Canute

Canute (Cnut) (about 994-1035), king.

Canute was the son of Sweyn, King of Norway and Denmark who drove King Ethelred the Unredy from the throne of England.

Sweyn died in 1014 and Canute had to fight Ethelred and his son, Edmund Ironside. He was a bold and ruthless warrior and he became King of England in 1016.

Then he showed himself to be a wise ruler. Canute was a Christian and he forbade his subjects to be pagans.

There is a legend about him. One day he was sitting on the beach near Southampton as the tide began to come in. In a loud voice he ordered the tide to come no further. The tide kept flowing. Canute told his courtiers, 'The power of a king is great, but the power of God is greatest.'

Canute's capital was Winchester and he was buried there. There is a mortuary box in Winchester Cathedral bearing his name. It contains bones dug up from the old graveyard when the present Cathedral was being built.

See Laurence Marcellus Larson Canute the Great