ccomplices of
Edric, who thereby made way for the succession of Canute the Dane to the
crown of England.

CANUTE

{1017.} The English, who had been unable to defend their country, and
maintain their independency, under so active and brave a prince as
Edmond, 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 Edmond. 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 Glocester it had been verbally agreed, either to
name Canute, in case of Edmond's death, successor to his dominions, or
tutor to hit 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 a& farther 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 afterwards 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 the Second,
in marriage to Edward, the younger brother; and she bore him Edgar,
Atheling, Margaret, afterwards 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 titles were
then nearly of the same import,) Yric of No