Edmund, notwithstanding his prospect of a long and prosperous career, was cut off suddenly, after a stormy reign of one year. During his reign, Canute the Dane had been fast gaining ground in England, notwithstanding the vigor and energy with which Edmund had opposed him. Finally, the two monarchs assembled their armies, and were about to fight a great final battle. Edmund sent a flag of truce to Canute's camp, proposing that, to save the effusion of blood, they should agree to decide the case by single combat, and that he and Canute should be the champions, and fight in presence of the armies. Canute declined this proposal. He was himself small and slender in form, while Edmund was distinguished for his personal development and muscular strength. Canute therefore declined the personal contest, but offered to leave the question to the decision of a council chosen from among the leading nobles on either side. This plan was finally adopted. The council convened, and, after long deliberations, they framed a treaty by which the country was divided between the two potentates, and a sort of peace was restored. A very short period after this treaty was settled, Edmund was murdered.
Canute immediately laid claim to the whole realm. He maintained that it was a part of the treaty that the partition of the kingdom was to continue only during their joint lives, and that, on the death of either, the whole was to pass to the survivor of them. The Saxon leaders did not admit this, but they were in no condition very strenuously to oppose it. Ethelred's sons by Emma were too young to come forward as leaders yet; and as to Edmund's, they were mere children. There was, therefore, no one whom they could produce as an efficient representative of the Saxon line, and thus the Saxons were compelled to submit to Canute's pretensions, at least for a time. They would not wholly give up the claims of Edmund's children, but they consented to waive them for a season. They gave Canute the guardianship of the boys until they should become of age, and allowed him, in the mean time, to reign, himself, over the whole land.
Canute exercised his power in a very discreet and judicious manner, seeming intent, in all his arrangements, to protect the rights and interests of the Saxons as well as of the Danes. It might be supposed that the lives of the young Saxon princes, Edmund's sons, would not have been safe in his hands; but the policy which he immediately resolved to pursue was to conciliate the Saxons, and not to intimidate and coerce them. He therefore did the young children no harm, but sent them away out of the country to Denmark, that they might, if possible, be gradually forgotten. Perhaps he thought that, if the necessity should arise for it, they might there, at any time, be put secretly to death.