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.
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