A.D. 1017.] BANISHMENT OF TH E ROYAL FAMILY. 293 to prevent any tumult of the people, he caused him to be suffocated and thrown through a window into the Thames, thus inflicting on him a just retribution for his treachery. Touching the death of this traitor other authors have writ*.en differently, as, that after his treacherous murder of king Eadmund, he came to Cnute and accosted him with this salutation, " Hail, sole king," and on being asked by Cnute why he so saluted him, he related to him the fact of king Eadmund's murder ; on which Cnute replied, " As a reward of thy service, I will to-day elevate thee above all the nobles of the realm." He then ordered him tì be beheaded, and his head to be fixed on a pole and exposed to the birds on the tower of London. But whether the traitor ended his life one way or the other, it does not much matter ; since this is sufficiently clear, that he, who had deceived so many, by the just judgment of God met with condign punishment. King Cnute banishes alt the royal family from England. After these things, Cnute deterrnined in his heart either to destroy, or doom to perpetual exile, all the royal family of the English nation. Beginning therefore with Eadwin, brother to king Eadmund by the same mother, he delivered him to an officer named Ethelward to put him to death ; but the man, from affection for the youth, concealed him in a certain abbey, and thus saved him from death for a time. Moreover, he sent king Eadmund's sons, Eadwin and Eadward, to the king of Sweden to be put to death. But although he was his ally, the king of Sweden did not comply with Cnute's instructions, but sent the youths to be brought up by Solomon king of Hungary, where they were educated as became their rank, and moreover Eadward married the queen of Hungary's sister named Agatha, by whom in process of time he had two sons, Eadmund and Eadgar, and two daughters, Margaret and Christiana, of whom more will be said in the proper place. Meanwhile, the sons of Ethelred, Alfred and Eadward, whom he had begotten of queen Emma, hearing of Cnute's cruelty, kept their quiet retreat in Normandy with their uncle duke Richard. Cnute sent also into exile all others whom he found to be of the royal race, hoping to preserve to his heirs the sovereignty of the kingdom of England. In the same year died Wulstan bishop of