This monarch was liberal to his followers, as well as to the church. How, considering the splendid retinue which generally accompanied him, the magnificent presents which he made, the churches and monasteries which he founded and endowed, he could still be surnamed the _Rich_, is not easy to be conceived. His prudence was doubtless great; but his moderation is the virtue on which his biographers dwell with most satisfaction. There may be, and there probably is, no truth in the well-known anecdote of his rebuking his flatterers on the sea-coast. But another, which displays him in a light equally striking, is less known. Many years before his pilgrimage he drew up a code of laws, and was one of the first to violate them by killing, in a fit of anger, aggravated perhaps by intoxication, one of his servants. His good sense told him that this violation was a bad example for his ferocious nobles; and he resolved that his punishment should be signal. Convoking his judges, he appeared before them in the garb of a prisoner, accused himself of homicide, and awaited their decision. The penalty, according to the Germanic jurisprudence, which governed the greater part of Europe, was forty silver marks for one in the condition of the victim.[136] But the slavish administrators of the law deemed that in publicly confessing his crime, he had made sufficient recompence. Seeing their fear of him, he condemned himself to pay 360 silver marks, or nine times the amount of the legal compensation. Of this large fine half went to the kindred of the victim, half to the crown; but the king would not touch his portion, which was distributed to the poor.
In his last testament, and near three years before his death, this monarch divided his states between his sons. To Harda-Canute, whom he had invested with the government of Denmark, he left England also, because that prince was his offspring by Emma, the widow of Ethelred II. To Sweyn, who, since the death of St. Olaf (1030–1035), governed Norway, he bequeathed that kingdom. Whether any provision was made for Harald Harefoot, the eldest of his sons, is not very clear; but Harald taking advantage of his brother’s residence in Denmark, usurped the English crown. He could not expect, and he probably did not wish, that all three should rest on the same brow. Partition was the mania of the age.