1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [112]
By 1028 Canute was seeking to expand that empire by bringing Norway under his control. He sought to defeat the Norwegian King Olaf - Olaf apparently being, it will be recalled, himself a former lover of Ælfgifu of Northampton. Olaf was a Christian convert and he had sought to rule a still largely pagan Norway with a zealous bias towards his own religion. In the process he had become very unpopular and Canute realised that he could exploit this situation to his advantage. He travelled along the coast with a sizeable Anglo-Danish fleet, putting in here and there, offering bribes and promises of greater freedom to the disgruntled locals. It was enough. Powerful nobles submitted to Canute and Olaf was forced to flee. In 1030 Olaf was killed in battle attempting a comeback. Canute was now able to appoint the young bastard Swein as king of Norway; and once again, because of Swein's youth, his mother Ælfgifu of Northampton ruled as regent. At around the same time, in the delicate balancing act that was needed to keep the two women of his life contented, Canute placated Emma by naming her young son Harthacanute as King of Denmark.
As effective ruler of Norway, the lady from Northampton had reached what should have been the pinnacle of power, but her rule turned out to be an abysmal failure. She increased taxation, demanded greater services and made the Norwegians follow unpopular Danish laws. Those guilty of acts of violence - violence that, as one historian puts it, was 'characteristic of the fierce northern people'16 - were subjected to severe and unexpected penalties. The Norwegians did not care for this new, brash foreign ruler, and she was a woman to boot; they found themselves longing for the days of Olaf. What is more, a succession of poor harvests, which spread hunger throughout the land, and bad luck were attributed to the Northamptonshire lady. Ælfgifu's rule of Norway was short-lived but long remembered. The expression 'Ælfgifu's time' was subsequently to become a synonym in Norway for any period of great poverty and repression. Norwegian resentment inevitably erupted into violence. The revolt was underpinned by a Christian cult which now began to develop around the memory of the late King Olaf. Realising the danger in this, Ælfgifu and her Danish bishop - Christians, of course, themselves - urgently sought to dispel any suggestion that Olaf had been a martyr for the Christian faith. But tales of miracles concerning the slain Norwegian king continued to proliferate. The Christian religion was taking firmer root in the land of Odin and Thor; and politically, as a by-product, Ælfgifu of Northampton was losing out.
She and Olaf may once have embraced as lovers. As bitter enemies, he had been defeated and killed by her allies. Now in death Olaf returned to haunt Ælfgifu of Northampton and would ultimately bring about her downfall in Norway. In 1031 Bishop Grimkell, a Norwegian, located Olaf's grave at Nidaros and exhumed the body. It was reported that the corpse was miraculously as fresh as it had been on the day that Olaf was living. To the Norwegians, this was truly proof of his saintliness; and he was popularly canonised as a saint. It was later said that Ælfgifu of Northampton was herself at the graveside as the body was exhumed and that she frantically tried to explain away the state of the corpse on the basis of unusual soil conditions. Few would believe her. The revolt gathered fresh momentum when in 1035 Magnus, the young son of Olaf, returned to Norway. After an ineffectual period of struggle, Ælfgifu and Swein accepted the inevitable. Mother and son fled to Denmark, where Swein's half-brother Harthacanute ruled. With Magnus proclaimed king, Norway ceased to be part of the vast empire belonging to Canute and his complicated family. 'Ælfgifu's time' had ended with a humiliating retreat.
During all this period Canute, perhaps