that they had better die young; Olaf declined the dangerous charge and unprofitable crime, and sent the children to his fatherin-law, king Jaroslaf of Russia, apparently that they might be kept at a distance. A series of murders illustrated the year. Edwi Ætheling, Edmund's brother, was an obvious object of distrust, and was banished; 3 The Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester simply say that king Edmund died. The later histories are less reliable: some of them ascribe it to poison; Huntingdon to the dagger; Malmesbury to a spike put in his seat. Eadric was quite capable of the crime, but it was not his interest to see England in the hands of one man, unless he really expected to supplant Canute. In the Norman life of Edward the Confessor, lately published, the murder is ascribed to earl Godwin, (11. 778780), who was perhaps confounded with Godwin Porthund, one of Eadric's emissaries. Flor. Wig., vol. i. p. 158. 2 Flor. Wig., vol. i. p. 180. 3 Munch, det Norske Folk's Historie, i. 2. p. 382. 222 CANUTE'S POLICY. REVIEW OF but presently enticed back and slain. Eadric Streona, too faithless to be believed, and too powerful to be despised, speedily followed. In a private conference with the king, he recapitulated his infamous services, and complained that they were not worthily rewarded. Canute told him that he was a felon on his own evidence, and ordered him to be strangled and the body thrown into the Thames.' Norman, son of Leofwine, a Mercian noble, seems to have been in Eadric's company, and was cut down by the guards. Brihtric of Devonshire, and Ethelweard, were other victims of the day. But Canute discriminated in his acts of violence, and had no intention of governing by the sword. By marrying Emma, the queen-dowager, he connected himself with the old history of the country. Englishmen who could be trusted were advanced to honour. Godwin, Eadric's great nephew, but a man more reliable than his uncle, was married to Gytha, the sister of Canute's brother-in-law, and obtained the dignity of an earl at least as early as A. D. 1018.2 It is difficult to understand the political history of Ethelred and Edward's reigns. The nobles seem wantonly treacherous, the kings stupidly trustful to a degree that our present knowledge of events does not suffer us to understand. That Northumbrian chiefs with Danish blood in their veins should betray the forces entrusted to them is intelligible; but what had an ealdorman of Mercia or Hampshire to gain by allow ETHELRED'S AND EDWARD'S REIGN. 223 ing his province to be ravaged and his country made tributary? Why was Eadric Streona so often trusted by two kings, one of whom was his personal enemy,' and so unreservedly followed by the Mercians? Dr. Lappenberg conjectures that even the variations of his policy may have represented shifting provincial interests, that he may have been most Mercian when he was least English. It is difficult to believe that any intelligible principle, except individual interest, prevailed during those times. Southampton was the first city stormed by the Danes in A. D. 980, when most of its burghers were either slain or enslaved; in A. D. 994, it was the Danish head-quarters; in A. D. 1003 the Hampshire men went out gallantly against the Danes; yet in a. D. 1016, they fought on Canute's side against the Saxon king at Sheerstone. Similarly, we find the Anglians in A. D. 1004 inflicting severe losses upon Sweyn, in A. D. 1012 helping the Danes to storm Canterbury, while in A. D. 1016 they fight under Edmund at Assington, and are assigned to him as part of the Saxon kingdom. The Northumbrians in the spring of A. D. 1016 supported Edmund, when his own people of Wessex had made submission to the Danes and horsed their army, but in the autumn of that same year Northumbria was handed over to Canute. These facts can only be explained on the supposition that the power of the great nobles was almost absolute; a supposition which is confirmed by all we know of the times. The records of patrician lawlessness meet us everywhere. Now it is a widow who is robbed of her lands by Ethelred's favourite Elfric of Mercia; and now a church "Modis omnibus insidias clitoni dux tetendit." Flor. Wig., vol. ii. p. 171. Besides, Edmund had married Ealdgyfa, the widow of one of 2 Cod. Dip., 1312. 224 CAUSES OF OVERTHROW OF SAXON MONARCHY. which cannot obtain stipulated payments from another favourite Leofsi, whom Ethelred had raised from the ranks and made ealdorman of Essex.1 Assassination was so frequent an expedient that scarcely a great man dies without some whisper of treachery. Elfeg, the highest placed of the ealdormen, was foully murdered by Leofsi, and three murders of nobles, besides his share in the first Danish massacre, are ascribed to Eadric Streona.2 In these last cases Ethelred showed his horror of his minister's guilt by blinding the children of one victim and seizing the property of the others. The legend of Godric and Godiva attaches to one of Ethelred's earls, and attests the people's recollections of their sordid and brutal aristocracy. Its feudalism was neither restrained by law nor softened by chivalry; war had become a trade; and the man who from property or position could bring most soldiers into the field, made market of his advantages, without regard to his country. There were other causes at work: the different races were always at feud; and city and country were still almost as distinct as in the old Roman times. But the chief cause lay in the fact that power now centred in the hands of a few men, and that those men were for the most part irredeemably bad and base. A single Alfred or Athelstane might have reclaimed the national honour. But the well-meaning men of this century were the churchman Elfeg, and the weak-minded king Edward the Confessor. England lay in the hands of the family of Eadric Streona. i. 1 Hist. Eliensis, lib. i. c. 10. Gale, p. 469. 2 Cod. Dip., 719. Flor. Wig., vol. i. pp. 158-170. Godric is said by Dugdale to be Leofric, earl of Cheshire under Ethelred, and made earl of Mercia by Canute. Dugdale's Baronage, vol. i. p. 9. CHAPTER XV. THE ANGLO-DANISH EPOCH. CANUTE CONSOLIDATES HIS POWER. FAVOUR TO THE CHURCH. FEUDALISM AND THE GAME LAWS. ANNEXATION OF NORWAY, AND BATTLE AT HELGE-AA. CHARACTER OF CANUTE AND OF HIS SOVEREIGNTY. HAROLD HAREFOOT. MURDER OF ALFRED, AND QUESTION OF GODWIN'S COMPLICITY. HARDICANUTE'S REIGN. ACCESSION OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. GODWIN'S ASCENDANCY THREATENED BY NORMAN INFLUENCES. BANISHMENT AND RETURN ΤΟ POWER OF GODWIN. RIVALRY OF HAROLD AND TOSTIG. EDWARD'S DEATH AND CHARACTER. NE of Canute's first cares was to divide the spoil. A tax of more than eighty thousand pounds enabled him to pay off his forces and send the greater number of them back to Denmark. England was parcelled out into four provinces, out of which Canute kept Wessex to himself, gave East Anglia to Thurkil, and Northumbria to Eric. Eadric's successor in Mercia is unknown to us.' It was no part of Canute's policy to retain vassals as powerful as himself, and the great Danish captains gradually disappear from the scene. Eric, by one account, was banished, by another, assassinated." 1 Dugdale says it was given to Leofwine, and passed from him to his son Leofric. Baronage, p. 8. But Ingulfus, whom Dugdale refers to, says that Eadric's lands were given to Leofric, whose name does not appear in the charters as ealdorman till A. D. 1026. Ingulfus; Gale, vol. i. p. 57. Cod. Dip., 742. 2 Hen. Hunt, M. B., p. 757. Munch, Det Norske Folk's Historie, vol. i. part 2, p. 483. |