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FROM THE REIGN OF CANUTE TO THE CONQUEST. 19

rebuked his followers, desiring them to observe that no power can be likened to his, Who alone can say to the sea, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther."

Canute died A.D. 1036, leaving three sons, Sweyne, king of Norway; Hardicanute (his son by Emma), already settled on the throne of Denmark; and Harold, surnamed Harefoot, who succeeded to the English crown, notwithstanding the superior claims and efforts of his half-brother, Hardicanute. His reign of four years is disgraced by the murder of Alfred, his mother's son by Ethelred, who came to England with his brother Edward to visit that queen, now again a widow. By the help of Earl Godwin, a powerful nobleman, who gave much trouble in the following reigns, Alfred was arrested in the castle of Guildford, by virtue of Harold's order, and died from the cruel treatment he received. On the death of Harold, A.D. 1039, Hardicanute became king, and was chiefly remarkable for his brutal intemperance. He died after a reign of two years, A.D. 1041, and the line of Saxon monarchs was restored in the person of Edward the son of Ethelred, who had escaped from the treachery of Earl Godwin, and now secured the interest of that nobleman by marrying his daughter Egitha. This princess was a lady of much piety and learning. Ingulphus, a Saxon historian, who was a scholar in the monastery at Westminster, tells us that the queen used often to meet him and his schoolfellows in her walks. On these occasions she would try to pose the scholars with some grave or playful question of grammar or logic. She would then direct her maid to give the youths a piece or two of silver, and send them for some refreshment to the palace buttery.

Edward acquired the titles of Saint and Confessor by the zeal with which he lent himself to the designs of the monks. Having been educated in Normandy, he was too much biassed in favour of foreign churchmen, whom he placed in English sees. He also made several monasteries (in Sussex and elsewhere) subject to abbeys in Normandy. The reign of this king was chiefly disturbed by the ambition of Earl Godwin, whose son, Harold, who was connected with the line of the Danish kings, began to take steps for securing the succession to the crown, as he saw that Edward was childless, and Edgar Atheling, the rightful heir, a prince of feeble character.

20

THE REIGN OF CANUTE TO THE CONQUEST.

It was in this reign that Siward, earl of Northumberland, was sent to assist Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, against Macbeth, who had murdered his father, Duncan, and usurped the throne. The history of Macbeth has furnished the plot to one of the noblest dramas of William Shakspere.

King Edward was the founder of Westminster Abbey, where all the English kings have since been crowned. He died A.D. 1066, just after the consecration of that monastery; and Harold prevailed on the nobles to elect him as their sovereign, without regarding the right of Edgar Atheling, or the pretensions of William, duke of Normandy, whose claims were founded on a pretended will of Edward the Confessor, and had been allowed by Harold himself when on a visit some years before at William's court.

Harold, on his accession, did all in his power to engage the affections of his people, and induce them to support him in the struggle with William, which now awaited him. He was first called to repel the invasion of Harfager, king of Norway, who was supported by Toston, a brother of Harold; and he gained a great victory over them at Battlebridge, in Yorkshire. In this battle both Harfager and Toston fell; and Harold hastened to the south to oppose Duke William, who had already landed in Sussex. The armies met near Hastings, and the battle which ensued was long doubtful, till Harold was slain by an arrow, and his followers, discouraged by that event, were routed with great slaughter.

The death of Harold put an end to the dominion of the Anglo-Saxons in England; but the manly spirit of the Saxon institutions had taken such hold of the people, that, though curbed by the tyranny of Norman rule, it could not in the end be put down. Much of our English greatness is owing, under God, to the fact that the Saxons, however much depressed in the next reigns, formed a middle class between the Norman nobles and the mere peasantry; of greater weight and of a more manly and independent character than was to be found in other parts of Europe. England was thus still possessed of the materials of national greatness, in having a people proud of the glory of their forefathers, and attached to those ancient laws which were well suited to train them in simple and manly habits.

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CHAPTER VI.

WILLIAM (THE CONQUEROR).

From A.D. 1066 to A.D. 1087. Born at Falaise. Buried at Caen. Reigned 21 years.

Archbishops of Canterbury.

Stigand, A.D. 1054-1070. | Lanfranc, A.D. 1070–1089. IN choosing Harold as their king, and overlooking the rightful claims of Edgar Atheling, the English nobles had broken that rule of hereditary succession, for the arbitrary violation of which no personal qualities in the sovereign can make up. When Harold, therefore, was slain, they had no great principle of loyalty to bind them together; and though an attempt was made to proclaim Edgar, it was then too late to rally men round that sacredness of ancient right, which had been so blindly set aside. This may greatly account for the fact that one victory gave William possession of the English crown. It should also be said that he was naturally much favoured by all the Norman churchmen who had been brought over by Edward the Confessor, and the more so, inasmuch as his enterprise had been (as men then imagined) blessed and hallowed by the pope. On his approach to London he was met by many nobles, including Edgar himself, and Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, who at once tendered their submission, and he was soon solemnly crowned at Westminster.

It seems to have been William's purpose at first to govern the nation which he had conquered with strict justice. The English, however, soon found that all real power was in the hands of Normans: and as they were unable to brook the insults and oppression with which they were continually galled, the history of William's reign is chiefly a record of repeated revolts, which he punished with the most unrelenting cruelty, laying waste on one occasion the entire country for a distance of sixty miles between the Humber and the Tees. These revolts seem to have steeled his heart against his English subjects. He seized every pretence for confiscating their estates, which he bestowed on his Norman followers; he built castles on commanding

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