Anglo-Saxon king, Cnut, Canute

From the time of Ethelred's accession at the age of 9 or 10, his reign was tragically marred by the treason and revolt of his leading thegns (noblemen). The ensuing disorder was nourished by his own indecisive character and by the renewal of Danish raids on England in 980 after a pause of 25 years. Increasing Danish aggressiveness complemented the increasing English disunity and military ineffectiveness. In 991 Ethelred instituted a policy of buying off Danish raiders with lavish payments of silver. Given the inadequacy of English defences, it was a strategically sound but psychologically demoralising decision that mocked the heroic traditions of the Anglo-Saxons.

Negroid English/Saxon coin

In 1009 an enormous army, sent by King Swein of Denmark, arrived in England to depose Ethelred. Although the English bought the invaders off in 1012, the following year Swein led another invasion. Much of the demoralised English nation submitted to his rule. Ethelred resisted from London for some months, then finally fled to Normandy. After Swein died suddenly in February 1014, Ethelred was reinstated as king. His rule was challenged by Cnut, Swein's younger son, and apparently by his own son Edmund Iron-sides.

Cnut's first campaign misfired, and he retreated to Denmark, only to return to England with a new army in 1015. Ethelred and Edmund joined forces against the invader early in 1016 at London. But on April 23, 1016, Ethelred died. Edmund succeeded him and struggled on for a few months. However, by the end of the year Edmund too was dead, and Cnut became the ruler of England. Above: Negroid English/Saxon coin, minted in England, between the 10th and 11th centuries.

Canute or Cnut the Great was born circa 985- 995, the son of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, the identity of his mother is uncertain, although it is likely that she was a Slavic princess, daughter of Mieszko I of Poland. Canute was to become the ruler of an empire which, at its height, included England, Denmark, Norway and part of Sweden.

Canute was praised in Norse poetry as a formidable Viking warrior. He is described in the Knýtlinga saga as being 'exceptionally tall and strong, and the handsomest of men, all except for his nose, that was thin, high set, and rather hooked. He had a fair complexion none the less, and a fine, thick head of hair. His eyes were better than those of other men, both the more handsome and the keener of their sight'.

Emma of Normandy: Canute had supported his father against the Saxon King Ethelred the Redeless . Sweyn established himself on England's throne and Ethelred was forced to flee to Normandy, where he sought refuge with his wife's relatives. On the death of Sweyn Forkbeard in 1014, Ethelred returned to England and Canute was forced to withdraw to Denmark. There, he gathered his forces, returning to England in 1015 when he managed to gain control of virtually the whole country, except for the city of London.

On the death of the ineffectual Ethelred II in 1016, the Londoners chose his son Edmund Ironside as king, but the Witan opted for Canute. Following a series of engagements with Edmund, Canute defeated him at the Battle of Assandun, which was fought at either Ashingdon, in south-east, or Ashdon, in north-west Essex. A treaty was drawn up, partitioning the country which would remain in force until the death of one of the participants to the treaty, at which time all lands would revert to the survivor. Edmund II died a month later on 30 November 1016. Canute then became the acknowledged King of England, his coronation took place in London, at Christmas.

Emma

In what was considered a conciliatory gesture at the time, he repudiated his wife, Elgiva and married Ethelred's widow, Emma of Normandy. He became King of Denmark in 1019 and of Norway 1028, making him ruler of an Empire surrounding the North Sea. Following his conversion to Christianity, Canute became an avid protector of the church. He patronised abbeys, promoted leaders of the English church and was acknowledged by the Pope as the first Viking to become a Christian King. He embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1027, displaying great reverence and humility. On his return to England he swore to his Saxon subjects that he would govern with mercy and justice.

Canute divided England into four distinct areas for administrative purposes. Wessex remained the seat of government and was ruled directly by himself. East Anglia was placed under a deputy, Earl Thurkill. The fickle and treacherous Edric Streona was rewarded for his services by being appointed Earl of Mercia. His kinsman, Eric became virtual viceroy of Northumbria.

Edric Streona was not to enjoy his new exalted position for long, considering himself to have not been amply rewarded by Canute, he quarrelled with the King. In a rage, Streona claimed that it was entirely due to his timely desertion of Edmund Ironside that Canute had acquired the throne. The wary Canute replied that a man who betrayed one master was likely to do the same to another. As Streona argued with the King, Eric of Northumbria stepped forward and struck him with his battle-axe. His body was slung into the Thames and his head placed on a spike on London Bridge.

King CanuteIn the early part of his reign Canute resorted to harsh measures to maintain his position, he had some of his prominent English rivals outlawed or killed, and engineered the death of Edmund Ironside's brother, he pursued Edmund's children forcing them to flee England for the safety of Hungary. But within a few years, when his position became safer, he adopted a fairer policy, and allowed more Saxons into positions of power.

The famous story that he was so vain he allowed himself to be convinced by flattering courtiers that he could hold back the tide is one of the chief events of the reign for which he appears to be remembered. In fact the old story of Canute and the waves is apocryphal and is first recorded by Henry of Huntingdon in his twelfth century Chronicle of the History of England.

Mortuary Chest

His insistence that the kingdom should continue to be ruled by the laws laid down by Edgar the Peaceful lead to a growth in his popularity and he made his own additions to these, forbidding heathen practices. After initial raids, Malcolm II, King of Scots, recognised the over-lordship of Canute. Peace with Scotland was established for the remainder of his reign.

King Canute died on 12th November 1035 at Shaftsbury in Dorset, aged around 40 and was buried at Winchester Cathedral. On his death, his illegitimate son Harold I, seized the throne of England. Following the Norman conquest, Winchester Cathedral was erected on the Saxon site of the Old Minster. The Royal remains, including King Canute's bones, along with those of his spouse, Emma of Normandy, were exhumed and placed in mortuary chests around St. Swithin's Shrine in the new building. However in the seventeenth century, during the English Civil War, the bones, after being used by Cromwell's soldiers as missiles to shatter stained glass windows, were scattered and mixed in various chests along with those of some of the Saxon kings, including Egbert of Wessex, Saxon bishops and the Norman King William Rufus. The chests remain today, seated upon a decorative screen surrounding the presbytery of the Cathedral.

Scientists from Bristol University now plan to examine the skeletal remains of Canute, Queen Emma and their son Harthacanute, along with other kings, including the Saxon kings Egbert and Ethelwulf. The chests have been placed in the Lady Chapel of the cathedral to allow examinations to be carried out without removing them from consecrated ground. A Heritage Lottery Fund grant has been applied for to finance the project. Team leader Professor Mark Horton has stated 'The preliminary findings are very exciting.' DNA may be compared with that of Sven Estridsøn, Canute's sisters son, who was buried in Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark in 1074/76. His remains were intensively examined and his face reconstructed a few years ago.

Moorish Europe

The fact that Blacks had lived in some of the same Iberian regions later occupied by Islamic Moors suggests this. In 937, Ibn Hawkal noted that Blacks were very common in Palermo. Regarding one of the city's main entrances, Hawkal wrote that it was called the "Bab es Soudan," or "Gate of the Blacks," so named after its ebony-hued residents.

Pope Leo III referred to these Blacks variously as Moors, Agareni, and Saracens. Islamic encroachment on the European mainland took place around 846. When "Saracens" landed at the mouth of the Tiber River and besieged Rome. Of this invasion, the German historian Hincmar (875 A.D.) wrote that: The Arabs and Moors assaulted Rome on the Tiber, and when they laid waste to the basilica of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and carried off all the ornaments and treasures, with the very altar which was situated above the tomb of the famous prince of apostles, they occupied strongly a fortified hill a hundred miles from the city.

In the invasion of Rome, Pope John VII agreed to pay an annual tribute of 25,000 marks of silver to the Saracens to retreat.

Frederick It (1197-1250 A.D.), of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, developed especially close relationships with the remaining Blacks in Sicily, and retained a , Moorish chamberlain who was constantly in his presence.

While admittedly breaking the Islamic power-base, he also solicited the aid of the Moors from Palermo in his intense struggle with the papacy. After resettling conquered Muslims on the Italian mainland at Lucera, the monarch recruited an elite guard unit of 16,000 Black troops.

One of the independent sovereigns of Moorish descent with whom Frederick II came into contact was Morabit, a name whose attachment may be found with the Sanhadja Berber tribes known as Murabit.

Growing conflicts and rebellion against the expansionist policies of Frederick II eventually led to the death of Morabit. In 1239 A.D., however, another Black man, Johannes Maurus, attained a position of considerable authority at the Hohenstaufen royal court. "In South Italy and Sicily," writes Paul Kaplan, "dark-skinned Moslems had already been visible for several centuries.

Spain and Portugal, a real renaissance, when other parts of Europe were spending a thousand years passing through the dark age which the destruction of Rome by the Barbarians. Moorish domination extended to parts of Italy. In 846 A.D., they held the city of Rome in a state of siege while in 878 they captured Sicily from the Normans. Twenty years later the Moors took control of Southern Italy by defeating Otto II of Germany.

As in Spain and Portugal, miscegenation took place on a wide scale between the Moors and the Italians. The Italians at that time had large infusions of Germanic blood due to the invasion of the Goths and Like Portugal and Spain the blood of Africa permeated through all Italian society. And Africa blood found its way into the leading families, including the most illustrious royal family of the times-the Medicis.

Black Britain, Sholto the Douglas, Niger Val Dubh

McRitchie gives the names of many of these families (Moorish) whose are quite celebrated in English history. One of these is the aristocratic Douglas family, said to be one of the ancestors of the present royal family of Britain. A British authority, J.A. Ringrose, explains about the founder of this family:

Douglas family Crest

About the year 770 AD, in the reign of Salvathius, King of the Scots, Donald Bane of the Western Isles having invaded Scotland and routed the royal army, a man of rank and figure came seasonably with his followers to the King's assistance.

He renewed the battle and obtained a complete victory over the invader. The king being anxious to see the man who had done him such signal service, he was pointed out to him by his colour, or complexion in Gaelic language -sholto-du-glash-" behold the black or swarthy coloured man" from which he obtained the name Sholto the Douglas.

McRitchie further states that the most revealing evidence of the Moorish origin of these noble families are "the thick-lipped Moors" on their coat-of­ arms. Many of these families still carry the name Moore. Barry's Encyclope­dia Heraldica notes on its pages that "Moor's head is the heraldic term for the heads of a black or negro man."

McRitchie contends that the racial origin of these notable families stems from the fact that there were black peoples (Moors or Silure) domiciled in Scotland as early as the ninth and tenth centuries.

Any comprehensive account of the African presence in early Europe should include England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Scandinavia. The history and legends of Scotland confirm the existence of "purely Black people." We see one of them in the person of Kenneth the Niger. During the tenth century Kenneth the Niger ruled over three provinces in the Scottish Highlands.

The historical and literary traditions of Wales reflect similar beliefs. According to Gwyn Jones (perhaps the world's leading authority on the subject), to the Welsh chroniclers, "The Danes coming in by way of England and the Norwegians by way of Ireland were pretty well all black: Black Gentiles, Black Norsemen, and Black Host." There is also strong reason to suggest an African presence in ancient Ireland.

We have, for example, the legends of the mysterious "African sea-rovers, the Fomorians, who had a stronghold on Torrey Island, off the Northwest Coast." The Fomorians, shrouded deep in mist, came to be regarded as the sinister forces in Irish mythology. Moors also dominated the British Isles at one point in history. The archaeologist and writer David McRitchie declared that the Moors dominated Scotland as late as the time of the Saxon Kings.

He stated with scholarly authority: So late as the tenth century three of these provinces [of Scotland] were wholly black and the supreme ruler of these became for a time the paramount king of transmarine Scotland.
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We see one of the black people ­- the Moors of the Romans - in the person of a King of Alban of the tenth century. History knows him as Kenneth, sometimes as Dubh and as Niger.

We know as a historic fact that a Niger Val Dubh has lived and reigned over certain black divisions of our islands and probably white divisions also, and that a race known as the "Sons of the Black" succeeded him in history.

Representation of Black Saracen giant in medieval literature begin with Vernagu found in the Pseudo Turpin Chronicle of Charlemagne.

Dated to the fourteenth century, the Roland and Vernagu describe a duel between the black as pitch, Saracen Vernagu, and the Christian knight Roland. Another towering figure was Alagolfare the Ethiopian giant of the Sowdone of Babylone,who’s "skin was black and hard."

British Kings, Edgar, Ethelred

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

King Edgar Coin

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959.

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man, his reign was peaceful. Right: A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe (c. 973-75 AD).

The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingship's, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm. According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".

The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement). In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl Æthelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire. The event was commemorated by the Dead Man's Plack, erected in 1825. In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a "tissue of romance" in his book, Historic Essays; however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn. Edgar the Peaceful sits aboard a barge manned by eight kings, as it moves up the River Dee.

king Ethelred the Unready

Edgar was crowned at Bath and anointed with his wife Ælfthryth, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England itself. Edgar's coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). Left: The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready (c. 968-1016)

This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee. Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and Æthelred, the younger, the child of his wife Ælfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton.

coat of Arms of the Bishop of Munich.

She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints. Some[who?] see Edgar's death as the beginning of the end of Anglo-Saxon England, followed as it was by three successful 11th century conquests — two Danish and one Norman. Top: coat of Arms of the Bishop of Munich.

The Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred the Unready (c. 968-1016) ruled the English from 978 to 1016. During his reign England was repeatedly attacked by Danish armies seeking to destroy the sovereignty of the Anglo-Saxons and to plunder their land. Born into the royal house of Wessex, which was at that time the effective ruler of all the Anglo-Saxons, Ethelred was a direct descendant of Alfred the Great and the son of King Edgar, who had ruled a united and peaceful England for 16 years.

At Edgar's death in 975, the realm passed to Ethelred's brother Edward, who was still a child. The nobles of the kingdom formed rival parties around Edward and Ethelred, and the latter's supporters murdered Edward on March 18, 978, making Ethelred king. Edward was soon widely honoured as a martyred saint, and devotion to him gave many an excuse to withhold allegiance from his successor.