Chapter VI (2)

This gradual change in the disposition of Cnut makes him one of the most remarkable, and, to an Englishman, one of the most interesting, characters in history. There is no other instance—unless Rolf in Normandy be admitted as a forerunner on a smaller scale—of a barbarian conqueror, entering a country simply as a ruthless pirate, plundering, burning, mutilating, slaughtering, without remorse, and then, as soon as he is firmly seated on the throne of the invaded land, changing into a beneficent ruler and lawgiver, and winning for himself a place side by side with the best and greatest of its native sovereigns. Cnut never became a perfect prince like Ælfred. An insatiable ambition possessed him throughout life, and occasional acts of both craft and violence disfigure the whole of his career. No man could charge him with that amiable weakness through which Eadmund lent so ready an ear to protestations of repentance and promises of amendment even from the lips of Eadric. Cnut, on the other hand, always found some means, by death, by banishment, by distant promotion, of getting rid of any one who had once awakened his suspicions. Reasons of state were as powerful with him, and led him into as many unscrupulous actions, as any more civilized despot of later times. But Englishmen were not disposed to canvass the justice of wars in which they won fame and plunder, while no enemy ever set foot on their own shores. They were as little disposed to canvass the justice of banishments and executions, when, for many years, it was invariably a Dane, never an Englishman, who was [Sidenote: Cnut’s position typical of that of the Danes in England.] the victim. The law by which the Dane settled in England presently became an Englishman received its highest carrying out in the person of the illustrious Danish King. As far as England and Englishmen were concerned, Cnut might seem to have acted on the principle of the Greek poet, that unrighteousness might be fittingly done in order to win a crown, but that righteousness should be done in all other times and places.[912] The throne of Cnut, established by wasting wars, by unrighteous executions, perhaps even by treacherous assassinations, was, when once established, emphatically the throne of righteousness and peace. As an English King, he fairly ranks beside [Sidenote: Cnut’s letter from Rome. 1027.] the noblest of his predecessors. His best epitaph is his famous letter to his people on his Roman pilgrimage.[913] Such a pilgrimage was an ordinary devotional observance according to the creed of those times. But in the eyes of Cnut it was clearly much more than a mere perfunctory ceremony. The sight of the holy places stirred him to good resolves in matters both public and private, and, as a patriotic King, he employed his meeting with the Pope, the Emperor, and the Burgundian King, to win from all of them favours which were profitable to the people of his various realms. No man could have written in the style in which Cnut writes to all classes of his English subjects, unless he were fully convinced that he possessed and deserved the love of his people. The tone of the letter is that of an absent father writing to his children. In all simplicity and confidence, he tells them the events of his journey; he tells them with what honours he had been received, and with what presents he had been loaded, by the two chiefs of Christendom, and what privileges for his subjects, both English and Danish, he had obtained at their hands. He confesses the errors of his youth, and promises reformation of anything which may still be amiss. All grievances shall be redressed; no extortions shall be allowed; King Cnut needs no money raised by injustice. These are surely no mere formal or hypocritical professions; every word plainly comes from the heart. England had more than led captive her conqueror; she had changed him into her King and father.

[Sidenote: The Laws of Cnut. 1028–1035.]

The same spirit which breathes in Cnut’s letter breathes also in the opening of his laws.[914] The precept to fear God and honour the King here takes a more personal and affectionate form. First above all things are men one God ever to love and worship, and one Christendom with one mind to hold, and Cnut King to love with right truthfulness.[915] The laws themselves deal with the usual subjects, the reformation of manners, the administration of justice, the strict discharge of all ecclesiastical duties and the strict payment of all ecclesiastical dues. The feasts of the two new national saints, Eadward the King and Dunstan the Primate, are again ordered to be kept, and the observance of the former is again made to rest in a marked way on the authority of the Witan.[916] The observance of the Lord’s day is also strongly insisted on; on that day there is to be no marketing, no hunting; even the holding of folkmotes is forbidden, except in cases of absolute necessity.[917] All heathen superstition is to be forsaken,[918] and the slave-trade is again denounced.[919] The whole fabric of English society is strictly preserved. The King legislates only with the consent of his Witan.[920] The old assemblies, the old tribunals, the old magistrates, keep all their rights and powers. The Bishop and the Ealdorman[921] still fill their place as joint presidents of the Scirgemót, and joint expounders of the laws, ecclesiastical and secular.[922] The King, as well as all inferior lords,[923] is to enjoy all that is due to him; the royal rights, differing somewhat in the West-Saxon and the Danish portions of the kingdom, are to be carefully preserved, and neither extended nor diminished in either country.[924] No distinction, except the old local one, is made between Danes and Englishmen. The local rights and customs of the Danish and English portions of the kingdom are to be strictly observed.[925] But this is only what we have already seen in the legislation of Eadgar.[926] The Danes spoken of in Cnut’s laws, as in Eadgar’s, are the long-settled Danish inhabitants of Northumberland and the other countries of the _Denalagu_; no kind of preference is made in favour of Cnut’s own Danish followers; we cannot doubt that a Dane who held lands in Wessex had to submit to English law, just as a West-Saxon who held lands in Northumberland must, under Eadgar no less than under Cnut, have had to submit to Danish law. On one point the legislation of the great Dane is distinctly more rational and liberal than the legislation of our own day. Trespasses on the King’s forests are strictly forbidden; but the natural right of every man to hunt on his own land is emphatically asserted.[927] And as Cnut’s theory was, so was his practice. No King was more active in what was then held to be the first duty of kingship, that of constantly going through every portion of his realm to see with his own eyes whether the laws which he enacted were duly put in force.[928] In short, after Cnut’s power was once fully established, we hear no complaint against his government [Sidenote: Personal traditions of Cnut.] from any trustworthy English source.[929] His hold upon the popular affection is shown by the number of personal anecdotes of which he is the hero. The man who is said, in the traditions of other lands, to have ordered the cold-blooded murder of his brother-in-law, and that in a church at the holy season of Christmas,[930] appears in English tradition as a prince whose main characteristic is devotion mingled with good humour.[931] In the best known tale of all, he rebukes the impious flattery of his courtiers, and hangs his crown on the image of the crucified Saviour.[932] He bursts into song as he hears the chant of the monks of Ely,[933] and rejoices to keep the festivals of the Church among them. He bountifully rewards the sturdy peasant who proves the thickness of the ice over which the royal sledge has to pass.[934] One tale alone sets him before us in a somewhat different light. He mocks at the supposed sanctity of Eadgyth the daughter of Eadgar; he will not believe in the holiness of any child of a father so given up to lust and tyranny. It is needless to add that the offended saint brings the blasphemer to a better mind by summary means.[935] This tale is worth noting, as it illustrates the twofold conception of the character of Eadgar which was afloat. Cnut is represented as accepting the Eadgar of the minstrels, not the Eadgar of the monks, nor yet the Eadgar of history, who is somewhat different from either. But even in this tale Cnut is described as showing something of the spirit which breathes in his Roman letter. The King who loathed the supposed tyranny of Eadgar could hardly have been conscious of any tyranny of his own.

[Sidenote: Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy.]

In ecclesiastical matters Cnut mainly, though not exclusively, favoured the monks. His ecclesiastical appointments, [Sidenote: 1020.] especially that of good Archbishop Æthelnoth;[936] who had baptized or confirmed him, do him high honour. [Sidenote: His ecclesiastical foundations.] He was also, after the custom of the age, a liberal benefactor to various ecclesiastical foundations. According to one account, not Assandun only, but all his battle-fields were marked by commemorative churches.[937] But as Assandun was Cnut’s only undoubted victory on English soil, and as men do not usually commemorate their defeats, we may conclude that, in England at least, Assandun was his only foundation of that kind. That church, as we have seen, was a secular foundation, seemingly for one priest only. A more splendid object of Cnut’s munificence throws an interesting light on the workings of his mind. The special object of his reverence was Eadmund, the sainted King of the East-Angles, a King martyred by heathen Danes, a saint who was the marked object of his father’s hatred, and by whose vengeance his father was held to have come to his untimely end.[938] The Christian Dane, King of all England, was eager to wipe away the stain from his house and nation. He made provision for the restoration of all the holy places which had in any way suffered during his own or his father’s wars.[939] But the first rank among them was given to the great foundation which boasted of the resting-place of the royal martyr. [Sidenote: Saint Eadmund’s Bury rebuilt and the foundation changed. 1020–1032.] The minster of Saint Eadmund was rebuilt, and, in conformity with the fashionable notions of reformation, its secular canons had to make way for an Abbot and monks. Some of the new inmates came from Saint Benet at Holm,[940] another foundation which was enriched by Cnut’s bounty.[941] One hardly knows whether Cnut most avoided or incurred suspicion by his special devotion to the resting-place of [Sidenote: Cnut’s visit to Glastonbury. 1032.] another Eadmund. He visited Glastonbury in company with Archbishop Æthelnoth, once a monk of that house. There, in the building which tradition points to as the first Christian temple raised in these islands, the building which history recognizes as the one famous holy place of the conquered Briton which lived unhurt through the storm of English Conquest, in the “wooden basilica” hallowed by the memory of so many real and legendary saints, did the Danish King confirm every gift and privilege which his English predecessors had granted to the great Celtic sanctuary.[942] A hundred and fifty years after the visit of Cnut, the wooden basilica, which had beheld so many revolutions, gave way to the more powerful influence of a change of taste and feeling, and on its site arose one of the most exquisite specimens of the latest Romanesque art, now in its state of desolation forming one of the loveliest of monastic ruins.[943] At some distance to the east of this primæval sanctuary stood the larger minster of stone reared by Saint Dunstan. In Cnut’s days it was doubtless still deemed a wonder of art, though it was doomed before the end of the century to give way to the vaster conceptions of the Norman architects. The invention and translation of the legendary Arthur were as yet distant events, and the new tomb of King Eadmund Ironside still kept the place of honour before the high altar.[944] There the conqueror knelt and prayed, and covered the tomb of his murdered brother with a splendid robe on which the gorgeous plumage of the peacock was reproduced [Sidenote: Translation of Saint Ælfheah. June, 1023.] by the skilful needles of English embroideresses.[945] Equal honours were paid by Cnut to another victim of the late wars, in his devotion to whom he was expiating the crimes of his nation, though not his own or those of his father’s house. The body of the martyred Ælfheah was translated from Saint Paul’s minster in London to his own metropolitan church, in the presence, and with the personal help, of the King and of all the chief men of the realm, lay and clerical. The ceremony was further adorned with the presence of the Lady Emma and her [Sidenote: His gifts to Winchester, Ely, and Ramsey.] “kingly bairn” Harthacnut.[946] That the two monasteries of the royal city of Winchester came in for their share of royal bounty it is almost needless to mention. But towards them the devotion of Emma, who claimed the city as her morning-gift, seems to have been more fervent than that of her husband.[947] Cnut’s personal tastes seem to have led him to the great religious houses of the fen country, where the dead of Maldon and Assandun reposed in the choirs of Ely and Ramsey.[948] Nowhere was his memory more fondly cherished than in the great minster which boasted of the tomb of Brihtnoth. There he was not so much a formal benefactor as a personal friend. But he was held in no less honour at Ramsey, the resting-place of Æthelweard. There he built a second church,[949] and designed the foundation of a society of nuns, which he did not bring to perfection. The local historian of the house rewards his bounty with a splendid panegyric, which however is fully borne out by his recorded acts.[950] Nor was his bounty confined to England, or even to his own [Sidenote: Cnut plants English Bishops in Denmark.] dominions. In his native Denmark he showed himself a diligent nursing-father to the infant Church, largely providing it with bishops and other ecclesiastics from [Sidenote: His gifts to foreign churches, &c.] England.[951] On his Roman pilgrimage, the poor and the churches of every land through which he passed shared his bountiful alms. It is also said that, by the counsel of Archbishop Æthelnoth, he gave gifts to many foreign churches. One special object of his favour was the church of Chartres, then flourishing under its famous Bishop Fulbert.[952] Emma too, the foreign Lady, was not backward in her gifts to churches, both English and foreign. She gave to the metropolitan church of Canterbury an arm of the Apostle Bartholomew, bought of an Archbishop of Beneventum whom the fame of the wealth of England had led hither to dispose of his holy treasure.[953] She had also a great share in rebuilding the famous minster of Saint Hilary at Poitiers, where a large portion of her work still remains.[954]

Such then was Cnut’s internal government of England. The conqueror had indeed changed into a home-born King. At no earlier time had the land ever enjoyed so long a term of such unmixed prosperity. We have now to behold the great King in his relations to foreign lands. And, if a series of ambitious wars and aggressions forms a less pleasing picture than a tale of peaceful and beneficent government, we shall at least see England raised to a higher position in the general system of Christendom than she held at any earlier, perhaps at any later time.

§ 2. _The foreign Relations of Cnut._ 1018–1035.

Cnut had come into England as a conqueror and destroyer; but his reign, as far as the internal state of England [Sidenote: Unparalleled internal peace during the reign of Cnut.] is concerned, was a time of perfect peace.[955] No invasion from beyond sea, no revolt, no civil war, is recorded during the eighteen years of his government. A single Scottish inroad and victory of which we shall presently hear was wiped out by the more complete submission of the northern vassal of England. Within England itself we read of no district being ravaged either by rebels or by royal command; we read of no city undergoing, or even being threatened with, military chastisement. This is more than can be said of the reign either of Eadgar the Peaceful or of Eadward the Saint. No doubt the whole nation was weary of warfare; after a struggle of thirty-six years, England would have been glad of a season of repose, even under a far worse government than that of Cnut. But a period of seventeen years in which we cannot see that a sword was drawn within the borders of England was something altogether unparalleled in those warlike ages, something which speaks volumes in favour of the King who bestowed such a blessing on our land. It is true that the old enemies of England were now the fellow-subjects of Englishmen, and that the first attempt of her new enemies came to nought without a blow being struck. Danish invasions ceased when Denmark and England had the same King, and the first Norman invasion, as we shall presently see, ignominiously failed. But a great deal is proved by the absence of any recorded attempt on the part of any Englishman to get rid of the foreign King. No one thought of taking advantage of Cnut’s frequent absences from England in the way in which men did take advantage of the similar absences of William the Norman. It is quite impossible that England and all Cnut’s other kingdoms should have been kept down against their will by the King’s [Sidenote: The Housecarls or Thingmen.] Housecarls. It is now that we first hear of this famous force, the name of which will be often heard during the following reigns, even after the Norman Conquest. Hitherto England had possessed nothing that could be called a standing army. When a war had to be waged, the King or Ealdorman called on his personal followers, attached to him by the ancient tie of the _comitatus_, and on the general levy, the _fyrd_ or militia, either of the whole kingdom or of some particular part of it. But no English King or Ealdorman had hitherto kept a standing military force in his pay. But Cnut now organized a regular paid force, kept constantly under arms, and ready to march at a moment’s notice.[956] These were the famous Thingmen, the Housecarls, of whom we hear so much under Cnut and under his successors. This permanent body of soldiers in the King’s personal service seems to have had its origin in the crews of the forty Danish ships which were kept by Cnut when he sent back the greater part of his fleet in the second year of his reign. In his time the force consisted of three thousand, or at most of six thousand, men, gathered from all nations. For the power and fame of Cnut drew volunteers to his [Sidenote: A revival of the _Comitatus_.] banner from all parts of Northern Europe. The force was in fact a revival of the earliest form of the _comitatus_, only more thoroughly and permanently organized. The immediate followers, the hearth company, of earlier Kings and Ealdormen had been attached to them by a special tie, and were bound to bear to them a special fidelity in the day of battle.[957] The Housecarls or Thingmen of Cnut were a force of this kind, larger in number, kept more constantly under arms, and subjected to a more regular discipline than had hitherto been usual. Receiving regular pay, and reinforced by volunteers of all kinds and of all nations, they doubtless gradually departed a good deal from the higher type of the _comitatus_, and came nearer to the level of ordinary mercenaries. So far as the force consisted of foreigners, they were mercenaries in the strictest sense; so far as it consisted of Englishmen, they were mercenaries in no other sense than that in which all paid soldiers are mercenaries. The housecarls were in fact a standing army, and a standing army was an institution which later Kings and great Earls, English as well as Danish, found it to be their interest to continue. Under Cnut they formed a kind of military guild with [Sidenote: The military laws of Cnut.] the King at their head. A set of most elaborate articles of war determined the minutest points of their duty.[958] Fitting punishments were decreed for all offences great and small, punishments to be awarded by tribunals formed among the members of the guild. But all the provisions of the code relate wholly to the internal discipline of the force and to the relations of its members to one another. Of the position in which they stood to the community at large we hear absolutely nothing. And it should be remembered that all our details come from Danish writers and those not contemporary. Our English authorities tell us nothing directly about the matter. [Sidenote: The institution continued by later Kings.] From them we could at most have inferred that some institution of the sort arose about this time; we never read of housecarls before the reign of Cnut, while we often read of them afterwards. That a body of soldiers, many of them foreigners, were guilty of occasional acts of wrong and insolence, we may take for granted even without direct evidence. That under a bad King they might sometimes be sent on oppressive errands we shall presently see on the best of evidence. But that under the great Cnut they were the instruments of any general system of oppression, that they held the nation in unwilling submission to a yoke which it was anxious to throw off, is proved by no evidence whatever. And when England was again ruled by Kings of her own blood, the housecarls became simply a national standing army, and an army of which England might well be proud. The name of the housecarls of King Harold became a name of fear in the most warlike regions of the North,[959] and it was this brave and faithful force which was ever foremost in fight and nearest to the royal person alike in the hour of victory and in the hour of overthrow.

[Sidenote: Foreign policy of Cnut.]

We have still to speak of Cnut’s relations with lands beyond the bounds of England. This subject starts several important points in the history of foreign lands; but, as far as English history is concerned, most of them may be passed by in a few words. Within our own island, we hear little of Wales, and out of it, Cnut’s wars with the other Scandinavian powers and his relations to the Empire, though highly important, have hardly any bearing on English history. The case is different with his dealings both with Scotland and with Normandy, both of which, the latter especially, call for a somewhat fuller examination.

Cnut, as King of all England, alike by formal election and by the power of the sword, of course assumed the same Imperial claims and Imperial style which had been borne by the Kings who had gone before him. As King of all England, he was also Emperor of all Britain, Lord [Sidenote: Relations with Wales.] of all Kings and all nations within his own island. Of his relations with his Welsh vassals we are driven to pick up what accounts we can from their own scanty annals. Early in Cnut’s reign, on what provocation we know not, [Sidenote: Eglaf plunders Saint David’s. 1022?] the exploit of Eadric Streona[960] was repeated. Wales was invaded by Eglaf, a Danish Earl in Cnut’s service, probably the same who had joined in Thurkill’s invasion of England, and who, according to some accounts, was brother of that more famous chief.[961] He ravaged the land of Dyfed and destroyed Saint David’s.[962] This is our sole [Sidenote: 1035?] fact, except that in one of the last years of Cnut’s reign, a Welsh prince, Caradoc son of Rhydderch, was slain by the English.[963] Our own Chroniclers do not look on these matters as worthy of any mention. With Scotland the case is somewhat different, especially as the affairs of that kingdom are closely mixed up with those of the great [Sidenote: Affairs of Northumberland and Scotland.] earldom of Northumberland. We have seen that, on the fourfold division of England, the great Northern government was entrusted to the Dane Eric, who seems however [Sidenote: Earldom of Eric;] not to have disturbed the actual English possessors.[964] He most likely kept a superiority over them till his own banishment,[965] after which it is clear that the family of the [Sidenote: of Eadwulf Cutel.] former Earls remained in possession. The reigning Earl, Eadwulf, the son of the elder Waltheof and brother of Uhtred, is spoken of as a timid and cowardly man, who, according to one account, now surrendered Lothian to King Malcolm for fear that he might avenge the victories won over him by his brother.[966] But if any cession was made to the Scots at this time, it was most likely [Sidenote: Battle of Carham. 1018.] extorted by Malcolm by force of arms. For the second year of Cnut was marked by a Scottish invasion and a Scottish victory of unusual importance.[967] King Malcolm entered England, accompanied by Eogan or Eugenius, seemingly an Under-king of Strathclyde. A great battle took place at Carham on the Tweed, not far from the scene of the more famous fight of Flodden, in which the Scots gained a decisive victory over the whole force of the Bernician earldom. The slaughter, as usual, fell most heavily upon the English nobility. Bishop Ealdhun is said to have fallen sick on hearing the news, and to have died in a few days. His great work was all but done. The height of Durham was now crowned by a church, stately doubtless after the standard of those times, of which only a single tower lacked completion.[968] It was doubtless owing to the confusion which followed the Scottish inroad that three years passed between the death of Ealdhun and the succession of the next Bishop Eadmund.[969] According to one theory, which I shall discuss elsewhere,[970] the annexation of Lothian to the Scottish kingdom was the result of this battle. It is equally strange that a prince like Cnut should have consented to the cession of any part of his dominions, and that he should have allowed a Scottish victory to pass unrevenged. But we do not, in our English authorities, find any mention of Scottish [Sidenote: Affairs of Cumberland.] affairs till a much later stage of his reign. According to the Scottish account, Duncan, the grandson of Malcolm through his daughter Beatrice, who now held the under-kingdom of Cumberland or Strathclyde, refused, though often summoned, to do homage to Cnut.[971] His refusal was cloked under a show of feudal loyalty; his homage was due only to the lawful King of the English; he would do no kind of service to a Danish usurper. Cnut, after his return from his Roman pilgrimage, marched against his refractory vassal, with the intention of incorporating [Sidenote: Submission of Duncan.] his dominions with the English kingdom. Certain Bishops and other chief men stepped in to preserve peace, and a compromise was brought about. Duncan withdrew his claim to independence; Cnut relinquished his design of complete incorporation; the Under-king of Cumberland was again to hold his kingdom on the old terms of vassalage. Such is the Scottish story, which characteristically puts Cumberland in the foreground, and leaves out all mention both of Scotland proper and of Lothian. It may very likely be true in what it asserts; it is eminently false in what it conceals. For there is no doubt that Cnut’s dealings with his northern neighbours were by no means confined to Cumberland, but touched Scotland itself quite as nearly. It is just conceivable that both Duncan and his grandfather Malcolm refused homage to Cnut on the ground that the Dane was an usurper of the English kingdom. If so, they were perhaps brought to reason at an earlier time than would appear from our own Chronicles only. According to a French historian, an expedition of Cnut against the Scots was hindered, and peace was restored, by the intercession of the Lady Emma and her brother Duke Richard. According to a Norwegian saga, two Scottish Kings, probably Malcolm and Duncan, submitted to [Sidenote: Submission of Scotland. 1031.] Cnut in the early years of his reign. However all this may be, it is certain, on the highest of all authorities, that the whole kingdom of Scotland did in the end submit to his claims. Cnut, like William after him, was not minded to give up any right of the crown which he had won. The more famous ceremony of Abernethy forty [Sidenote: [1073.]] years later was now forestalled. As the younger Malcolm then became the man of the Norman, so now the elder Malcolm became the man of the Dane.[972] Cnut, after his return from Rome—in the very year of his return, according to those who give the later date to that event—marched into Scotland, meeting, it would seem, with no [Sidenote: Malcolm, Jehmarc, and Macbeth do homage to Cnut. 1031.] opposition. Malcolm now, if not before, rendered the long-delayed homage, and he was joined in his submission by two other Scottish chiefs, the lords of Argyle and of Moray, on both of whom our Chronicles bestow the title of King. With the otherwise obscure Jehmarc is coupled a name which holds no small place in history, but which is far more famous in romance. Along with the homage of the elder Malcolm King Cnut received also the homage of Macbeth.

[Sidenote: Import of the homage of the Under-kings.]

This fact that the Under-kings, or princes of whatever rank, within the kingdom of Scotland, did homage to Cnut is worthy of special notice. It seems to be a step beyond the terms of the original commendation to Eadward the Elder. It seems to be a step towards the more complete submission made by William the Lion to Henry the Second and to the homage done by all Scotland to the Lord Paramount Edward. The choice of the English King as Father and Lord over the King and people of the Scots did not make this or that Scot his “man.”[973] But now, not only King Malcolm, but Jehmarc and Macbeth became the “men” of the King of all England. Yet the fact may perhaps be explained another way. When we remember the later history, we shall perhaps be inclined to look for the cause of this change in the slight authority possessed by Malcolm over the lesser Scottish princes. His legendary character paints him as a King who granted away all his domains, and left himself nothing but the hill of Scone, the holy place of the Scottish monarchy.[974] And more authentic history shows that Jehmarc and Macbeth, princes ruling on the western and eastern shores of the island, were so far independent of the King of Scots that the homage of Malcolm alone would have been no sufficient guaranty for the retention of the Scottish kingdom in its proper submission to the Imperial crown. Macbeth indeed was the representative of a line which had claims on the Scottish crown itself. Cnut therefore prudently exacted the homage of Malcolm’s dangerous vassals as well as that of Malcolm himself. [Sidenote: Death of Malcolm. 1034.] Malcolm, already an old man, survived the ceremony only three years, and died in the year before the death of his far younger over-lord.[975] He was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, whose son Malcolm, surnamed Canmore, afterwards so famous, received, as usual, the apanage of Cumberland.[976]

[Sidenote: Cnut’s Northern wars.]

Cnut’s wars in the North of Europe have but little connexion with English history, and there are few events for [Sidenote: Authorities for their history.] which our historical materials are more unsatisfactory. Our own Chronicles help us to the dates of some of the more prominent events; the Norwegian sagas[977] and the rhetorical Latin of the Danish historian help us to abundance of details, if we could only accept them as authentic; the Danish chronicles are meagre beyond words. Happily, to unravel the difficulties and contradictions of their various statements is no part of the business of an English historian. It may be enough for our purpose to keep ourselves to those events which the contemporary chroniclers of England thought worthy of a place in our own [Sidenote: Revolutions of Norway.] national annals. The most important among them is the loss and reconquest of Norway by Cnut, and his wars with its renowned King Olaf the Saint.[978] Norway had, after [Sidenote: 1000.] the death of Olaf Tryggvesson,[979] formed part of the dominions of Swegen, and it was entrusted to the government of his son-in-law Eric, who afterwards held the [Sidenote: 1015.] earldom of Northumberland.[980] When Eric went to England with Cnut, Hakon the son of Eric remained as Earl in Norway, but was soon driven out by Olaf Haraldsson. Of this prince, afterwards canonized as a saint and martyr, we have heard somewhat already;[981] but the part assigned to him in English affairs evidently belongs to romance and not to history. His career in his own country is more [Sidenote: Reign of Saint Olaf. 1015–1028.] authentic and more important. The rule of Olaf was at first acceptable to the country; but both his virtues and his faults gradually raised up enemies against him. He was preeminently a reformer. His strictness in the administration of justice, the first of virtues in a prince of those times, is highly praised.[982] He was moreover a zealous Christian; his whole soul was devoted to spreading throughout his kingdom the blessings of religion and civilization, and to reforming the manners and morals of his people in every way. He brought bishops and other churchmen from England, and, not satisfied with the evangelization of his own kingdom, he employed them as missionaries in Sweden, Gothland, and the neighbouring islands.[983] But, just like the elder Olaf, his choice of means was often less praiseworthy than the excellence of his objects. The reformer tried by harshness and violence to force on a rude people manners and institutions for which they were not ready, and the Christian missionary sank into a persecutor of those who clave to the creed of their fathers. In his lofty ideas of kingly power, Olaf set little store by the rights either of the ancient chiefs or of the free peasantry of the land, and, in dealing with these enemies, he did not shrink from acts of merciless cruelty.[984] Meanwhile Cnut was keeping as careful an eye on Norway as his father had kept on England; but, like his father, he knew how to bide his time. A summons to Olaf to hold the crown of Norway as his vassal was rejected;[985] war followed, [Sidenote: Cnut’s defeat at the Helga. 1025.] and Cnut’s first expedition was unsuccessful. Olaf allied himself with the Swedish King Omund, and their joint forces inflicted a defeat on Cnut’s combined Danish [Sidenote: Cnut’s intrigues in Norway. 1027.] and English army at the river Helga in Scania.[986] Two years later, by dint of bribes and promises and by studiously taking advantage of Olaf’s growing unpopularity, Cnut contrived to raise up a powerful party in Norway which was prepared to accept his own pretensions.[987] In the next year, when Cnut sailed to Norway with fifty ships, Olaf was completely forsaken by his people, and [Sidenote: Cnut expels Olaf, and is chosen King of all Norway. 1028.] had to take refuge in Russia. Cnut was everywhere welcomed, and he was chosen King of all Norway by the Thing at Trondhjem, just as he had been, eleven years before, chosen King of all England by the Gemót at London.[988] A later attempt of Olaf to recover his kingdom [Sidenote: Olaf killed at Stikkelstad. 1030.] was resisted by the Norwegians themselves; he fell in the fight of Stikkelstad, and the Church looked on him as a martyr.[989]

[Sidenote: Cnut’s friendly relations with the Empire.]

Cnut, King of five or, as some reckon, six kingdoms, seems to have looked upon himself as Emperor of the North, and to have held himself in all respects as the peer of his Roman brother.[990] Earlier and later Danish Kings were fain to own themselves the vassals of Cæsar; but before the power of Cnut the Roman Terminus himself had to give way. With the Frankish Emperor Conrad the mighty ruler of Northern Europe was on the best terms. Cnut, as we have seen, made his acquaintance and friendship in his Imperial capital, and bore a part in the splendours of his Imperial consecration. The alliance was cemented by a treaty of marriage between their children, and by a cession of territory on the part of the potentate [Sidenote: Marriage of Gunhild to King Henry of Germany. 1036.] higher in formal rank. Gunhild, the daughter of Cnut and Emma, was betrothed to Conrad’s son King Henry, afterwards the renowned Emperor Henry the Third. The marriage however did not take place till after the death of the bride’s father, and Gunhild, like her predecessor Eadgyth, was destined to be neither the wife nor the mother of an Emperor. Gunhild, like Eadgyth, died before her husband succeeded to the Empire, and his successor was the offspring of his second and better known marriage with Agnes of Poitiers.[991]

[Sidenote: Cnut recovers the frontier of the Eider.]

The more strictly political result of the friendship between Cnut and Conrad was the restoration of the ancient frontier between Denmark and Germany. After the victorious expedition of Otto the Second into Denmark, a German mark had been established beyond the Eider, extending from that river to the Dannewirk, the great bulwark which Gorm and Thyra had reared against the Southern invader. This was the first step in that process which has gradually Germanized a part of Southern Jutland, [Sidenote: 1864–6.] and which has at last handed over an unwilling Scandinavian population as the victims of Prussian greed of territorial aggrandizement. Cnut, by treaty with the Emperor, and seemingly as the price of his daughter, recovered the ancient frontier with which Charles the Great had been content, and which remained the boundary of the two realms till that general removing of ancient landmarks which belongs only to the more refined diplomacy of modern times.

[Sidenote: Affairs of Normandy.]

We have now, last of all, to look to the position of Cnut with reference to the Duchy of Normandy. I have already, in speaking of Cnut’s ecclesiastical policy, had occasion to mention the close connexion which he kept up with more than one part of Gaul. He was the special friend of Duke William of Aquitaine, surnamed the Great, a prince whose tastes were in many respects congenial with his own. He sent him embassies and gifts, among them a splendid book of devotions in golden letters.[992] But Cnut’s most important relations among the states of Gaul were with the great duchy which lay opposite to his southern shores, and where his banished stepsons were being brought up as his possible rivals. The last event in the internal history of Normandy which I recorded was the [Sidenote: [997.]] great revolt of the Norman peasantry at the beginning of the reign of Richard the Good. The new Duke was, in the full sense of the word, a Frenchman. Whatever had become of the original homage of Rolf, the commendation of Richard the Fearless to Hugh the Great[993] was still in [Sidenote: Friendly relations with France. 996–1031.] full force. Richard was the loyal vassal and faithful ally of the Parisian King; his friendship with Robert, the second King of that house, seems to have always remained unbroken, and the two princes acted together in various expeditions. The Normans were by this time thoroughly naturalized in their Gaulish possessions. In the records of the time they appear as recognized and honoured members of the French monarchy. The memory of their foreign and heathen descent is forgotten; their prince is no longer the mere Duke of Pirates,[994] whom a loyal Frenchman spoke of as seldom as he could; the cherished ally of the Parisian King is now spoken of with every respect as the Duke of Rouen.[995] The chief French historian of the time is as ready to exaggerate the external power and influence of the second Richard as ever his own Dudo was to exaggerate those of his father.[996] Richard, on the other hand, did not hesitate to have his gifts to his own Fécamp confirmed by his over-lord,[997] and he dated his public acts by the regnal years of the King.[998] And no wonder; for it is plain that the Norman Duke [Sidenote: Strict alliance between King Robert and Duke Richard.] was the mainstay of the French kingdom. Robert, though the most pious of men, could not avoid either temporal warfare, ecclesiastical censures, or domestic oppression.[999] In the last two classes of afflictions Norman help could hardly avail him, but in all Robert’s wars Richard proved a steady and valuable ally. The help of the Norman [Sidenote: 1003.] Duke enabled his over-lord to maintain his claims over the ducal Burgundy,[1000] and Norman troops served along with those both of the French King and of the German Cæsar in a war against their common vassal of Flanders. The [Sidenote: 1006.] Imperial and royal saints united their forces against the city of Valenciennes, and the more purely temporal help of [Sidenote: Friendly relations with Britanny.] the Norman Duke was arrayed on the same side.[1001] With his Breton neighbours or vassals Richard was on good terms. The friendship between him and the Breton Count Geoffrey was cemented by an exchange of sisters between [Sidenote: 1008.] the two princes. Richard married Judith of Britanny,[1002] and Hadwisa of Normandy became the wife of Geoffrey, on whose death her sons, Alan and Odo, were placed under the guardianship of their uncle and lord.[1003] With another neighbour and brother-in-law Richard found it less easy to remain on friendly terms. His sister Matilda had married Odo the Second, Count of Chartres, the grandson of the old enemy Theobald. The town and part of the district of Dreux had been given to Odo as her marriage [Sidenote: War with Odo of Chartres.] portion,[1004] and this, on her death, he refused to give back. A war followed, which was made conspicuous by the foundation of the famous castle of Tillières,[1005] which long remained a border fortress of Normandy. Of course every effort of Odo to take or surprise the Norman outpost was rendered hopeless by Norman valour, and yet we are told that Richard found it expedient to resort to help of a very questionable kind to support him against his enemy. The Normans were now Frenchmen; Duke Richard and his court of gentlemen[1006] had doubtless quite forgotten their Scandinavian mother-tongue; some traces of the old nationality may still have lingered at Bayeux, but, as a whole, Normandy was now French in language, feeling, and religion. But the old connexion with the North was still cherished. We have already seen how the friendly reception which the Danish invaders of England met with in the Norman ports had led to hostile relations between Normandy and England.[1007] So now we have the old story of Harold Blaatand over again.[1008] Richard, like his father, does not scruple to bring heathen invaders into Gaul to help him against his Christian enemies. And, just as in the second appearance of Harold Blaatand, this shameful help is called in at a time when there seems to be no need for if, at a time when the Norman arms are completely victorious. Odo could surely have been crushed by the combined forces of Normandy and Britanny,[1009] even if King Robert was not disposed to repay [Sidenote: Brittany ravaged by two heathen Kings, Lacman and Olaf. 1013?] in kind the services of his loyal vassal. The tale however, as we find it, represents the Norman Duke as entering into a league with two heathen Kings, who were engaged in inflicting the most cruel ravages on his own vassals and allies of Britanny, having just taken and burned the frontier city of Dol.[1010] These Kings are described as Lacman of Sweden and Olaf of Norway. With regard to the former there must be a mistake of some kind, as no King bearing any such name occurs in Swedish [Sidenote: Identity of this Olaf with Saint Olaf Haraldsson.] history. But we are given to understand that the Olaf spoken of was no other than the famous Olaf Haraldsson the Saint.[1011] One story of the early life of Olaf seems to be about as mythical as another; but something is proved when two independent narratives agree. Of the busy career in England which the Northern legend assigns to Olaf not a trace is to be found in any English writer. But the presence of Olaf in Normandy is asserted alike [Sidenote: Richard allies himself with them.] by Norman and by Norwegian tradition. According to the Norman tale, the ravagers of Britanny left their prey, sailed to Rouen in answer to the Duke’s summons, [Sidenote: Mediation of King Robert.] and were there honourably received by him. But if Duke Richard did not shrink from such guests at Rouen, King Robert was naturally afraid of their appearance at Paris. After the treatment which the Bretons had received, all Gaul was endangered by their presence.[1012] The King then held, what is so rare in the history of France, so common in that of England and Germany, an assembly of the Princes of his realm.[1013] The royal summons was obeyed both by the Duke of the Normans and by the Count of Chartres. Peace was made by the mediation of the King; Count Odo kept his town of Dreux, and Duke Richard kept his new fortress of Tillières. The heathen Kings were to be got rid of as they might. Duke Richard persuaded them by rich gifts to go away then, and to promise to come again if they were wanted. One of them, Olaf, was converted to Christianity with many of his comrades. He was baptized by Archbishop Robert, and his career of sanctity begins forthwith.[1014]

[Sidenote: Amount of truth to be found in these stories.]

Stories of this kind can hardly be admitted into history without a certain amount of dread lest the historian may prove to have opened his text for the reception of a mere piece of romance. They are stories which we cannot venture unhesitatingly to accept, but which we are not at all in a position unhesitatingly to deny. They are stories of which it is safest to say that the details are sure to be mythical, but that there is likely to be some groundwork of truth at the bottom. It is impossible to read this tale of the alliance of Richard the Good with Olaf and Lacman, without a lurking feeling that it may be the tale of Richard the Fearless and Harold Blaatand moved from its old place and fitted with a new set of names. If we get thus far, it is hardly possible to avoid going a step further, and asking whether the mythical element is not strong in the tale of Harold Blaatand himself. And it is hardly less difficult to read the story of the two heathen Kings, of whom one is converted, while the other seemingly goes away stiffnecked in his old errors, without asking whether the tale is not merely a repetition of the history of the dealings of Æthelred with Swegen and Olaf Tryggvesson twenty years before.[1015] Still we are hardly justified in altogether rejecting stories which we cannot disprove, and which rest on authority, certainly not first-rate, but still such as we are generally content to accept for statements which have no inherent [Sidenote: Their witness to the abiding connexion between Normandy and the North.] unlikelihood about them. And after all, in this particular case, the mere existence of the stories proves something of more importance than the particular facts which they profess to relate. Whether the tales either of Harold or of Olaf be historically true or not, the fact that such tales could obtain belief, and could find a place in recognized Norman history, shows that a strong feeling of connexion between Normandy and the Scandinavian mother-land must have lived on, even after all outward traces of Scandinavian descent had passed away.

[Sidenote: Foreign expeditions and conquests of the Normans.]

Another feature in Norman history, which has its beginning in the reign of Richard the Good, is still more closely connected with our immediate subject. It was in the days of this prince that the Normans of the Norman duchy began to play an independent part beyond their own borders, and to enter on that series of foreign expeditions and foreign conquests of which the Norman Conquest of England was the last and greatest example.[1016] The earlier Dukes had founded the duchy; they had enlarged its borders; they had defended it against aggression from without, and had developed its resources within. The alliance between Richard the Good and King Robert had caused the Norman arms to be felt and dreaded throughout the length and breadth of Gaul. But now the limits both of the Norman duchy and of the French kingdom became too narrow for the energies both of the sovereigns of Normandy and of their subjects. The part played by the Normans in Europe had hitherto been partly defensive and partly secondary. They had withstood French, English, and German invasions, and they had aided their lords, ducal and royal, at Paris in a variety of military adventures. But now that no invader was to be feared, now that the Norman state held a fully established position in France and in Europe, the old Scandinavian spirit of distant enterprise and distant conquest awoke again. The Christian and French-speaking Norman was now as ready to jeopard his life and fortune in distant lands as ever his heathen and Scandinavian forefathers had been. The days of the actual crusades had not yet come, but already, while warfare of all kinds had charms, warfare against misbelievers was beginning to be clothed with a special charm in the eyes of the Christian chivalry of Normandy. As yet no distant conquest had been undertaken by any Norman Duke. Yet even under Richard the Good we find the power of Normandy employed beyond the bounds of the French kingdom, and in a cause which was not that of any immediate interest [Sidenote: Burgundian War. 1024.] of the Norman duchy. Besides the campaign in which Duke Richard vindicated the claim of his over-lord over the ducal Burgundy, he carried his arms beyond the frontier of the Western Kingdom into that further Burgundy which still kept its own line of Kings, and which was soon to return to its allegiance to Cæsar. Reginald, Count of the Burgundian Palatinate, had married Richard’s daughter Adeliza. Towards the end of Richard’s reign, this prince fell into the hands of his turbulent neighbour, Hugh, Count of Challon[1017] and Bishop of Auxerre. Hugh was a vassal of France, while Reginald’s dominions were held in fief of the last Burgundian King, the feeble Rudolf, himself little better than a vassal of the Emperor. But neither King nor Cæsar stepped forward to chastise the wrong-doer or to set free the captive. It was a Norman army, under the young Richard, son of the Duke, which presently taught the Count-prelate that a son-in-law of the Duke of the Normans could not be wronged with impunity.[1018]

But far greater and more enduring exploits than these were wrought during the reign of Richard, not by the public force of the Norman duchy, but by the restless energy of private Norman adventurers. An attempt to establish a Norman settlement in Spain came to nought; but in this period were laid the foundations of that great Norman settlement in Southern Italy which had such an [Sidenote: Exploits of Roger of Toesny in Spain. 1018.] important effect on the future history of Europe. Roger of Toesny was the first to carry the Norman arms into the Spanish peninsula. Spain had long before attracted the attention of a Norman sovereign; it was to Spain, as a heathen land, to which Richard the Fearless had persuaded the unbelieving portion of his Scandinavian allies to depart.[1019] It was in Spain, as the battle-ground of Christian and Saracen, that Roger now sought at once to wage warfare against the misbeliever and to carve out a dominion for himself. Roger was of the noblest blood of Normandy, boasting a descent from Malahulc, uncle of Rolf,[1020] and he may well have looked down upon the upstart gentlemen whose nobility had no higher source than the tardy bridal of their kinswoman Gunnor.[1021] Roger fought manfully against the infidels, and marvellous tales are told of his daring, his hard-won victories, his deeds of cannibal ferocity.[1022] He married the daughter of the widowed Countess of Barcelona, a princess whose dominions were practically Spanish, though her formal allegiance was due to the Parisian King. This marriage was doubtless designed as the beginning of a Norman principality in Spain; but the scheme failed to take any lasting root.