untry was divided between the two potentates, and a sort of peace
was restored. A very short period after this treaty was settled, Edmund
was murdered.

Canute immediately laid claim to the whole realm. He maintained that
it was a part of the treaty that the partition of the kingdom was to
continue only during their joint lives, and that, on the death of
either, the whole was to pass to the survivor of them. The Saxon leaders
did not admit this, but they were in no condition very strenuously to
oppose it. Ethelred's sons by Emma were too young to come forward as
leaders yet; and as to Edmund's, they were mere children. There was,
therefore, no one whom they could produce as an efficient representative
of the Saxon line, and thus the Saxons were compelled to submit to
Canute's pretensions, at least for a time. They would not wholly give up
the claims of Edmund's children, but they consented to waive them for a
season. They gave Canute the guardianship of the boys until they should
become of age, and allowed him, in the mean time, to reign, himself,
over the whole land.

Canute exercised his power in a very discreet and judicious manner,
seeming intent, in all his arrangements, to protect the rights and
interests of the Saxons as well as of the Danes. It might be supposed
that the lives of the young Saxon princes, Edmund's sons, would not have
been safe in his hands; but the policy which he immediately resolved to
pursue was to conciliate the Saxons, and not to intimidate and coerce
them. He therefore did the young children no harm, but sent them away
out of the country to Denmark, that they might, if possible, be
gradually forgotten. Perhaps he thought that, if the necessity should
arise for it, they might there, at any time, be put secretly to death.

There was another reason still to prevent Canute's destroying these
children, which was, that if _they_ were removed, the claims of the
Saxon line would not thereby be extinguished, but would only be
transferred to Emma's children in Normandy, who, being older, were
likely the sooner to be in a condition to give him trouble as rivals. It
was therefore a very wise and sagacious policy which prompted him to
keep the young children of Edmund alive, but to remove them to a safe
distance out of the way.

In respect to Emma's children, Canute conceived a different plan for
guarding against any danger which came from their claims, and that was,
to propose to take their mother