Free She Wolves by Elizabeth Norton Page A

the king and Alfifa, ‘Now the hair and the beard of the king are as they were when he died, but it had grown as much as you can see here cut off.’
    Then Alfifa replied, ‘That hair would seem to me a holy relic only if fire does not burn it. We have often seen wholly preserved and undamaged the hair of persons who have lain in the ground longer than this man has.’
    Thereupon the bishop had fire put in the censer, blessed it, and put incense on it. Then he laid King Olaf’s hair into the fire, and when all the incense was burned, the bishop took the hair out of the fire, and it was not burned. The bishop had the king and the other chieftains view it. Thereupon Alfifa bade them lay the hair into fire that had not been blessed. Then Einar Thambarskelfir bade her be silent and used hard language against her. So then, by the bishop’s pronouncement, the consent of the king, and the judgment of all the people, King Olaf was declared a true saint. 35
    Clearly, Aelfgifu was a tenacious woman and unwilling to admit that she had been beaten. Beaten she was, however and, by 1035, both her and Swein’s positions were untenable and the pair fled back to Denmark as failures. 36 This was, perhaps, the end of Aelfgifu’s ambitions for her eldest son, Swein, who died soon after their expulsion from Norway, leaving her with only one surviving child, Harold, who was living in England.
    Swein’s death was not the only one to rock the royal family in 1035 and that same year Cnut himself died suddenly at Shaftesbury. 37 News of the death must have come as a shock to both of Cnut’s wives, although it appears to have been Emma, perhaps present at Cnut’s deathbed, who acted first. Emma settled in Winchester soon after the death and quickly took possession of Cnut’s treasury, presumably hoping to hold it until her son, Harthacnut, could return from Denmark to claim it. It was at this point that Emma announced that Harthacnut had been named as Cnut’s successor in England, although this was strongly disputed.
    The news of Cnut’s death would have taken longer to reach Aelfgifu in Denmark and she must have been equally shocked at the news. She was probably well aware of Emma’s hopes that Harthacnut would succeed to the throne both Denmark and England and whilst Harthacnut was already established in Denmark, she may have quickly turned to look at England with hopes for the future of her second son, Harold. Certainly with Swein’s death she had little to hold her in Denmark and by the end of the year, at the latest, Aelfgifu had returned to England and been reunited with her son, Harold. Harold Harefoot is a shadowy figure and it is likely that Aelfgifu was the driving force behind his actions following Cnut’s death, just as Emma was behind the actions of her own sons.
    It was certainly Harold who took the initiative and, soon after his father’s death, he went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and demanded to be crowned King of England. 38 It seems likely that Aelfgifu would have been behind this direct attempt to pre-empt Emma but if this was the case, she was to be unsuccessful. The Archbishop, who perhaps had already been approached by Emma, refused to grant Harold the crown. Instead he placed the coronation regalia on the high altar, prohibiting anyone from touching it. This must have been a blow to Aelfgifu’s hopes and both she and Emma had to resign themselves to the succession being decided by the council.
    Emma and Aelfgifu may have been present at the royal council that was held at Oxford and their presence would have contributed to the already tense atmosphere in the kingdom. Both women had certainly been busy rallying their supporters in the months since Cnut’s death and it appears to have been Aelfgifu who was the more successful. At the council it was decided that although Harthacnut was his father’s heir, Harold as the only son of Cnut present in England was to rule England as regent until the return of his