It was not long before they captured Earl Hakon, Eirik’s son, who was ruling the country, by drawing a cable across the Sound between their two ships as he was sailing by; for he thought they were two merchant vessels, and had no suspicion that they were Olaf’s boats. As he passed they drew up the cable tight beneath his vessel, so that it was lifted half out of the water and could not pass, and the earl was taken prisoner and brought before Olaf. This Earl Hakon, son of Earl Eirik, was still only a youth as he stood before King Olaf. Olaf said he would give him his life if he swore to give up the kingdom to him and leave the country and never take up arms against him; and this he promised to do, and swore an oath upon it. He turned his ships toward England, and entered King Canute’s service; and Canute received him well, and placed him at his Court, and there he dwelt a long time. Chapter XXV Canute lays Claim to Norway For the first nine or ten years of his reign, Canute remained in England, only occasionally going over to Denmark to see that all was going on well there. He spent this time in bringing back the English nation to obedience to their own laws, the old laws of Edgar, for the first time insisting that, as parts of the same nation, Dane and Englishman were alike before the law and that no difference should be made between them. He repaired throughout England the churches and monasteries that had been injured or destroyed by the wars of his father and himself, and at all places where he had fought he erected churches in which prayers should be offered for those who had been slain. A very splendid monastery was built by him at the town since called Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, at the place where lay the remains of Edmund, slain by the Danes in 870, who was called King Edmund the Martyr; parts of this monastery, at one time the richest in England, remain to this day. It was little dreamed by Canute that at this monastery the nobles of England would in aftertimes meet to consider how they might wring their country’s liberties from an English king. It was at Bury St Edmunds that Magna Charta was drawn up and signed by the barons in 1214.[42] Besides these benefactions, his queen, Emma, suggested to him that he should bestow rich alms on Winchester, the old capital of the English, where was one of the finest cathedrals. Here he gave so largely that the quantity of precious stones and valuable metals dazzled the eyes of strangers. Emma seems to have thought that if her husband gave his money in alms he would be the less likely to go on foreign expeditions; but all the time Canute was planning immense undertakings to extend his power in the North of Europe. He grew tired of the peace that was so grateful to his subjects; but on this occasion, instead of bringing fresh incursions of foreigners into England, he designed to add Sweden and Norway by English arms to his possessions in England and Denmark. He thought the time a good one