Harthacnut (c1018 - 1042). Harthacnut, sometimes referred to as Canute III, was King of Denmark from 1035 to 1042 and King of England from 1040 to 1042. He was the son of King Cnut the Great and Emma of Normandy. When Cnut died in 1035, Harthacnut struggled to retain his father's possessions. Magnus I took control of Norway, but Harthacnut succeeded as King of Denmark and became King of England in 1040 after the death of his half-brother Harold Harefoot. Harthacnut died suddenly in 1042 and was succeeded by Magnus in Denmark and Edward the Confessor in England. Harthacnut was the last Scandinavian to rule England. Harthacnut was born shortly after the marriage of his parents in July or August 1017. Cnut had put aside his first wife Aelfgifu of Northampton to marry Emma, and according to the Encomium Emmae Reginae, a book she inspired many years later, Cnut agreed that any sons of their marriage should take precedence over the sons of his first marriage. In 1023, Emma and Harthacnut played a leading role in the translation of the body of the martyr St Aeelfheah from London to Canterbury, an occasion seen by Harthacnut's biographer, Ian Howard, as recognition of his position as Cnut's heir in England. In the 1020s Denmark was threatened by Norway and Sweden, and in 1026 Cnut decided to strengthen its defences by bringing over his eight-year-old son to be the future king under a council headed by his brother-in-law, Earl Ulf. However, Ulf alienated Cnut by getting the Danish provinces to acknowledge Harthacnut as king without reference to Cnut's overall authority and by failing to take vigorous measures to meet Norwegian and Swedish invasions, instead waiting for Cnut's assistance. In 1027, Cnut arrived with a fleet. He forgave Harthacnut his insubordination in view of his youth but had Ulf murdered. He drove the invaders out of Denmark and established his authority over Norway, returning to England in 1028 and leaving Denmark to be ruled by King Harthacnut. Cnut had left Norway under the rule of Håkon Eiriksson, but he was drowned in 1029, and Cnut appointed his son Svein to rule Norway with the assistance of Aelfgifu, Cnut's first wife and Svein's mother. However, they made themselves unpopular by heavy taxation and favouring Danish advisers over the Norwegian nobles, and when King Magnus I of Norway, the son of the former King of Norway, Olaf, invaded in 1035, they were forced to flee to Harthacnut's court. Harthacnut was a close ally of Svein, but he did not feel his resources were great enough to launch an invasion of Norway, and the half-brothers looked for help from their father, but instead they received news of his death in November 1035. In 1035, Harthacnut succeeded his father on the throne of Denmark as Cnut III. He was unable to come to England in view of the situation in Denmark, and it was agreed that Svein's full brother, Harold Harefoot, should act as regent, with Emma holding Wessex on Harthacnut's behalf. In 1037, Harold was generally accepted as king, Harthacnut being, in the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forsaken because he was too long in Denmark, while Emma fled to Bruges, in Flanders. In 1039, Harthacnut sailed with ten ships to meet his mother in Bruges but delayed an invasion as it was clear Harold was sick and would soon die, which he did in March 1040. Envoys soon crossed the channel to offer Harthacnut the throne. While the general outline of events following Cnut's death are clear, the details are obscure, and historians give differing interpretations. M. K. Lawson in his Dictionary of National Biography article on Harthacnut states that it is unclear whether Harthacnut was to have England as well as Denmark, but it was probably a reflection of a formal arrangement that mints south of the Thames produced silver pennies in his name, while those to the north were almost all Harold's. There might have been a division of the kingdom if Harthacnut had appeared straight away. He probably stayed in Denmark because of the threat from Magnus of Norway, but they eventually made a treaty by which if either died without an heir, his kingdom would go to the other, and this may have freed Harthacnut to pursue his claim to England. According to Ian Howard, Harthacnut agreed to help Svein recover Norway and planned an invasion in 1036. Svein died shortly before it was to set out, but Harthacnut proceeded anyway. War was avoided by the treaty between Harthacnut and Magnus, which Harthacnut agreed to because he had no plausible candidate to rule Norway after Svein's death, and he was in any case temperamentally inclined to avoid campaigns and wars. Howard dates the treaty to 1036, whereas other historians date it to 1039 and believe it freed Harthacnut to launch an invasion of England. Exiled in Bruges, Emma plotted to gain the English throne for her son.