A.D. 1014. CANUTE SAILS EOE SANDWICH. 509 fication of the blessed Virgin Mary, as some have written, though it is uncertain by what kind of death he died. In the book of the miracles of the holy Edmund, king and martyr, it is written, that Sweyn, while he was exacting an insupportable tribute from the borough where the body of the aforesaid martyr rests, and from its estates wherever they existed, and was asserting that there was no sanctity in the martyr himself, and was intending and threatening to burn his monastery, with the monks themselves in it, was slain by that same martyr, and sent to hell, on the second of February, by a death of terrible torture. After his death, all the nations of the Danes elected Canute, his son, to be their king and master. But Canute was at that time in Lindsey, whither his father had sent him with a fleet, and with the hostages, and where he was waiting not only for cavalry as scouts but also for soldiers, in order that with united forces he might pour out all the venom of his malice on the English nation, and punish those who deserted him with a fearful destruction. While, then, these events were happening on the side of the Danes, the English nation unanimously sent messengers with all speed into Normandy to king Ethelred, to assure him that they were not more attached to any one than to their own natural lord, if he would only treat them more mildly than he had formerly done. And when they had been heard, the king sent his son Edward with the ambassadors into England, saluting them all affectionately, and promising that if he had erred in any point he would amend his ways in whatever way they all desired. Therefore, king Ethelred returning in the spring to England, was received with joy, and honoured by every one ; by the willing co-operation of whom he collected a numerous army against Canute, who, having made a treaty with the men of Lindsey, had already put his army in motion for the purpose of plunder. But, king Ethelred coming up, put Canute to flight, and, ravaging the whole of Lindsey, put to death at once all the inhabitants he found there. Canute saved himself by flight, and, setting sail, arrived with his fleet at the harbour of Sandwich, to which place the winds bore him, where, by way of insult to the English nation, he cut off the hands, and ears, and noses of all the hostages who had been given to his father from the kingdom of England, and then let them go ; and he himself went to Denmark, and busied himself in increasing the number of his soldiers. The same