CANUTE, KING OF ENGLAND AND DENMARK

Reigned: 1017–1035. Canute came to the throne amidst great turmoil in the aftermath of aethelred ii's long reign (978–1013 and 1014–1016), which had been marred by a protracted struggle against Canute's father Swegn Forkbeard of Denmark and his Viking host. Swegn forced Aethelred to flee to the Norman court of his brother-in-law in December 1013, but Swegn's death in February 1014, prevented the consolidation of his power and the undisputed succession of his son Canute. Confusion resulted when some magnates chose Canute as lord, but others invited Aethelred to return and resume the crown.

Canute temporarily left England to seek help from his brother, who had become king of Denmark upon Swegn's death. When Canute returned in September 1014, he faced not only the aging Aethelred, but the formidable and indefatigable son of Aethelred, Edmund "Ironside." Aethelred died on April 23, 1016, and Canute and Edmund negotiated an end to their fighting later that year following the Battle of Ashingdon. They agreed to a north-south division of the kingdom that followed a traditional pattern. Edmund took the south portion that included Wessex, and Canute took Mercia and presumably Northumbria. When Edmund died the same year on November 30, Canute succeeded to the whole realm. Cunning and ruthless, Canute forestalled possible counter claims of other heirs of the House of Wessex by banishing Edmund's brother Eadwig, later killed, and by sending Edmund's infant sons to the court of Sweden. Then in the summer of 1017 Canute married Aethelred's widow Emma to prevent her brother, the duke of Normandy, from pursuing any military action on behalf of her sons, half-brothers to Edmund and Eadwig.

Canute's marriage to Emma was clearly driven by political exigency, for earlier Canute had entered into marriage danicum with Aelfgifu of Northampton, daughter of a prominent northern magnate. The House of Wessex had used marriage to establish alliances between southern kings and their northern subjects, and Canute, a foreigner, also used the relationship with Aelfgifu and her family to attract northerners to his cause. Although the north seemed solidly behind him by 1017, Canute did not repudiate the Danish marriage when he made Emma his Christian wife. He acknowledged and provided for Aelfgifu of Northampton's sons, but he made an agreement that any of his sons by Emma would have the superior claim on the succession

Canute's reign had begun violently and had proceeded well into 1017 with the murderous purging of any magnates Canute suspected of deceit or treachery. Yet Canute proved himself an able ruler capable of delegating power and of attracting men he could trust. Canute's most notable recruit was Godwin, whose power increased until he was second only to Canute in the kingdom.

A baptized Christian when he became king, Canute was at pains to win the Church's approval, but he obviously ignored its teachings when they inconvenienced him. Church leaders must have found his maintenance of two marriages repugnant, but they were tactfully silent concerning the matter. Their endorsement of him through the coronation ceremony brought with it an implied sanction from God and gave him a legitimacy that conquest did not. He strove to enhance that legitimacy, and to lessen any hostility still residual among churchmen who might have suffered directly from the struggle to establish Danish rule. He gave lavishly to monasteries and to the poor on a journey to Rome in 1027. He visited the pilgrimage sites and negotiated for his English archbishops to receive their palliums from the pope at a reduced cost. His piety and humility grew over the years, but they did not inhibit his political astuteness.

Having taken advantage of English war weariness, he brought the realm its first political stability in decades, although he often acted as a tyrant. Following his brother's death, Canute was able to expand his rule to Denmark in 1019 and to create a regency in Norway under Aelfgifu of Northampton for their son Swein in 1030. The size and strength of his empire placed him among the most powerful rulers in Christendom, but in 1035 he died without clearly designating an heir. His empire disintegrated in a power struggle between half-brothers, Aelfgifu's second son, Harold Harefoot and Emma's son, Harthacnut.

Bibliography: g. n. garmonsway, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Rutland, Vermont 1992) 144–158. r. r. darlington and p. mcgurk, The Chronicle of John of Worcester (Clarendon, Oxford 1995) 473–521. a. campbell, Encomium Emmae Reginae (Camden, 1949). m. k. lawson Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (London 1993) 117–222.

[p. torpis]