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Death and succession

Cnut died on 12 November 1035 in Shaftesbury, Dorset. In Denmark, he was succeeded by Harthacnut, reigning as Cnut III, although with a war in Scandinavia against Magnus I of Norway, Harthacnut was "forsaken because he was too long in Denmark". His mother Queen Emma, previously resident at Winchester with some of her son's housecarls, was made to flee to Bruges in Flanders, under pressure from supporters of Cnut's other son, after Svein, by Ælfgifu of Northampton: Harold Harefoot – regent in England 1035–37 (who went on to claim the English throne in 1037, reigning until his death in 1040). Eventual peace in Scandinavia left Harthacnut free to claim the throne himself in 1040 and to regain for his mother her place. He brought the crowns of Denmark and England together again until his death in 1042. Denmark fell into a period of disorder with a power struggle between the pretender to the throne Sweyn Estridsson, son of Ulf, and the Norwegian king, until the death of Magnus in 1047.

If the sons of Cnut had not died within a decade of his death, and if his only known daughter Gunhilda, who was to marry Conrad II's son Henry III eight months after his death, had not died in Italy before she could become empress consort, Cnut's reign might well have been the foundation for a complete political union between England and Scandinavia, a North Sea Empire with blood ties to the Holy Roman Empire.