The poverty of the crown convinced the nation that this act of violence was become absolutely necessary; and as the loss fell chiefly on the Danes, who had obtained large grants from the late kings, their countrymen, on account of their services in subduing the kingdom, the English were rather pleased to see them reduced to their primitive poverty.

The king's severity also towards his mother, the queen dowager, though exposed to some more censure, met not with very, general disapprobation.

He had hitherto lived on indifferent terms with that princess; he accused her of neglecting him and his brother during their adverse fortune;[**] he remarked that, as the superior qualities of Canute, and his better treatment of her, had made her entirely indifferent to the memory of Etheldred, she also gave the preference to her children of the second bed, and always regarded Hardicanute as her favorite.
[** Anglia Sacra, vol.i.

p.237] The same reasons had probably made her unpopular in England; and though her benefactions to the monks obtained her the favor of that order, the nation was not, in general, displeased to see her stripped by Edward of immense treasures which she had amassed.

He confined her, during the remainder of her life, in a monastery at Winchester; but carried his rigor against her no farther.