658 ANNALS OP BOGEB, DE HOVEDEN. A.D. 1180. he valiantly fought five battles against Canute, the king of the Danes. After the last battle, they came to terms, and divided the kingdom in halves; and one moiety of England fell to Canute, the other to Edmund, on condition that whoever should survive the other should have the whole of the kingdom, and that neither should in the meanwhile be crowned. Matters, therefore, being thus settled, and all the chief men of England giving their assent to the arrangement thus made between them, within one month after, Edward was, alas ! removed from this world ; on whieh Canute received the kingdom of the whole of England, and ruled nearly eighteen years. After his decease, Harold Harefoot, supposed by nearly all to be falsely considered as the son of Canute and Elfgiva, succeeded to the throne, and reigned five years ; after whom Hardicanute, son of Canute and Emma, the sister of Robert, duke of Normandy, and mother of the last king, Saint Edward, reigned two years, less twelve weeks. And thus passed sixty-eight years, during which the said laws were neglected. But after king Edward came to the throne, by the advice of the barons of England, he raised the code of laws that had slept for sixtyeight years, and remodelled it thus raised, beautified it thus remodelled, and confirmed it thus beautified. "When thus confirmed, it was called ' the law of king Edward/6* not because he had been the first to frame it, but because it had been neglected and almost left in oblivion from the days of his grandfather, Edgar, who had reigned seventeen years, and who had been the first founder thereof, until his own times, being nearly, as said above, sixty-eight years. For Edward, because it was a just and good code of laws, raised it from the deep abyss, and matured it and ordered it to be observed as though his own. "Edmund Ironside before-named had a son, Edward by name, who, shortly after the death of his father, through fear of king Canute, fled to the king of the Rugi, which we more properly call Russia ; and the king of that country, Malesclotus by name, when he understood who he was, gave him an honorable re-. ception. He there married a wife of noble birth, by whom he had Edgar Atheling, Margaret, afterwards queen of Scotland, and Christiana, her sister, to which Christiana king Edward gave the lands afterwards held by Ralph de Limisey. Now, the said Christiana was sister of Edgar Atheling, who was sent ·* See the note in page 545.