Robert died, as he had apprehended, in his pilgrimage; and left his son rather the heir of A. D. 1035. his wishes than of his dominions. The licentious nobles, freed from the awe of sovereign authority, broke out into personal quarrels, and made the whole duchy a scene of war and devastation. Alain, duke of Bretagne, came to appease their animosities; but being very roughly treated, be returned home, and was soon after carried off by slow poison, supposed to have been given him in Normandy. Various pretenders arose to the succession; and the king of France. forgetting what he owed to Robert, seemed willing to deprive his infant son of his inheritance, by taking advantage of these troubles. He accordingly invaded the Norman frontier, and reduced several places: but not finding the conquest so easy as he expected, or influenced by the returning sentiments of friendship and generosity, he united his forces with

those of the young duke, and the malecon- A. D. 1046. tents were totally routed in the battle of Val de Dunes, which gave William quiet possession of his dominions13.

Henry I. died in 1060, and was succeeded by his son Philip, whom he had by his second wife, and the first with whom he cohabited, the daughter of Joradislaus, duke of Russia; a circumstance truly remarkable, in an age when the intercourse between nations was so little familiar. But the prohibitions of marriage were so multiplied, and the example of his father so alarming, that Henry is supposed to have sought a wife in this remote country, in order to avoid the crime of incest, and the danger of excommunication. What must the disorders of society have been, when even a king did not know whom he might lawfully marry.

Philip I. was only eight years of age at the time of his accession; and, what is very singular, instead of being put under the guardian. A. D. 1060.

13. Gul. Gemet. ubi sup.

ship of his mother or his uncle, one of whom it might naturally be supposed would have been called to the regency, he was committed by his father to the care of Baldwin V. surnamed the Pious, earl of Flanders; a man of strict honour, and brother-in-law to Henry. Baldwin gave his pupil an education suitable to his rank; he kept the nobility in awe, without giving them just cause of offence; and he maintained peace, by being always prepared for war. History, in a word, scarce furnishes us with an instance of a minority more quiet and of none more happy; an example the more remarkable, as the times and circumstances of it were both delicate.

The only colour that Baldwin gave for censure, was in his conduct towards William duke of Normandy, who was preparing to invade England, and whom he permitted to raise forces in France and Flanders; a liberty which, from the event, was judged impolitic. But the duke being his son-in-law, he could not refuse him with a good grace: and there was yet a farther motive for compliance. The fortunate and enterprising William might have entered France with that army which he had assembled against England where he succeeded more speedily, and with more ease than could possibly have been expected. But the particulars of that invasion, and its consequences, belong to the history of our own country. I shall therefore only here observe, that to balance in some measure the increase of William's power, an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between the crowns of A. D. 1067. France and Scotland. Soon after that negociation Baldwin died, and left his pupil Philip I. in peaceable possession of his kingdom, when he had attained his fifteenth year'4.

14. Gul. Malmes. lib. ii.

LETTER

LETTER XIX.

ENGLAND FROM THE DANISH TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST,

YOU have already, my dear Philip, seen Edmond Ironside inhumanly murdered, and England exposed to the ambition of Canute the Dane; a prince both active and brave, and at the head of a numerous army,

A. D. 1017.

ready to take advantage of the minority of Edwin and Edward, the sons of Edmond. The English could therefore expect nothing but total subjection from Canute. But the Danish monarch, commonly so little scrupulous, shewed, on this occasion, an anxiety to conceal his injustice under plausible pretences. Before he seized the inheritence of the two young princes, he summoned a general assembly of the states of England in order to fix the succession; and having suborned some noblemen to depose that in the treaty of Gloucester it was agreed, "That Canute, in case of Ed"mond's decease, should succeed to the whole king"dom," the states, convinced by this evidence, or overawed by his victorious arms, immediately put the Dane in full possession of the government'.

But although Canute had now attained the great object of his ambition in the undivided sovereignty of England, he was at first obliged to make many sacrifices to it; and to gratify the chief nobility, by bestowing on them extensive governments and jurisdictions. He also thought himself obliged, from political motives, to exercise some severities. In order to reward his Danish followers, he loaded the people with oppressive taxes; and jealous of the two young princes, but sensible that he should render himself detested if he ordered them to be murdered in England, he sent them to his ally the king of Sweden, whom he desired to get them privately

1. Gul. Malmes. lib. ii. R. Hoveden, Annal. pars prior.

dispatched,

dispatched, as soon as they arrived at his court. But the Swedish monarch was too generous to comply with such a barbarous request. Afraid, however, to draw on himself the displeasure of Canute, by protecting the English princes, he sent them to be educated in the court of Solomon, king of Hungary; a strange place surely to seek for a preceptor. But the defenceless seck only a protector: and the sons of Edmond found one in Solomon. Edwin, the eldest, was married to that monarch's sister; but he dying without issue, Solomon gave his sister-in-law, Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II. in marriage to Edward, the younger brother and she bore him Edgar Atheling, whom I shall have occasion to mention; Margaret, afterwards queen of Scotland; and Christina, who retired into a convent'.

The removal of Edmond's children into so distant a country as Hungary, was regarded by Canute, next to their death, as the greatest security of his government. But he was still under alarm on account of Alfred and Edward, the sons of Ethelred, who were protected and supported by their uncle, Richard duke of Normandy. Richard had even fitted out a fleet, on purpose to restore the English princes to the throne of their ancestors. In order, therefore, to break the storm, and to secure himself on that side, Canute paid his addresses to queen Emma, the duke's sister, and the mother of those princes who disputed his sway. He was listened to: Richard sent over Emma to England; where she was soon after married to Canute, the enemy of her former husband's family, and the conqueror of that country which her children had a right to rule. But Canute promised that her children should still rule it, though not the children of Ethelred; and, although the English disapproved of the match, they were pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed so that the conqueror, by this marriage, not only secured the alliance of Normandy, but acquired the confidence of

2. Id. ibid.

his new subjects. Having thus freed himself from the danger of a revolution, Canute determined, like a truly wise prince, by the equity of his administration, to reconcile the English yet farther to the Danish yoke. He sent back to their own country as many of his followers as could safely be spared: he restored the Saxon customs; he made no distinction between the Danes and English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his subjects. The Danes were gradually incorporated with the native English; and both were glad to breathe a little from those multiplied calamities, which the conquerors, no less than the conquered, had experienced in their struggle for dominion.

The first use that Canute made of this tranquillity was to visit Denmark, where he obtained a victory over the Swedes, by the valour of the English unA. D. 1019 der the command of earl Godwin, on whom he bestowed his daughter in marriage. In a second voyage to Denmark, he made himself master of Norway, and expelled the good Olaus from his kingdom. Canute seems to have attained the height of his ambition; for, from this period, he appears not only to have laid aside all thoughts of future conquests, but to have held in contempt all the glories and pleasures of the world: a necessary consequence, my dear Philip, of assigning to human enjoyments a satisfaction which they cannot yield, and more especially of pursuing them (another effect of the same cause) at the expense of justice and humanity.

A. D. 1028.

During this change of mind it must have been that Canute, the greatest and most powerful prince of his time, being sovereign of Denmark, Norway, and England, put to the blush his flattering courtiers, who exclaimed in admiration of his grandeur, that every thing was possible for him. He ordered a chair to be brought,

VOL. I.

3. Gul. Malmes. lib. ii.

CC

and