“In this and another coffin, directly opposite, repose the remains of Kings Canute and Rufus, of Queen Emma, and of the Archbishops Winde and Alfvin.” [Illustration: [++] Canute’s Tomb] In Cromwell’s time, the coffins of the kings in the grand choir of Winchester cathedral were broken open, and the bones dispersed; but they were afterwards collected together, as far as this could be done, and again placed in the grand choir in coffins like the one just mentioned. Thus Canute the Great, whose ambition could not be bounded even by three kingdoms, has not retained so much as a grave for himself and his beloved Emma. The presentiment of the perishableness of all earthly power that seized him when he deposited his golden crown in the same place has, in truth, been fulfilled! The other royal coffins that surround the grand choir in Winchester contain the bones of several old Saxon kings. That the Danish kings Canute and Hardicanute should be entombed among them, in the midst of Anglo-Saxon south England, is a sufficient proof of the immense change that had taken place with regard to the Danes in England since their first appearance there as barbarous heathen Vikings. Instead of their kings seeking renown by the destruction of churches and convents, and by murdering or maltreating the clergy; instead of their despising any other kind of burial than that in the open fields, on hills under large cairns, or monumental stones, their successors were now regarded as the benefactors and protectors of the Church, and as such worthy to repose in the most important ecclesiastical edifices, even in the principal district of their former mortal enemies. Nay, the clergy there were indefatigable in handing down their glory to the latest ages; and thus a statue of Canute the Great was long to be seen in the cathedral of Winchester. But this also affords a striking proof that the Danes and Anglo-Saxons no longer regarded each other so much in the light of strangers, or with such mutual feelings of enmity as before; and that Canute had thus happily broken through the strong barrier which had hitherto separated Saxon south England from Danish north England. ---------- SECTION V. The Wash.—The Five Burghs.—The Humber.—York.—Northumberland.—Stamford Bridge.