Canute also found himself obliged, in the beginning of his reign, to load the people with heavy taxes, in order to reward his Danish followers: he exacted from them at one time the sum of seventy-two thousand pounds; besides eleven thousand pounds, which he levied on London alone. He was probably willing, from political motives, to mulct severely that city, on account of the affection which it had borne to Edmond, and the resistance which it had made to the Danish power in two obstinate sieges [s]. But these rigours were imputed to necessity; and Canute, like a wise prince, was determined that the English, now deprived of all their dangerous leaders, should be reconciled to the Danish yoke by the justice and impartiality of his administration. He sent back to Denmark as many of his followers as he could safely spare; he restored the Saxon customs in a general assembly of the states; he made no distinction between Danes and English in the distribution of justice; and he took care, by a strict execution of law, to protect the lives and properties of all his people. The Danes were gradually incorporated with his new subjects; and both were glad to obtain a little respite from those multiplied calamities from which the one, no less than the other, had, in their fierce contest for power, experienced such fatal consequences. [FN [s] W. Malm. p. 72. In one of these sieges, Canute diverted the course of the Thames, and by that means brought his ships above London bridge.]
The removal of Edmonds children into so distant a country as Hungary, was, next to their death, regarded by Canute as the greatest security to his government: he had no farther anxiety, except with regard to Alfred and Edward, who were protected and supported by their uncle, Richard Duke of Normandy. Richard even fitted out a great armament, in order to restore the English princes to the throne of their ancestors; and, though the navy was dispersed by a storm, Canute saw the danger to which he was exposed from the enmity of so warlike a people as the Normans. In order to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid his addresses to Queen Emma, sister of that prince; and promised that he would leave the children whom he should have by that marriage in possession of the crown of England. Richard complied with his demand, and sent over Emma to England, where she was soon after married to Canute [t]. The English, though they disapproved of her espousing the mortal enemy of her former husband and his family, were pleased to find at court a sovereign to whom they were accustomed, and who had already formed connexions with them; and thus Canute, besides securing by this marriage the alliance of Normandy, gradually acquired, by the same means, the confidence of his own subjects [u]. The Norman prince did not long survive the marriage of Emma; and he left the inheritance of the duchy to his eldest son of the same name; who dying a year after him without children, was succeeded by his brother Robert, a man of valour and abilities. [FN [t] Chron Sax. p. 151. W. Malmes. p. 73. [u] W. Malmes. p. 73. Higden, p. 275.]