1085 brother of the French king, shared in the service which William's lavish bounty and expenditure commanded. To provide for the sustenance of these soldiers, they were quartered upon and amongst all the landholders of England: none were exempted. The bishop, the earl, and the baron had to receive the strangers as guests; and the sheriffs to apportion them upon the knights, and vavassours, and churls, Grievance and all of lower degree. Grievous was the cautionary burthen and great the distress of England, and encreased by the cruel and yet perhaps necessary precautions adopted by William, who wasted the seabord country far and wide, for the purpose of starving out the Danes, should they land, and by which he also prevented the English from offering them, were they so inclined, aid and the means of subsistence. of the pre measures. The fleet delays. 26. Months however passed away without any appearance of the dreaded enemy; no hostile sails were seen rising above the distant verge of the horizon: no alarm was sounded, no beacons fired: the year declined, and a portion of William's garrison army was disbanded. Men might speculate upon the causes which had delayed the enemy. Openly, William had only prepared for defence, yet it could be judged from his acts that he was gaining in courage and in confidence. A winter elapsed: still, though with diminished hope or diminished fear, did England await the formidable invaders. 1086 inability to Another season began. William continued to watch the land sedulously: earnest deliberations were taking place in the council: fortifications continued to be erected: garrisons were not withdrawn, but yet the lingering enemy kept off, and, at the end of the second year, it was universally known that the expedition so talked off, so formidable, was wholly abandoned. A contrary wind, sweeping without intermission across the main, as it was said, never varying from the adverse quarter, never slackening, had kept the vessels locked into the shores. Canute at first doubted whether this Canute's apparently preternatural obstacle, might not be enforce the a token which he was bound implicitly to obey; but soon he suspected, or was taught to suspect, that the vessels had in truth been spell-bound, and that the Runic lay murmured by the wise women had raised the adverse gales. The sorceresses were the consorts or kinswomen of his proudest chieftains; punish them he dared not, but he had nevertheless avenged himself by inflicting heavy penalties upon their husbands. Great discontents had arisen, and thus did it become impossible for him to pursue his scheme of conquest. It matters little whether these tales were the inventions of the north or the gratuitous fancies of the English. They contained a small portion of truth, and very small. This armada, like those which had preceded it, had been in expedition. 1086 Canute's reforms part frustrated by William's policy: but the frustration of the plans of conquest formed by Canute was the consequence as well as the cause of a great revolution in the state of Denmark. High discontents were prevailing discontent. amongst the subjects of the Danish crown. Canute, possessing much talent, was attempting to accelerate the progress, as we should now term it, of civilization. His people were estranged from the rest of Europe, by manners and customs and policy; and he attempted to bring them into the pale far more by severity than by conciliation. He was anxious, perhaps conscientiously, to suppress the turbulence and disorders of the Danes; but many of these disorders originated out of immemorial custom and law. That he should shew no favour or affection to the rank or station or consanguinity of the offender, was right; but in the administration of justice he set at nought every opinion, every prejudice, every law. His fiscal officers oppressed the people by their exactions, and most unwisely of all, he was anxious to enforce the payment of tythes hitherto entirely unknown. In other parts of Europe, although ecclesiastical and even civil law had in some cases begun to render this payment compulsory, yet it had arisen in great measure from the spontaneous feeling of the people, desirous of rendering to the service of God a portion of the gifts which they received, and believing that CANUTE IN DENMARK. able-going was thereby earned. 569 Nothing has 1086 of tythes in Western been more injurious to the interests of Chris- Odiousness tianity, than the destruction of the grace ac- Europe. companying the free-will offering, by rendering it the object of compulsion. Here it was as unwise as it was ill-timed the Danes entirely rebelled against the payment. It was as odious to those who professed Christianity as to the greater number, who were still pagans in their heart; and though Canute and the other Norman sovereigns succeeded at last in placing the payment of tythes upon a legal foundation, there was always a grudge against it, which prevented the hierarchy from acquiring its due influence and hold upon the people's mind. Conspiracy 27. In Olave, his brother, Canute had a secret, Clave.. a crafty, and an inveterate enemy. Olave had, in the first instance, encouraged Canute to undertake the English invasion for the purpose of embroiling him with his subjects, and involving him in contests with them. Olave wished to accumulate unpopularity and hatred upon his brother's head, and having selected his associates, he planned his successful conspiracy. William, well aware of the state of feeling prevailing in Denmark, was dispersing his bribes amongst Canute's counsellors and commanders :-Olave, the king's own brother, Osbern, his foster-brother, Jarl Haco, Eyvind, and many others of renown, all or most of whom had been corrupted before. 1086 Olave's dealings 570 CANUTE IMPRISONS OLAVE. Canute at first believed that he was assisted by his brother, returning love for love. He now discovered. discovered that his brother was a rival seeking his ruin. At first he repelled his suspicions, till Olave, who was stationed in Sleswick, broke out into open rebellion. This was a portion of the scheme which had been contemplated for Canute's destruction. When the fleets were first assembled, the weather had been very adverse this delay had enabled the discontented party to mature their plans, and as it should seem, to [dis]obey sailing commands when the season became more favourable. Canute advanced to Sleswick with a great force, and ordered his men to seize the traitor brother; but no one would dare to lay hands on him, so great was the veneration rendered by the Danes to the descendants of Odin. But another brother, Eric, had no such scruple: he seized the offender, and by Canute's command he was chained and fettered, and sent to Flanders, where he was kept in hard prison by Robert the Frizon. The expedi- When Canute returned to the port of Haitheby, he found that the vessels contumaciously and rebelliously had left their moorings, and crews and commanders had returned to their homes. He inflicted, as by his prerogative he might be entitled to do, a heavy fine upon all the mutineers, high and low, but which he remitted in consideration of their agreeing to the odious impost which he established for the dubious Olave arrested. tion broken up. |