most meritorious. He built
churches, he endowed monasteries, he enriched the ecclesiastics, and
he bestowed revenues for the support of chantries at Assington and
other places, where he appointed prayers to be said for the souls of
those who had there fallen in battle against him. He even undertook a
pilgrimage to Rome, where he resided a considerable time; besides
obtaining from the pope some privileges for the English school erected
there, he engaged all the princes through whose dominions he was
obliged to pass to desist from those heavy impositions and tolls which
they were accustomed to exact from the English pilgrims. By this
spirit of devotion, no less than by his equitable and politic
administration, he gained, in a good measure, the affections of his
subjects.

Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign
of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of
meeting with adulation from his courtiers; a tribute which is
liberally paid even to the meanest and weakest princes. Some of his
flatterers, breaking out one day in admiration of his grandeur,
exclaimed, that every thing was possible for him; upon which the
monarch, it is said, ordered his chair to be set on the sea-shore,
while the tide was rising; and as the waters approached he commanded
them to retire, and to obey the voice of him who was lord of the
ocean. He feigned to sit some time in expectation of their
submission; but when the sea still advanced towards him, and began to
wash him with its billows, he turned to his courtiers, and remarked to
them, that every creature in the universe was feeble and impotent, and
that power resided with one Being alone, in whose hands were all the
elements of nature, who could say to the ocean, THUS FAR SHALT THOU
GO, AND NO FARTHER; and who could level with his nod the most towering
piles of human pride and ambition.

[MN 1031.] The only memorable action which Canute performed after his
return from Rome was an expedition against Malcolm, King of Scotland.
During the reign of Ethelred, a tax of a shilling a hide had been
imposed on all the lands of England. It was commonly called DANEGELT;
because the revenue had been employed either in buying peace with the
Danes, or in making preparations against the inroads of that hostile
nation. That monarch had required that the same tax should be paid by
Cumberland, which was held by the Scots; but Malcolm, a warlike
prince, told