Both Ulf and Harda Canute soon repented of the step. Two kings were ravaging their coasts: Canute only could defend them; and his arrival might soon be expected. To avert his anger, they supplicated the queen to employ her influence in their behalf; and, after some entreaty, the monarch agreed that if Harda Canute and the jarl would apply to him for pardon, and lay the usurped crown at his feet, he would exact no vengeance for the past. Accordingly, both proceeded to England, knelt before him, and humbly entreated his forgiveness. The royal child was heartily, Ulf reluctantly pardoned,—if that can be called pardon, when a secret determination is made to destroy the object whenever a new occasion shall be presented. To extinguish the last spark of this rebellion, no less than to chastise the presumption of the two northern kings, he sailed for the north.[250] [Sidenote: 1027.] When Canute arrived in the Baltic, he found that Scania was ravaged by the combined fleets of Norway and Sweden. In a naval battle off that coast he had a hard struggle, but, in the end, had so far the advantage that he compelled the enemy to retire. After this partial success, he did not forget Ulf the jarl. Inviting that noble to a feast at Roskilda, the latter endeavoured, by mirthful conversation, to dissipate the gloom which hung on the countenance of the monarch. The chessboard was introduced, and, in the game which followed, the anger of Canute was still further increased. The jarl took one of the king’s knights; but the king took it back again, and, in a hasty tone, bid Ulf not play in that manner. One of this chief’s worst characteristics was an irritable temper, which he could not always control, even in the presence of his lord. He not only struck the table with much anger, but rose to leave the apartment. “Coward! dost thou flee?” cried the insulted king. “Thou wouldst have fled farther,” replied the jarl, “but for me. Was I a coward in the late action at the mouth of the Helge, when I bore aid to thee, whom the Swedes were beating like a dog?” These rash words sealed his fate. Though he took refuge in the cathedral, the next morning the monarch ordered him to be slain; and the deed was perpetrated in the choir. For this action, the royal assassin had thenceforth no peace; remorse was his daily companion: to allay it he became a benefactor to the church, and undertook a pilgrimage to Rome.[251] [Sidenote: 1027 to 1028.]