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Harthacnut: The Last Danish King of England, by Ian Howard
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The first biography of one of the most unpopular kings of England whose harsh taxation prompted Lady Godiva's naked protest
- Sales Rank: #3071456 in Books
- Published on: 2008-08-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x .39" w x 6.14" l, .62 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Clear and fascinating, but a bit repetitive at times...
By JPS
This is a clear, short and interesting book on a little know character - Harthacnut, one of the sons of Cnut - who was indeed the Last Danish King of England but only effectively ruled for about two years from 1040-1042 and died aged 24, possibly of tuberculosis.
The book is written in a clear style and everything is done, including the provision of maps and illustrations to which the author refers to in his narrative, to make this book entertaining and interesting for a general reader. I found that the effort was mostly successful, with the exception of one element, which might be due to poor editing: the story told by Ian Howard tends to be repetitive. Sometimes, especially when these repetitions occur on the very same page, this tends to become annoying. More generally, it almost seems as if the author felt obliged to rehash the same points over and over again just to make sure that he has not lost us "dumb readers" along the way.
Having mentioned this, this book has a number of significant qualities, which, because it is so unprepossessing, you might not even realize at first. Rather than being a "biography" of Harthacnut, of which we know comparatively little, it is the story of the life and times of this character and of his parents - King Knut and Emma. Through this little book, you are treated with an eminently readable and summarized account of the history of England and Denmark from about 1014 to 1042. There is also more to it. This little book contains a very useful and clear presentation of international relations between the Scandinavian Kingdoms (Norway, Denmark and Sweden), the relationships of the first two with England, and the relationships of the second with the German Emperor. It shows both Knut and his son Harthacnut as sharp diplomats who were well aware of their strengths and weaknesses and far from being the typical "savage warlords" that "Viking Kings" are portrayed to be in popular folklore.
Another merit of this book is to identify and emphasize the hugely important role played by power-hungry Emma, daughter, sister and niece of Dukes of Normandy, married to a Saxon and then to a Danish King of England, and mother of two other Kings, one Danish (Harthacnut) and one Saxon but exiled and brought up in Normandy (Edward the Confessor). Both were confronted to, and have to resist the bullying ways and interferences of their formidable mother and this is also something that comes out well in this little book.
Finally, this book fits in rather well with three other books, which together, cover a good half century of history. These are:
- M.K. Lawson's biography on Cnut - The Danes in England in the early Eleventh century (Longman, 1993)
- Harriet O'Brien's Queen Emma and the Vikings (2005) and
- Ian Howard's own Swein Forkbeard's invasions and the Danish conquest of England, 991-1017 (Boydell Press, 2003).
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Enjoyable and clear history of the last Danish king
By Daniel Putman
This is a highly readable and well-written account of the life and times of the last Danish king to rule England. His name is Harthacnut in modern English but is sometimes spelled Harthacanute. The problem with doing any of the very early English kings is limited resource material. Major source material such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the Chronicle of John of Worcester, and the work in praise of Queen Emma (Encomium Emmae Reginae) are sketchy and, even in the parts that are not just brief sketches, as much propaganda and religious proselyting as history. Ian Howard does a great job of carefully reviewing what is available, including work of other historians, and he makes a coherent story line out of this material that gets as close to what actually happened as one can get.
I think what really make this book work are the 38 maps and images lumped together in numerical order and placed in the center of the book. No matter how clear the prose, the early medieval world was so radically different from ours that it would be virtually impossible to follow the family history of Harthacnut without visual representations of England and Scandinavia at that time. Howard has several maps of both areas and has arrows and guidelines showing courses of travel or where important events took place. He usually refers to these in the text by number and they are extremely helpful. He also has images taken from the relevant medieval documents such as the death scene of Harthacnut's half-brother Alfred in the monastery at Ely and Queen Emma pointing to her son Harthacnut as the next king. Howard also lists several lineages which are useful for the reader in following the disputes about who should be king. Each of these visual aids has a paragraph next to it explaining it and tying it into the text. I can't emphasize enough how important these maps, drawings and lineages are. Since Harthacnut spent more time being King of Denmark than England and spent most of his short life working with Scandinavian power struggles, without these maps and lineages, I would have been lost. I wish more biographers of early kings had done the same thing.
Given that Harthacnut was only king for two years, most of the book consists of the family and political background leading up to those years. If I have any criticism at all of the book, it is that Howard sometimes writes, for example, about what Harthacnut was thinking or what Emma was feeling. In fact, the historical motivations of such early characters may be a bit murkier than Howard implies and the inner thoughts and feelings of these medieval people are unknown. These types of interpolations, which do make sense as presented in the book, are clearly there to make the historical narrative coherent and more interesting to the modern reader. Howard is fully aware of this and in several places pauses the narrative to remind us of the limitations of the source material. The historian of the early medieval period has limited choices. One is to have the historical narrative adhere very closely to the extremely sketchy sources in which case the book might be more precise but the history would be filled with gaps and "may have's." The other option is to do what Howard does. Stick closely to the sources and get what is known correct but make these people into living human beings with personal histories strongly implied by the sources. There is no question that the sources point toward fascinating events between 1000 and the death of Harthacnut in 1042 and give us insights into the characters, triumphs and failures of the main characters. What Howard does is put this into a living context for the modern reader. To learn a great deal about the Danish kings of England I highly recommend this book.
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