Cnut, King of England, Denmark, Norway, and Poland?

How can we get Cnut the Great to have all his OTL titles, plus the title of King of Poland, with at least the borders of that state at the end of the reign of Boleslaw I?

Further on, is there any way for such an Empire of Cnut, ruling the entire coast of the North Sea and into Sweden and Poland, to last at least a century?
 
How exactly do you intend to have Cnut become King of Poland? I'm not sure that he could stroll in and conquer it as he did England and was Poland an elective monarchy in that era? If you want Poland to be "at least as big as it was at the end of Boleslaw I's reign" then you're setting Boleslaw up to have been a strong King like OTL - this means even under if Poland was elective then, they're going to favour electing one of his family to continue the dynasty.

I'm always interested in Personal Unions, especially unusual combinations, but I'm not exactly sure how this one would come together realistically.
 
How exactly do you intend to have Cnut become King of Poland? I'm not sure that he could stroll in and conquer it as he did England and was Poland an elective monarchy in that era? If you want Poland to be "at least as big as it was at the end of Boleslaw I's reign" then you're setting Boleslaw up to have been a strong King like OTL - this means even under if Poland was elective then, they're going to favour electing one of his family to continue the dynasty.

I'm always interested in Personal Unions, especially unusual combinations, but I'm not exactly sure how this one would come together realistically.

Well, the idea is that Cnut and Boleslaw are relatives (From what I read, Cnut was a grandson of Mieszko I).
 
How exactly do you intend to have Cnut become King of Poland? I'm not sure that he could stroll in and conquer it as he did England and was Poland an elective monarchy in that era? If you want Poland to be "at least as big as it was at the end of Boleslaw I's reign" then you're setting Boleslaw up to have been a strong King like OTL - this means even under if Poland was elective then, they're going to favour electing one of his family to continue the dynasty.

I'm always interested in Personal Unions, especially unusual combinations, but I'm not exactly sure how this one would come together realistically.

Cnut was descended from a polish princess apparently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigrid_the_Haughty

She was daughter of Miezko I of Poland.
 
I don't think Poland was an elective monarchy at the time. That came about after the Union of Lublin in 1569, IIRC. I may be wrong about that.

Maybe there's some turmoil in Poland (a succession crisis?) and Cnut sees a chance for glory and more land. So he intervenes, and ends up winning the whole thing. God help his heir, though. That collection of kingdoms is not holding together past Cnut's death. Maybe not even until Cnut's death. They're just too widely spread out.
 
Anyway, how about for a POD (this is all based on wikipedia information so don't murder me if its wrong), Boleslav the brave dies early ... say fifteen years early in the war with Germany.

Germany sends in a son of one of Boleslav's half brothers (Mieszko, Świętopełk, or Lambert) who he had banished to germany to try and claim the throne. This (maybe false) claimant dukes it out with Boleslav's son Mieszko II Lambert and the pretender wins.

Claims go about that he is false, he becomes unpopular, and Cnut sees a chance and steps in with a side dish of assassination for his enemies and the pretender.

To keep it lasting, I'm not sure.



 
So he intervenes, and ends up winning the whole thing. God help his heir, though. That collection of kingdoms is not holding together past Cnut's death. Maybe not even until Cnut's death. They're just too widely spread out.

I agree. Maybe it would be better if he is somehow able to merely split up his inheritance (this probably requires him having a different load of offspring) but splitting up inheritances wasn't uncommon back then.

These kids all prove capable, and get popular wherever they are. They each probably marry back into the traditional royalty ( so kid who gets Poland tries to find a Piast princess, while the guy who gets England marries a princess from the house of Wessex).

Intermarriages happen on and off, with personal unions popping up now and then between the nations at different points. Then at some point in a couple hundred years, due to a dynastic snag, you get a situation similiar to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with some guy (lets call him Cnut;)) inherits the whole lot in a single go.
 
I agree. Maybe it would be better if he is somehow able to merely split up his inheritance (this probably requires him having a different load of offspring) but splitting up inheritances wasn't uncommon back then.

These kids all prove capable, and get popular wherever they are. They each probably marry back into the traditional royalty ( so kid who gets Poland tries to find a Piast princess, while the guy who gets England marries a princess from the house of Wessex).

Intermarriages happen on and off, with personal unions popping up now and then between the nations at different points. Then at some point in a couple hundred years, due to a dynastic snag, you get a situation similiar to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with some guy (lets call him Cnut;)) inherits the whole lot in a single go.

This sounds like it would work. You'd have to be careful to make sure that the precedent of splitting the inheritance doesn't go too far and ends up fracturing the empire beyond all chance of recovery.
 
Why not just crown him King of the Franks while you're at it?

Why not? And while we're at it, can we make him Holy Roman Emperor and Byzantine Emperor at the same time?:p

Anyway, I'm liking the idea of a Cnut-ian dynasty tying the royal families of Scandinavia, England, and Poland together. But would the Norman Conquest/Failed Conquest screw this up badly in a few decades?
 
This sounds like it would work. You'd have to be careful to make sure that the precedent of splitting the inheritance doesn't go too far and ends up fracturing the empire beyond all chance of recovery.

Maybe make the split less than cordial? A little infighting at the beginning to make each heir at least initially claim that he should have got it all?
 
damn, Cnut the Great! I only though scandinavians and people of scandinavian descent like me knew who he was!

I don't think poland even had a coastline at this point in time. correct me if i'm wrong, but at this time, poland was landlocked, and to their north were the pomeranians and prussians (both still baltic and before germanization).

Cnut's heir would certainly have to be made of sterner stuff than OTL to hold together that kind of a nation for at least a century.
 
damn, Cnut the Great! I only though scandinavians and people of scandinavian descent like me knew who he was!

I don't think poland even had a coastline at this point in time. correct me if i'm wrong, but at this time, poland was landlocked, and to their north were the pomeranians and prussians (both still baltic and before germanization).

Cnut's heir would certainly have to be made of sterner stuff than OTL to hold together that kind of a nation for at least a century.

No, Gdansk/Danzig was Polish under Boleslaw I.

Polska_992_-_1025.png
 
sometimes, it's nice to be corrected.

well, i suppose a military invasion seems a tad too difficult to pull, considering how quickly he expanded in his reign already. i bet his armies wouldnt be too keen on running around poland for years.

succession seems plausible. maybe boleslaw dies earlier, his heir is so horrid that some polish nobles invite cnut to take the country, and with the nobles backing him in a feudal society, the king of poland couldn't really do shit about it. but that would involve military, wouldn't it...

quite the conundrum
 
Top