d of Sicilian Vespers. Which issued, as such things usually do, in
terrible monition to you not to try the like again! Issued, namely, in
redoubled fury on the Danish part; new fiercer invasion by Svein's
Jarl Thorkel; then by Svein himself; which latter drove the miserable
Ethelred, with wife and family, into Normandy, to wife's brother, the
then Duke there; and ended that miserable struggle by Svein's becoming
King of England himself. Of this disgraceful massacre, which it would
appear has been immensely exaggerated in the English books, we can
happily give the exact date (A.D. 1002); and also of Svein's victorious
accession (A.D. 1013), [9]--pretty much the only benefit one gets out of
contemplating such a set of objects.

King Svein's first act was to levy a terribly increased Income-Tax
for the payment of his army. Svein was levying it with a stronghanded
diligence, but had not yet done levying it, when, at Gainsborough one
night, he suddenly died; smitten dead, once used to be said, by St.
Edmund, whilom murdered King of the East Angles; who could not bear
to see his shrine and monastery of St. Edmundsbury plundered by the
Tyrant's tax-collectors, as they were on the point of being. In all ways
impossible, however,--Edmund's own death did not occur till two years
after Svein's. Svein's death, by whatever cause, befell 1014; his fleet,
then lying in the Humber; and only Knut, [10] his eldest son (hardly
yet eighteen, count some), in charge of it; who, on short counsel, and
arrangement about this questionable kingdom of his, lifted anchor;
made for Sandwich, a safer station at the moment; "cut off the feet and
noses" (one shudders, and hopes not, there being some discrepancy about
it!) of his numerous hostages that had been delivered to King Svein;
set them ashore;--and made for Denmark, his natural storehouse and
stronghold, as the hopefulest first thing he could do.

Knut soon returned from Denmark, with increase of force sufficient for
the English problem; which latter he now ended in a victorious, and
essentially, for himself and chaotic England, beneficent manner. Became
widely known by and by, there and elsewhere, as Knut the Great; and is
thought by judges of our day to have really merited that title. A most
nimble, sharp-striking, clear-thinking, prudent and effective man, who
regulated this dismembered and distracted England in its Church matters,
in its State matters, like a real King. Had a Standing Army