Unready, instead of coming himself, sent Edward, one of his sons,
to make promises for him. At last, he followed, and the English
declared him King. The Danes declared CANUTE, the son of Sweyn,
King. Thus, direful war began again, and lasted for three years,
when the Unready died. And I know of nothing better that he did,
in all his reign of eight and thirty years.
Was Canute to be King now? Not over the Saxons, they said; they
must have EDMUND, one of the sons of the Unready, who was surnamed
IRONSIDE, because of his strength and stature. Edmund and Canute
thereupon fell to, and fought five battles - O unhappy England,
what a fighting-ground it was! - and then Ironside, who was a big
man, proposed to Canute, who was a little man, that they two should
fight it out in single combat. If Canute had been the big man, he
would probably have said yes, but, being the little man, he
decidedly said no. However, he declared that he was willing to
divide the kingdom - to take all that lay north of Watling Street,
as the old Roman military road from Dover to Chester was called,
and to give Ironside all that lay south of it. Most men being
weary of so much bloodshed, this was done. But Canute soon became
sole King of England; for Ironside died suddenly within two months.
Some think that he was killed, and killed by Canute's orders. No
one knows.
Page 23
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
CHAPTER V - ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE
CANUTE reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless King at first.
After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, in token of the
sincerity with which he swore to be just and good to them in return
for their acknowledging him, he denounced and slew many of them, as
well as many relations of the late King. 'He who brings me the
head of one of my enemies,' he used to say, 'shall be dearer to me
than a brother.' And he was so severe in hunting down his enemies,
that he must have got together a pretty large family of these dear
brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill EDMUND and EDWARD, two
children, sons of poor Ironside; but, being afraid to do so in
England, he sent them over to the King of Sweden, with a request
that the King would be so good as 'dispose of them.' If the King
of Sweden had been like many, many other men of that day, he would
have had their innocent throats cut; but he was a kind man, and
brought them up tenderly.
Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were the two
children of the late king - EDWARD and ALFRED by name; and their
uncle the Duke might one day claim the crown for them. But the
Duke showed so little inclination to do so now, that he proposed to
Canute to marry his sister, the widow of The Unready; who, being
but a showy flower, and caring for nothing so much as becoming a
queen again, left her children and was wedded to him.
Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valour of the English in
his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at home,
Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improvements. He was
a poet and a musician. He grew sorry, as he grew older, for the
blood he had shed at first; and went to Rome in a Pilgrim's dress,
by way of washing it out. He gave a great deal of money to
foreigners on his journey; but he took it from the English before
he started. On the whole, however, he certainly became a far
better man when he had no opposition to contend with, and was as
great a King as England had known for some time.
The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one day
disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery, and how he caused
his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to command the
tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, for the land
was his; how the tide came up, of course, without regarding him;
and how he then turned to his flatterers, and rebuked them, saying,
what was the might of any earthly king, to the might of the
Creator, who could say unto the sea, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and
no farther!' We may learn from this, I think, that a little sense
will go a long way in a king; and that courtiers are not easily
cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking for it. If the courtiers
of Canute had not known, long before, that the King was fond of
flattery, they would have known better than to offer it in such
large doses. And if they had not known that he was vain of this
speech (anything but a wonderful speech it seems to me, if a good
child had made it), they would not have been at such great pains to
repeat it. I fancy I see them all on the sea-shore together; the
King's chair sinking in the sand; the King in a mighty good humour
with his own wisdom; and the courtiers pretending to be quite
stunned by it!
It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go 'thus far, and no
farther.' The great command goes forth to all the kings upon the
earth, and went to Canute in the year one thousand and thirty-five,
and stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it, stood his Norman
Page 24
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
wife. Perhaps, as the King looked his last upon her, he, who had
so often thought distrustfully of Normandy, long ago, thought once
more of the two exiled Princes in their uncle's court, and of the
little favour they could feel for either Danes or Saxons, and of a
rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved towards England.
CHAPTER VI - ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD
THE CONFESSOR
CANUTE left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but
his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of
only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions to be divided
between the three, and had wished Harold to have England; but the
Saxon people in the South of England, headed by a nobleman with
great possessions, called the powerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to
have been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to
have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled Princes
who were over in Normandy. It seemed so certain that there would
be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many people left
their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Happily,
however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great
meeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should have all the
country north of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and
that Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so
arranged; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very
little about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and
Earl Godwin governed the south for him.
They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had
hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the
elder of the two exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few
followers, to claim the English Crown. His mother Emma, however,
who only cared for her last son Hardicanute, instead of assisting
him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence
that he was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred
was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter, written
some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name
(but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now
uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to England, with
a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and
being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as
far as the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the
evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company; who had
ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the
night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small
parties sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful supper
in different houses, they were set upon by the King's troops, and
taken prisoners. Next morning they were drawn out in a line, to
the number of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and
killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into
slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked,
tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his eyes
were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserably
died. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully entrapped him, but
I suspect it strongly.
Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful whether
the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests were
Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown him.
Crowned or uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or without it, he
Page 25
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
was King for four years: after which short reign he died, and was
buried; having never done much in life but go a hunting. He was
such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people
called him Harold Harefoot.
Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting, with his
mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of Prince
Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons,
finding themselves without a King, and dreading new disputes, made
common cause, and joined in inviting him to occupy the Throne. He
consented, and soon troubled them enough; for he brought over
numbers of Danes, and taxed the people so insupportably to enrich
those greedy favourites that there were many insurrections,
especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his
tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. He was
a brutal King, whose first public act was to order the dead body of
poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the
river. His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell down
drunk, with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at
Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a
Dane named TOWED THE PROUD. And he never spoke again.
EDWARD, afterwards called by the monks THE CONFESSOR, succeeded;
and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, who had favoured
him so little, to retire into the country; where she died some ten
years afterwards. He was the exiled prince whose brother Alfred
had been so foully killed. He had been invited over from Normandy
by Hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two years, and
had been handsomely treated at court. His cause was now favoured
by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made King. This Earl
had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred's cruel
death; he had even been tried in the last reign for the Prince's
murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it was
supposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish King, of
a gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of
eighty splendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new
King with his power, if the new King would help him against the
popular distrust and hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward the
Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land,
and his daughter Editha was made queen; for it was a part of their
compact that the King should take her for his wife.
But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be
beloved - good, beautiful, sensible, and kind - the King from the
first neglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers,
resenting this cold treatment, harassed the King greatly by
exerting all their power to make him unpopular. Having lived so
long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made
a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops; his great officers and
favourites were all Normans; he introduced the Norman fashions and
the Norman language; in imitation of the state custom of Normandy,
he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely
marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of the
cross - just as poor people who have never been taught to write,
now make the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful
Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as
disfavour shown towards the English; and thus they daily increased
their own power, and daily diminished the power of the King.
They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had
reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had married the
King's sister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the
court some time, he set forth, with his numerous train of
attendants, to return home. They were to embark at Dover.
Page 26
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
Entering that peaceful town in armour, they took possession of the
best houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained
without payment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not
endure to have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy
swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat
and drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway and refused
admission to the first armed man who came there. The armed man
drew, and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead.
Intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to
where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their horses,
bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to the house,
surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being
closed when they came up), and killed the man of Dover at his own
fireside. They then clattered through the streets, cutting down
and riding over men, women, and children. This did not last long,
you may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great fury,
killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and,
blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark,
beat them out of the town by the way they had come. Hereupon,
Count Eustace
rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where
Edward is, surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. 'Justice!'
cries the Count, 'upon the men of Dover, who have set upon and
slain my people!' The King sends immediately for the powerful Earl
Godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is under his
government; and orders him to repair to Dover and do military
execution on the inhabitants. 'It does not become you,' says the
proud Earl in reply, 'to condemn without a hearing those whom you
have sworn to protect. I will not do it.'
The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment and
loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to
answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his
eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as many
fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded to
have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of
the country. The King, in his turn, refused to give them up, and
raised a strong force. After some treaty and delay, the troops of
the great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with a
part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders;
Harold escaped to Ireland; and the power of the great family was
for that time gone in England. But, the people did not forget
them.
Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean
spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons
upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom
all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He
seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing
her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which
a sister of his - no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart -
was abbess or jailer.
Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the
King favoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over WILLIAM,
DUKE OF NORMANDY, the son of that Duke who had received him and his
murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's
daughter, with whom that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as
he saw her washing clothes in a brook. William, who was a great
warrior, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted
the invitation; and the Normans in England, finding themselves more
A Child's History of England Page 6
