Canute, having rid himself of his rivals, divided England into four parts, keeping Wessex under his immediate rule, making Danes the Earls of East Anglia and Northumberland, and giving Mercia to Edric Streona. But he speedily caused Edric to be put to death, "and very rightly too," says the Chronicle, because no doubt he feared to have such a perfidious man among his chief men and Edric's body was thrown into the Thames. These earldoms continued until the Conquest, and their holders played a great part in the history of the subsequent reigns. It is remarkable that this arrangement of the government of the kingdom was very much in agreement with the policy of Dunstan.
In the same year Canute put away his Danish wife and contracted an alliance of a very wise character if regarded as a measure of precaution. Alfred and Edward, Ethelred's sons, were still a source of anxiety to him, and a quarrel was, above all things, to be avoided with Richard Duke of Normandy. In order to acquire the friendship of the duke, he paid addresses to Queen Emma, the widow of Ethelred, and the curious marriage was concluded. It is said, but the story is probably without foundation, that she made him promise that the crown of England should go to the issue of her second marriage, to the exclusion of her children by Ethelred and of Canute's two sons.
Canute was an admirable ruler, although we find him, in 1018, laying a very heavy tax upon the kingdom, especially in London, which, it will be remembered, had held out so bravely for Ethelred. The money, however, which amounted to £83,000, was used for a good purpose, namely, to pay off the Danish fleet. With the fleet departed the larger part of the Danish army, a bodyguard remaining which was known as the King's _House-carls_, and which formed a little standing army. Canute had doubtless seen that the English national levies were not to be relied upon at a pinch, and wished to have a trusty force with which to oppose a sudden invasion.
Having thus established himself upon the throne, he proceeded to rule England by the English and for the English. The chief Danes were banished from the kingdom, or put to death one by one, and their places were taken by Englishmen. Leofric became Earl of Mercia in the room of Edric Streona, and the famous Godwin was made Earl of Wessex, which the king no longer kept under his special care. He also renewed the English laws and customs, King Edgar's laws, as they were called, and made no distinction between Dane and Englishman in the administration of justice. He sought also to gain the favour of the people by religious foundations, by gifts to monasteries and churches, by doing reverence to the saints and holy places they revered, by preferring the churchmen they honoured, and by many other gracious acts. A very politic proceeding was his translation of the bones of St. Alphege from Greenwich to Canterbury, by which he sought to bury the bitter memories of the past.