On the confines of that kingdom, being joined by his kindred and their vassals, he found that his whole force amounted to 1200 men. With this force, had there existed any attachment to his cause, he might have triumphed; but as he proceeded through the northern districts of Drontheim, nobody joined him. In some places, indeed, he forced the inhabitants to assemble, and compelled those who were still pagan to receive baptism. Thus the time which he should have turned to his advantage he lost by his injudicious zeal, and thereby afforded his enemies leisure to organise the means of resistance. In another respect he was less imprudent. Seeing the refusal of the countrymen to join him, he was exhorted by his followers, of whom many were Swedish banditti, to burn their houses, to lay waste their fields, to cut them down wherever they could be found. He had the humanity to refuse his sanction to this atrocious proposal. He had, he said, one regal prerogative left,—the power of forgiving. On entering the district of Sticklestadt, he perceived a large force drawn up to oppose him. Arranging his own followers in order of battle, he exhorted them to fight manfully for their religion, their king, their families. On the other, Sigurd, the bishop, who was in the army of Canute, no less strongly exhorted his party to drive this invader from the kingdom. The character which the prelate drew of that monarch was not an enviable one. From his youth he had been remarkable for his robberies and executions; he had exiled or put to death the noblest of his chiefs; he had acted with singular treachery towards the upland kings,—whose privileges, contrary to his solemn pledges, he had violated, and whose persons he had afterwards mutilated; to all men, high or low, he had been tyrannical; he had lost all his friends; and he was now followed only by the enemies of Norway, or by professed bandits. This description was not overcharged, and it may be admitted as a fair estimate of his character. The battle now engaged, and Olaf fought with much courage; but in the end he fell, and most of his kinsmen with him.[256]