page_title: Cnut the Great
section_title: Conquest of England
hierarchical_section_title: Cnut the Great / Conquest of England
caption_attribution_description: Runestone U 194 at Väsby, Uppland, Sweden. This is a picture of an archaeological site or a monument in Sweden, number Össeby-Garn 33:1 in the RAÄ Fornsök database.
context_page_description: Cnut the Great, also known as Canute, was king of Denmark, England and Norway; together often referred to as the North Sea Empire.
  Yet after the deaths of his heirs within a decade of his own, and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, this legacy was lost. He is popularly invoked in the context of the legend of King Canute and the tide, which often misrepresents him as a deluded monarch believing he has supernatural powers, contrary to the original legend which portrays a wise king who rebuked his courtiers for their fawning behaviour.
  As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe. His later accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut sought to keep this power-base by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, as well as through sheer brutality. After a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut.
context_section_description: Among the allies of Denmark was Bolesław I the Brave, the Duke of Poland (later crowned king) and a relative to the Danish royal house. He lent some Polish troops, likely to have been a pledge made to Cnut and Harald when, in the winter, they "went amongst the Wends" to fetch their mother back to the Danish court. She had been sent away by their father after the death of the Swedish king Eric the Victorious in 995, and his marriage to Sigrid the Haughty, the Swedish queen mother. This wedlock formed a strong alliance between the successor to the throne of Sweden, Olof Skötkonung, and the rulers of Denmark, his in-laws. Swedes were certainly among the allies in the English conquest. Another in-law to the Danish royal house, Eiríkr Hákonarson, was Trondejarl (Earl of Lade) and the co-ruler of Norway, with his brother Sweyn Haakonsson—Norway having been under Danish sovereignty since the Battle of Svolder, in 999. Eiríkr's participation in the invasion left his son Hakon to rule Norway, with Sweyn.
  In the summer of 1015, Cnut's fleet set sail for England with a Danish army of perhaps 10,000 in 200 longships. Cnut was at the head of an array of Vikings from all over Scandinavia. The invasion force was to engage in often close and grisly warfare with the English for the next fourteen months. Practically all of the battles were fought against the eldest son of Æthelred, Edmund Ironside.
caption: This runestone, U 194, in memory of a Viking known as Alli, says he won Knútr's payment in England.
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