in each district, and so to be content with a loose federal empire—a union of hearts rather than a centralized despotism founded on coercion. The dangers of such a system are the more obvious when it is remembered that each ealdorman commanded the troops of his own province. Cnut’s policy has been the subject of much discussion, and has sometimes apparently been misunderstood. The better opinion is that, with his Danish troops behind him, he felt strong enough to reverse Dunstan’s tactics and to take a decisive step in the direction of centralization or unity. His provincial viceroys (jarls or earls, as they were now called, rather than by their old vague title of ealdormen), were appointed on an entirely new basis. England was to be mapped out into new administrative districts in the hope of obliterating the old tribal divisions. Each of these was to be placed under a viceroy having no hereditary or dynastic connection with the province he governed. In this way, Cnut sought to avert the process by which the country was slowly breaking up into a number of petty kingdoms. If these viceroys were a source of strength to the powerful Cnut, they were a source of weakness to the saintly Confessor, who was forced to submit to the control of his provincial rulers, such as Godwin and Leofric, as each in turn gained the upper hand in the field or in the Witan. This process of disintegration continued until the coming of the Conqueror utterly changed the relations of the monarchy to every other factor in the national life.