Legendary King Canute defied the mighty sea

Posted in Historical articles, History, Legend, Royalty, Sea on Tuesday, 27 March 2012

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This edited article about King Canute originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 677 published on 4 January 1975.

King Canute, picture, image, illustration

King Canute by James E McConnell

Into the patchwork quilt of history time has woven the strands of both fact and legend until one, with the passing of centuries, has become indistinguishable from the other.

One such incident, repeated and perhaps enriched in the telling, concerns King Canute, so grandiosely styled King of the English, the Danes and the Norwegians.

It is said that one day in the eleventh century Canute took his royal retinue down to the seashore. A servant carried his throne. On Canute’s head rested his crown.

The throne was set down on the edge of the lapping waves. The tide was coming in. Canute, with a regal gesture, stretched out his hand, and cried:

“I command you to stay.”

The sound of his voice echoed about the rocks, the sound of the sea beat upon the shore, the murmur of his courtiers fluttered over the sands, and the tide kept coming in.

It was not long before the King of the English, the Danes and the Norwegians had wet feet.

“Oh mighty one,” gasped one of his attendants.

“Speak again. Send back the waves.” Canute took off his crown and rose from his throne, with the sea now swirling about his ankles.

“Listen all to me,” he said. “Now let men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings.”

So runs the legend. It may surprise you, for many people think that Canute’s action in attempting to halt the advancing tide was carried out in arrogance.

On the contrary, the legend suggests it was a move to rebuke his fawning, flattering courtiers and attendants who constantly told the monarch what a great and all powerful ruler he was.

Is it fact? Could it have really happened? Was Canute really the sort of man capable of such an act of self-humiliation?

We cannot today hope to find proof beyond dispute that the incident of Canute and the sea really happened, but we can, by looking at what is known of Canute the man, discover the likelihood of it.

There was little humility about Canute as a young man. His dreams were of conquest and empire, his tastes were for action and the sword. In the Royal Palace in Scandinavia in the year 1013 – Canute was then a young man of eighteen or so – he urged his father to undertake an invasion of England.

Later that year father and son set out with an army and landed at Sandwich, where they took hostages. A wretched fate awaited those unfortunates, as we shall see in a moment.

From Sandwich the invaders marched to Lincolnshire and continued north. Soon they were engaged in battle with the English, and a fierce, merciless war it turned out to be.

Within a year Canute, harried by Ethelred, found himself back at Sandwich. He was angry and bitter at this blow to his plans. But before setting sail back to Denmark he took his revenge on the hostages.

He had their ears and noses cut off.

Was this the act of a man who a few years later allowed the humble sea to wet his feet?

The Canute who went back to Denmark was a mean, vengeful man, now determined more than ever to return and conquer the inhabitants of that stupid stubborn little island.

It took him just another year to raise another army and a fleet. In 1015, with 340 ships, their decks crowded with 80 men on each, he once more set out for England.

He captured much southern territory and went north as far as York. Then, determined to capture London, he sailed his fleet of ships up the Thames. But London Bridge in those days was neither easily passed over or, for that matter, under. It was, in fact, a fort, bristling with many armaments.

Canute decided there was only one way to overcome this obstacle. He would have to bypass it. Disembarking his troops he ordered them to build a narrow canal which would enable his ships to sail round the bridge and into the very heart of London.

They built the canal, but despite this ruse, the attack on London was beaten off. Canute however was not to be denied. At Assandun (now Ashington) in Essex, he met Edmund Ironside in a decisive battle.

Here the English made their last great stand against the Danish invaders and here they were finally defeated. Soon after the battle King Edmund was murdered by Earl Eadric, and it is more than probable that Canute had a hand in the plot.

Was this the act of a man who a few years later, far from planning murder to gain power, was to reject power as being “empty and worthless?”

In 1017, Canute ascended the throne of England. He was twenty-two years old and determined to exact vengeance for the trouble he had been given in getting there. He set about putting to death the most powerful and influential of the English barons, including Eadric.

So far we have seen little of the church-going, peace-loving monarch – the man of the legend. But now, with the throne more or less secure, a subtle change came over Canute.

To begin with, he packed off back to Denmark the troops he had brought with him. Then he started to take an interest in religion.

His rule as king is said to have been fair and just, and it was Canute who, for the first time, conceived the idea of a rule uniting both church and State . . . “That men should ever love and worship one God and love king Canute” he decreed.

Now this was more the man to rebuke his courtiers for their flattery.

Yet he was still a fiery, impassioned monarch, given over to uncontrollable fits of temper, such as made all who knew him tremble when one came on him. In one fit of terrible temper he became infuriated by one of his servants. Picking up his sword he slit open the poor man’s throat before he could utter a word in his own defence.

Immediately afterwards Canute was overcome by remorse. He convened the court which would normally try such offences, though not of course the king’s, and bade them to try him.

Those elders were taken aback, quite startled by the king’s insistence. They told him they would not, could not, try him.

So Canute decided to sentence himself. He fined himself a sum nine times the value of the man’s life. You might not think that this, when the punishment for murder has been the death penalty, was over-harsh.

Yet in those days it would be handsome retribution, for nobles could literally get away with murder.

Thus, towards the end of his life, we find a considerable change in the character and temperament of Canute. Certainly he was no saint, but despite his harsh youth, he finally showed himself a man of wisdom, a man of humanity, even a man of God.

It is more than reasonable, therefore, to assume that Canute, King of the English, the Danes and the Norwegians, did one day take his courtiers down to the seashore and allow the tide to wet his royal feet in order to demonstrate the puny power that is a king’s when faced with the might of nature.

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