Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/72

 to wife; she bore him Edgar Atheling, and two daughters—Margaret, afterwards Queen of Scotland, and Christina, who became a nun.

Canute, although King of England, was obliged to dividehis authority in a great measure with the nobles, by bestowing on them greater territories and jurisdiction.

He created Thurkyl Duke of East Anglia; Yric had Northumberland, and Edric Mercia, as the price of their services. The latter he afterwards, when he found himself more firmly seated, caused to be executed, as a reward for his many treasons, and his body cast into the Thames.

The new king found himself obliged to levy immense taxes to gratify the rapacity of his followers; he extorted from the people at one time no less than seventy-two thousand pounds, an enormous sum in those days, besides eleven thousand which he levied on London alone. The latter city suffered more in comparison than others, on account of the attachment it had shown his rival. Canute could neither forget nor pardon his having been obliged twice to retire from the siege of that important place.

Canute the Great.

With a degree of savage justice he put to death a great number of the nobility, giving as a reason that it was impossible he could ever trust them, on account of their treachery to their native king. The probability is, that their wealth was the principal cause of their offence.

Having thus got rid of those whom he most feared, Canute determined, if possible, to reconcile the people to his government by justice and impartiality. He not only sent back to Denmark a great number of his followers, but in a general assembly of the states which he convened, restored the Saxon and Dane in the administration between Saxons and Dane in the administration of justice.

The latter people he gradually incorporated with his new subjects.

The removal of Edmund's children into so distant a country as Hungary was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security to his government: he had no further anxiety, except with regard to Alfred and Edward, who protected and supported by their uncle, Richard, Duke of Normandy. Richard even fitted out a great armament, in order to restore the English princes to the throne of their ancestors; and though the nary was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw the danger to which he was exposed from the enmity of so warlike a people as the Normans. In order to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of that prince; and promised that he would leave the children whom he might have by that marriage, his heirs to the crown of England. Richard complied with his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was, in 1017, married to Canute. The English, though they disapproved of her espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and who had already formed connections with them; and thus Canute, besides securing by