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386 arranged that the realm should be divided, Edmund taking his ancestral inheritance of Wessex, while Knut obtained all Mercia and the Danelaw, on the condition that he forwent all vengeance on the Londoners and gave them his peace. Knut's object in consenting to this treaty was, no doubt, to obtain a breathing space and allow time for reinforcements to reach him from Scandinavia. It might, however, quite well have opened the way for Edmund to play over again the part of Edward the Elder, now that he had restored the prestige of his house, and won for himself the name of "Ironside" by his audacity and doggedness in an almost desperate situation. Englishmen at any rate now had a rallying point and a leader. Fate, however, willed it otherwise. Only a few weeks after the treaty Edmund died at Oxford unexpectedly, if not by foul play, when still only twenty-two. His loss at once destroyed the reviving spirit of the West Saxons. They might perhaps have turned to Eadwig, Edmund's brother, the sole surviving male of Aethelred's first family, but their dread of the Danes was too great, and so Knut was hailed King of all England early in 1017 without further opposition.

Knut ruled England for eighteen years (1017-1035). Through his mother half a Pole, he was at his accession about twenty-two years old, and already had two sons by an English wife called Aelfgifu of Northampton. His first act, however, was to repudiate this lady and take to wife Emma of Normandy, Aethelred's widow, who was thirteen years his senior. This stroke of policy freed him from all fear of the young Alfred and Edward, her children by Aethelred, who were left at Rouen to be educated as Frenchmen under the charge of their uncle Duke Richard. To his new subjects Knut must have seemed the typical viking raider. He proved, however, altogether different as a king to what men expected. From the very outset he put off the barbarian and did his utmost to make his subjects forget that he was their conqueror. He had of course to take some steps of a drastic kind to secure himself against possible risings and treachery, but, when once his power was fully established, he developed into a most humane and conciliatory ruler, and gave England peace and justice such as it had not enjoyed since the death of Edgar. King at first only of England, in 1018 he acquired Denmark as well by the death of his brother, and ultimately a considerable Scandinavian empire, but he ever considered England his first care and made it his chief residence. A rapid recovery of prosperity therefore followed his accession, and Englishmen had little cause to regret the change of dynasty.

Knut's first task, after sending Edmund's infant sons out of the realm and hunting down their uncle Eadwig, was to appoint a trusty band of dukes, or "earls" as they now come to be called, using the Danish term, to help him in controlling the various provinces of the kingdom. Full details for all England are not available, but the lists of witnesses to his land-books, coupled with entries in the Chronicles, shew that his scheme was somewhat as follows: south of the Thames he kept the bulk of