A battle
was fought and Edmund was victorious. This was the first of five
battles that were fought in one year. In none of them could the
Danes do more than gain a slight advantage now and then.
However, the Saxons were at last defeated in a sixth battle through
the act of a traitor. Edric, a Saxon noble, took his men out of
the fight and his treachery so weakened the Saxon army that Edmund
Ironside had to surrender to Canute.
But the young Dane had greatly admired Edmund for the way in which
he had fought against heavy odds, so he now treated him most generously.
Canute took certain portions of England and the remainder was given
to Edmund Ironside.
Thus for a short time the Anglo-Saxon people had at once a Danish
and a Saxon monarch.
II
Edmund died in 1016 and after his death Canute became sole ruler.
He ruled wisely. He determined to make his Anglo-Saxon subjects
forget that he was a foreign conqueror. To show his confidence in
them he sent back to Denmark the army he had brought over the sea,
keeping on a part of his fleet and a small body of soldiers to act
as guards at his palace.
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