The calm enjoyed by England lasted only a year, for in 1015 Canute came again. Edward being sick, his brave son Edmund, called Ironside for his deeds of valour, and Edric Streona were sent against the enemy with two armies gathered from the north and south of England. Edric, however, true to his previous villainies, first attempted to murder the gallant youth, and then went over to Canute with a considerable body of troops and forty ships of war. Edmund retired northward, leaving Canute in possession of Wessex. The next year was the last of this disastrous reign. There was much resultless fighting in which Ethelred refused to support his son, because there were traitors in the English camp. Gradually the area of war moved northwards, and Canute entered York, placing his own earl, Eric the Dane, over the Northumbrians. (We find that the Danish title of earl now begins to supplant that of alderman, which had been used by the English for the military governor of a shire.) Edmund thereupon gave up the useless struggle, and joined his father in London. He had not long been there when the king died, in 1016, at the early age of forty-eight, having done all that a false and incapable man could, during the reign, to bring the nation to ruin. CHAPTER VIII. EDMUND IRONSIDE AND CANUTE. A Double Election--Battles of Pen Selwood and Sherstone--Treacheries of Edric--Division of the Kingdom--Death of Edmund--Election of Canute--His Treatment of his Rivals--The Four Earldoms--Canute's Marriage with Emma--His Popular Government--His Expeditions to Northern Europe--Submission of the King of Scots--Canute at Rome--The Story of his Rebuke to his Courtiers--His Death. Immediately on the death of Ethelred, his son Edmund, who had given so many proofs of courage and devotion to this unhappy country, was elected king by the citizens of London. But most of the chief men of the kingdom, weary of the war, elected Canute, and joined him at Southampton, where they swore allegiance to him. Thus there were two kings in England, and of the two Edmund had a great advantage in being the holder of London. This city the Danish monarch felt it necessary to possess; and in the absence of the new king, who was gathering troops in Wessex, he laid siege to it with a very considerable force; but the citizens defended themselves so well, that Canute broke up the siege and went back into Wessex in search of Edmund.