biography
| name: |
Canute or Cnut,
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sometimes known as the Great
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (c.995–1035)
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| biography:
| King of England (from 1016), Denmark (from 1019), and Norway (from 1028), the younger son of Sweyn Forkbeard. He first campaigned in England in 1013, and after his father's death (1014) became king of Denmark. He successively challenged Ethelred the Unready and his successor Edmund Ironside for the English throne. He defeated Edmund in 1016 at the Battle of Assandun (possibly Ashdon, Essex), secured Mercia and Northumbria, and became King of all England after Edmund's death. In 1017 he married Emma of Normandy, the widow of Ethelred. He ruled England according to the accepted traditions of English kingship, and maintained the peace throughout his reign. A story is told by the 12th-c historian, Henry of Huntingdon, that Canute rebuked his flatterers by showing that even he, as king, could not stop the incoming tide - nor, by implication, the might of God. |
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