From the moment when Magnus set foot on his native soil Norway was lost to the empire. Sweyn was farther south in his kingdom when news came of revolt in the Throndelaw. He promptly summoned the yeomanry, but feeling that their devotion to him was a matter of grave doubt, he gave up his plans of resistance and fled to his brother Harthacanute in Denmark, where he died less than a year later.[456] His mother Elgiva evidently withdrew to England, where the death of Canute the following November doubtless gave her another opportunity to play the politician.
So far as we know, Canute made no effort to dislodge Magnus. It may be true that he was ill; or perhaps the power of the Church restrained him: Magnus was the son of a saint; would not the martyred King enlist the powers of heaven on the side of his son? But it was probably want of time and not lack of interest and purpose that prevented reconquest. There is an indication that Canute was preparing for important movements: at Whitsuntide, 1035, while the imperial court was at Bamberg, he was renewing his friendship with the Emperor and arranging for the marriage of his daughter Gunhild to the future Henry III.[457] Perhaps we should see in this a purpose to secure the southern frontier in anticipation of renewed hostilities in the North.
But whatever may have been Canute's plans, they were never carried out—the hand of death came in between. On Wednesday, November 12, 1035, the great Dane saw the last of earth at Shaftesbury, an old town on the Dorset border, a day's journey from the capital. The remains were brought to Winchester and interred in the Old Minster,[458] an ancient abbey dedicated to the chief of the Apostles, which Canute had remembered so liberally earlier in the year.
We have already noted the tradition reported by both Norse and English writers that his death was preceded by a long and serious illness; one of the sagas states that the fatal disease was jaundice.[459] There would be nothing incredible in this, but the evidence is not of the best. The fact that death came to him not in the residential city but in the neighbouring town of Shaftesbury seems to indicate that he was at the time making one of his regular progresses through the country, as seems to have been his custom.[460] In that case the illness could hardly have been a protracted one.
It is likely, however, that Canute was not physically robust; he died in the prime of manhood, having scarcely passed the fortieth year; and he seems not to have transmitted much virility to his children. Three sons and a daughter were born to him, but within seven years of his own death they had all joined him in the grave. Sweyn, who seems to have been the oldest, died a few months after his father, perhaps in the early part of 1036. Gunhild followed in 1038; Harold in 1040; and Harthacanute in 1042. With Harthacanute passed away the last male representative of the Knytling family; after a few years the crown of Denmark passed to the descendants of Canute's sister Estrid, to the son of the murdered Ulf.
None of Canute's children seems to have attained a real maturity: Harold and Harthacanute probably reached their twenty-fourth year; Sweyn died at the age of perhaps twenty-two; Gunhild could not have been more than eighteen when she laid down the earthly crown. There is no reason for thinking that any of them was degenerate with the exception of Harold Harefoot, and in his case we have hostile testimony only; at the same time, they were all surely lacking in bodily strength and vigour.
Nor is there any reason for thinking that these weaknesses were maternal inheritances, for the women that Canute consorted with were evidently strong and vigorous and both of them survived him. We know little of the concubine Elgiva except that she was proud and imperious, on fire with ambition for herself and her sons. Emma was a woman of a similar type. Canute apparently found it inconvenient to have the two in the same kingdom, and when the mistress returned to England after the Norse revolt, we seem to see her hand in the consequent intrigues. Queen Emma survived her husband more than sixteen years; "on March 14 [1052], died the Old Lady, the mother of King Edward and Harthacanute, named Imme, and her body lies in the Old Minster with King Canute."[461] At the time of her death she must have been in the neighbourhood of seventy years of age.
Of Canute's personality we know nothing. The portraits on his coins, if such rude drawings can be called portraits, give us no idea of his personal appearance. Nor is the picture in the Liber Vitæ likely to be more than an idealistic representation. Idealistic, too, no doubt, is the description of Canute in the Knytlingasaga, composed two centuries or more after his time:
Canute the King was large of build and very strong, a most handsome man in every respect except that his nose was thin and slightly aquiline with a high ridge. He was fair in complexion, had an abundance of fair hair, and eyes that surpassed those of most men both as to beauty and keenness of vision.[462]
The writer adds that he was liberal in dealing with men, brave in fight, favoured of fortune, but not wise. Except for the details as to the nose, which give the reader the feeling that the writer may, after all, have had some authentic source of information at his disposal, this picture would describe almost any one of the heroic figures of the time.