Cnut The Great, The Christian King Who United Three Kingdoms
Wikimedia CommonsCnut the Great was one of the most accomplished rulers of medieval Europe.
Cnut the Great was a highly accomplished Viking warrior who then became a Christian king and united three kingdoms under his crown.
Born around 990, Cnut was King of England starting in 1016, King of Denmark starting in 1018, and King of Norway starting in 1028, with the three kingdoms united under his rule referred to together as the North Sea Empire. According to Historic UK, neither the place nor the date of his birth is known, though Cnut was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard — King of Denmark and the son of Harald Bluetooth — and a Polish princess.
As a youth, he accompanied his father on his invasion of England in 1013. Sweyn I Forkbeard was accepted as king of England by the end of 1013 but died in February 1014, after which the English king-in-exile Aethelred the Unready, returned. However, in the summer of 1015, Cnut’s fleet set sail for England with a Danish army of perhaps 10,000 in 200 longships.
Cnut then won the English throne in 1016 after prolonged fighting against Aethelred’s son, Edmund Ironside. Though they agreed to divide England between them, Edmund’s death in 1016 allowed Cnut to take over the whole of England.
Wikimedia CommonsCnut the Great reproving his courtiers for their flattery.
To secure his power, Cnut married Emma of Normandy in 1017 in order prevent her brother, Duke Richard II, from supporting King Aethelred’s sons. He became king of Denmark upon the death of his brother, King Harold II of Denmark in 1018, and extended his realm to Norway in 1028.
Cnut died aged around 45 in Dorset, England, on November 12, 1035, and was buried in the Old Minster, Winchester. Though he had achieved great unity in life, his death put an end to the North Sea Empire, which fractured as his heirs fought for the throne.
