The Danes hailed his son Canute, a lad of eighteen, as king, but many of the English, though they had submitted to a hard-handed conqueror like Sweyn, were not prepared to be handed over like slaves to his untried successor.
But the colonists rallied, and cut to pieces a great Irish army at Athenry (1316), while in the next year Roger Mortimer, a hard-handed baron of the Welsh march, crossed with reinforcements and drove back Edward Bruce into the north.
No worthy successor could be foundEngland had many hard-handed soldiers but no more statesmen of Bedfords calibre.
But the obstinate and hard-handed Warwick beat them down again and again, and the old Lancastrian party was Battle of almost exterminated when the last of its chiefs went Hexham.
