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have neglected and ill-treated her, and even to have sent her back to England. Besides this he claimed the crown of England for his cousin, the son of King Ethelred by Emma, one of the princes whose rights we have seen so quietly put aside on the occasion of their mother's second marriage.

What was actually done is not so easy to decide. The northern chroniclers declare that Canute made two expeditions against Normandy, that Robert fled to Jerusalem to avoid his vengeance, and that he himself met with his death before Rouen. All this seems to be fiction. What is more likely to be true is that the Duke fitted out a fleet with which he intended to invade England and restore the English princes to the throne of their father; that this fleet met with rough weather, and was driven out of its course; that finally peace was made between the two princes. One of the chroniclers relates that in his day the remains of the ships with which Duke Robert had made this unsucful attempt was still to be seen at Rouen.

In 1035 Canute died. We know nothing of the circumstances of his death except that it took place at Shaftesbury. He could not have been more than forty years of age.

The king who thus passed away in the flower of his manhood, respected if not beloved by his people, and soon to be very passionately regretted by them, was a very different man from the violent youth, who, some seventeen years before, had been crowned king in London. But though the change was great, it was still one that we can understand and account for. Canute felt strongly that England was, of all his

possessions, the one which was best worth having; and he was great enough to see that he must hold it as an English, not as a foreign, ruler. He did his best to live up to this position. The son of a heathen king, one, it must be remembered, who had relapsed from Christianity into heathenism, he became a Christian, and gave no small proofs of the sincerity of his conversion. Brought up amongst associations of savagery and violence, and inheriting, it may well be believed, a fierce and passionate temper, he did his best to conquer himself. That he never wholly succeeded it is easy to believe; the story that has been told of the house carl whom he slew in his rage proves as much. But self-restraint seems to have been the rule of his life. We may not compare him with such a king as Alfred. Scruples had little power over him when some object of policy was to be attained. The writers who speak most highly in his praise, who describe him as a wise and mighty ruler, also talk of his craft. His standard of kingship was not, perhaps, the highest, but he did his best to be true to it.

Of the man himself we get a few glimpses over and above those which the history has given us. One of them reminds us of the story which describes him as listening with delight to the chanting of the Ely monks. He was a "great lover of minstrels," says one of the chroniclers, after praising his might and his craft. Among the poets that came to his Court was a certain Othere the Black, an Icelander, and a kinsman of the great Sighvat. The story of his welcome runs

thus:

"After evensong the King came into the hall and

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said, 'I see a man here who is not of this country. He looks like a poet, and I would sooner have him to second me in a wager of battle than any one here.' And now Othere entered the hall and addressed the King in a verse, and forthwith asked to be allowed to recite a poem on the King. Cnut answered, and the poem was delivered to a great gathering at the next day's mod, and the King praised it, and took a Russian cap off his head, broidered with gold and with gold knots to it, and bade his chamberlain fill it with silver, and give it to the poet. He did so, and reached it over men's shoulders, for there was a crowd, and the heapedup silver tumbled out of the hood on the mod-stage [the platform for the speakers]. He was going to pick it up, but the King told him to let it be. shall have it, and thou shalt not lose by it !'"

The poor

We touch a higher point in the well-known story of the King and his courtiers which I shall tell in the words of the Chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, who first relates it. The whole passage may be given:

"Three things did the same King wittily and well. Firstly, he gave his daughter to wife to the Emperor of Rome with riches beyond all counting. Secondly, journeying to Rome, he caused that the mischievous exactions, tolls by name, that were levied on the road. that leads through Gaul to Rome, should be diminished to one half, paying, therefor, moneys of his own. Thirdly, in the very height of his power, he bade set his chair on the shore of the sea, when the

The verse ran thus, "Let us so greet the King of the Danes, Irish, English, and Island Dwellers, that his praise may travel wide over all lands as far as the pillars of heaven."

tide was flowing; and to the tide, as it flowed, he said, 'Thou art my subject; and the land on which I sit is mine; nor hath there ever been one that resisted my bidding, and suffered not. I command thee, therefore, that thou come not up on my land, nor presume to wet the garments and limbs of thy lord.' But the sca, rising after its wont, wetted without respect the feet and legs of the King. Therefore leaping back he said, 'Let all dwellers on the earth know that the power of kings is a vain and foolish thing, and that no one is worthy to bear the name of king, save only Him, whose bidding the heavens, and the earth, and the sea obey by everlasting laws.' Nor ever thereafter did King Canute set his crown of gold upon his head, but put it for ever on the image of our Lord, which was fastened to the cross."

XXVIII.

THE SONS OF CANUTE.

CANUTE left two sons by his first wife, Elgiva, and a son and a daughter by Emma of Normandy. The sons of Elgiva, indeed, were commonly said not to be the children of Canute. The story was that she never bore a child, but that she palmed off on her husband two boys whom she had purchased for the purpose. The story has an incredible look, and curiously resembles the fiction which, for many years, half England devoutly believed about the Old Pretender.1 Sweyn, the elder of the two sons of Elgiva, had been Canute's vicegerent in Norway. His cruelties excited a revolt in that country, and he was expelled, together with his mother. There seems never to have been any question of calling him to the throne of England. Harold was in England at the time of the King's death. Nothing was said in any will about his rights of succession. On the other hand, it had been stipulated, as has been already said, on the occasion of

Commonly called the "Warming Pan" story. It was declared that Mary of Modena, the wife of James II., of England, did not really give birth to a child, but that the infant, afterwards the Old Pretender, was introduced into the queen's chamber in a warming-pan.