The Empire Writes Back: Cnut The Great

by Ben Patterson

Following on from the last instalment: The Heathen Army

The Danelaw would continue to persist for the next few centuries, suffering waxing and waning at the hands of the Anglo-Saxon lords. Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, led several campaigns into the Danelaw (such as the Midlands and East Anglia) in the early 10^th century, and under the later King Edgar the Peaceful, the Danelaw was conquered in its entirety. He instituted a number of new reforms and codes of law, but the most important to our story is the Andover Code – among other things, it recognised that the Danelaw was a culturally distinct region of England (if no longer its own sovereign polity) and would thus beget specialised laws to reflect this status.

The Danelaw, now as an autonomous region of England, would come into prominence again in 1003 – the King of Denmark at the time, Swein Forkbeard, had led an invasion of England after several raids in the decade or so prior, though this 1003 invasion only concluded with the sacking of a few eastern English provinces before going home – not quite as pitiful as Julius Caesar’s “invasion” of England in 55 BC, wherein the Romans landed in the south, planted a flag and left, but still not as mighty as the Great Heathen Army of his forebears.

In 1013, however, the true invasion began, and this is where we introduce the protagonist of this particular essay – Cnut, known largely as Cnut the Great. Other than having a name that is very fun to say, Cnut fought in his father’s invasion of England, which was a rather segmented campaign. The Danes fought their way up to the Danelaw, but even by that time London still held fast under its King at the time, Æthelred the Unready. After the conquest of the rest of England, the Anglo-Saxon King was forced to surrender, at which point he fled to Normandy.

Swein had a very brief rule in England, dying only a year later in 1014. The ruling Danes then chose our hero Cnut as their King, but the Anglo-Saxons they reigned over were not particularly happy about this, as one can imagine. Tired of being bullied by the Vikings, they recalled Æthelred from Normandy and incited a revolt, overthrowing Cnut and re-establishing their rightful King.

Apparently, however, the Anglo-Saxons were playing musical chairs with the throne of England at this time. Cnut returned to fight for his claim in 1015, and in 1016 Æthelred perished. The nobles convened to elect a new King, and both Æthelred’s oldest son Edmund and Cnut were chosen, leading to yet another conflict. At its end in October once more the lands of England were divided, with Edmund ruling over his ancestral Wessex and Cnut lording over everything north of the Thames.

But even this only lasted a month; in November Edmund, too, died, and Cnut was granted lordship over the entirety of England. Cnut was collecting crowns like old people collect pennies, though, and in 1018, with the death of his older brother Harald, he ascended to the throne of Denmark, as well as England. This trend would continue until 1028, at which point he would battle with the Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson (which is one of the most Viking names I have ever heard) to claim his title too. This period of joint rule between England, Denmark and Norway is known today by historians as the ‘North Sea Empire’, though this is a purely modern title – similar to the term ‘Byzantine Empire’ being used in a modern context to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire that fell in 1453, when at the time they called themselves Romans rather than Byzantine. Cnut did not call himself the ‘North Sea Emperor’ or any such thing; he was simply simultaneously King of Denmark, Norway and England. Proclaiming oneself an Emperor would have been tantamount to heresy anyhow, as at the time the only recognised Emperor in Europe was the Holy Roman Emperor, crowned and ordained by the Pope. Scandinavia and the Danelaw were still in a transitional period at this time, converting from Norse paganism to Catholicism, but Cnut himself had ties to the Holy Roman Empire and would likely not have wanted to flaunt them in such a manner.

It is worth noting that the modern concept of ‘countries’ and ‘borders’ was not as concrete then as it is today. Borders changed all the time; parts of these territories may have been nominally independent and swore fealty to their King in name only, and the constituent kingdoms would have largely governed themselves. For example, Cnut appointed his brother-in-law Ulf Thorgilsson as regent of Denmark to rule in his stead, as the King himself would be spending most of his time in England.

In 1035 Cnut himself perished, and his realm was divided. The old Norwegian dynasty was restored, and England and Denmark were divided between his sons Harold Harefoot (England) and Harthacnut (Denmark). Then in 1040 Harold died, leading to Harthacnut inheriting England and almost reuniting the North Sea Empire. Unfortunately for him, however, Harthacnut himself died at the age of only 24, and the throne of England was inherited by his maternal half-brother, Edward the Confessor – whose eventual death would spark the succession crisis leading to the definitive end of the Viking Age and the rise of the Normans as Kings of England, but this will be described in the fourth instalment of our impromptu series.