e survived the treaty about a
month. He was murdered at Oxford by two of his chamberlains, accomplices
of Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to
the crown of England.

The English, who had been unable to defend their country and maintain
their independency under so active and brave a prince as Edmund, could
after his death expect nothing but total subjection from Canute, who,
active and brave himself, and at the head of a great force, was ready to
take advantage of the minority of Edwin and Edward, the two sons of
Edmund. Yet this conqueror, who was commonly so little scrupulous,
showed himself anxious to cover his injustice under plausible pretences.
Before he seized the dominions of the English princes, he summoned a
general assembly of the states in order to fix the succession of the
kingdom. He here suborned some nobles to depose that, in the treaty of
Gloucester, it had been verbally agreed, either to name Canute, in case
of Edmund's death, successor to his dominions or tutor to his
children--for historians vary in this particular; and that evidence,
supported by the great power of Canute, determined the states
immediately to put the Danish monarch in possession of the government.
Canute, jealous of the two princes, but sensible that he should render
himself extremely odious if he ordered them to be despatched in England,
sent them abroad to his ally, the King of Sweden, whom he desired, as
soon as they arrived at his court, to free him, by their death, from all
further anxiety. The Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with the
request; but being afraid of drawing on himself a quarrel with Canute,
by protecting the young princes, he sent them to Solomon, King of
Hungary, to be educated in his court. The elder, Edwin, was afterward
married to the sister of the King of Hungary; but the English prince
dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law, Agatha, daughter of
the emperor Henry II, in marriage to Edward, the younger brother; and
she bore him Edgar, Atheling, Margaret, afterward Queen of Scotland, and
Christina, who retired into a convent.

Canute, though he had reached the great point of his ambition in
obtaining possession of the English crown, was obliged at first to make
great sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief of the nobility, by
bestowing on them the most extensive governments and jurisdictions. He
created Thurkill Earl or Duke of East Anglia--for these ti