Canute, having rid himself of his rivals, divided England into four parts, keeping Wessex under his immediate rule, making Danes the Earls of East Anglia and Northumberland, and giving Mercia to Edric Streona. But he speedily caused Edric to be put to death, "and very rightly too," says the Chronicle, because no doubt he feared to have such a perfidious man among his chief men and Edric's body was thrown into the Thames. These earldoms continued until the Conquest, and their holders played a great part in the history of the subsequent reigns. It is remarkable that this arrangement of the government of the kingdom was very much in agreement with the policy of Dunstan.
In the same year Canute put away his Danish wife and contracted an alliance of a very wise character if regarded as a measure of precaution. Alfred and Edward, Ethelred's sons, were still a source of anxiety to him, and a quarrel was, above all things, to be avoided with Richard Duke of Normandy. In order to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid addresses to Queen Emma, the widow of Ethelred, and the curious marriage was concluded. It is said, but the story is probably without foundation, that she made him promise that the crown of England should go to the issue of her second marriage, to the exclusion of her children by Ethelred and of Canute's two sons.
Canute was an admirable ruler, although we find him, in 1018, laying a very heavy tax upon the kingdom, especially in London, which, it will be remembered, had held out so bravely for Ethelred. The money, however, which amounted to £83,000, was used for a good purpose, namely, to pay off the Danish fleet. With the fleet departed the larger part of the Danish army, a bodyguard remaining which was known as the King's House-carls, and which formed a little standing army. Canute had doubtless seen that the English national levies were not to be relied upon at a pinch, and wished to have a trusty force with which to oppose a sudden invasion.
Having thus established himself upon the throne, he proceeded to rule England by the English and for the English. The chief Danes were banished from the kingdom, or put to death one by one, and their places were taken by Englishmen. Leofric became Earl of Mercia in the room of Edric Streona, and the famous Godwin was made Earl of Wessex, which the king no longer kept under his special care. He also renewed the English laws and customs, King Edgar's laws, as they were called, and made no distinction between Dane and Englishman in the administration of justice. He sought also to gain the favour of the people by religious foundations, by gifts to monasteries and churches, by doing reverence to the saints and holy places they revered, by preferring the churchmen they honoured, and by many other gracious acts. A very politic proceeding was his translation of the bones of St. Alphege from Greenwich to Canterbury, by which he sought to bury the bitter memories of the past.
But though Canute spent most of his time in England, and valued his English possessions more than any other of his lands, he was during the greater part of his reign occupied in foreign wars with the object of building up a grand empire in northern Europe. It was in the first of these wars that Earl Godwin gained his confidence. In 1019, Canute having settled his power beyond all danger of a revolution, made a voyage to Denmark, in order to make a campaign against the King of Sweden; and he carried along with him a large body of the English, under the command of Earl Godwin. The Earl was stationed next the Swedish camp; and observing a favourable opportunity, which he was obliged suddenly to seize, he attacked the enemy in the night, drove them from their trenches, threw them into disorder, pursued his advantage, and obtained a decisive victory over them. Next morning, Canute, seeing the English camp abandoned, imagined that those disaffected troops had deserted to the enemy: he was agreeably surprised to find that they were at that time engaged in pursuit of the discomfited Swedes. He was so pleased with this success, and with the manner of obtaining it, that he bestowed his niece in marriage on Godwin, and treated him ever after with entire confidence and regard.
The wars with Sweden terminated in the submission of that kingdom to Canute as over-king, and in 1028 he attacked Norway, and drove the just, but unwarlike Olaf from the land. Canute was thus ruler over Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and none of the English kings, either before or since his time, have ever been rulers over so large a portion of Europe.
It was not likely that so powerful a monarch would tolerate the existence of an independent kingdom to the north of England, and Malcolm of Scotland forced an issue by invading Northumberland at the beginning of the reign. In 1031, therefore, Canute found occasion to approach the Scottish frontier with a powerful army. The King of Scots had no choice but to submit, and acknowledge Canute as his lord, and his nephew, Duncan, did homage for Cumberland at the same time. Duncan is well known to us through Shakespeare's play, and it is remarkable that among the under-kings who did homage to Canute was a certain Mælboethe, who is doubtless identical with Macbeth.
Meanwhile England was at peace, in spite of a threatened invasion from Normandy in 1028, which was driven back by storms in the Channel. Canute, despite the crimes which had stained his earlier career, was developing more and more into an admirable monarch and good man. In 1027 he made a pilgrimage to Rome, and wrote from thence a letter to the English people full of penitence for his past misdeeds, promises for the future, and much elevated moral sentiment.
In particular he ordered the royal officers to do justice to all men of whatever estate, and not to exact money wrongfully under pretext of the royal necessities. "I have no need," he says, "of money gathered by unrighteousness." There is also a famous story told of him by Henry of Huntingdon, which shows that he was not blinded by the greatness of his position, but estimated his authority at its true value. He was at Southampton; and there, in answer probably to some over-charged flatteries from his courtiers, bade a chair be placed at the water's edge, challenging the sea at the same time to wet the feet of him whose ships sailed over it, and against whose land it dashed. The tide came rushing in, and soon it had wetted the feet and clothes of the king. Then he turned to his followers and said, "Behold how feeble is the power of kings and of men, for the waves will not hear my voice. Honour the Lord only, and serve him, for to him all things give obedience."
Men lived hard in those days, and the span of life was short, for when Canute died, in 1035, he was only forty years old.