fell from favour and was outlawed. Following his death in the 1020s, Erik of Hlathir was succeeded as Earl of Northumbria by Siward, whose grandmother, Estrid (married to Úlfr Thorgilsson), was Cnut's sister. Bernicia, the northern part of Northumbria, was theoretically part of Erik and Siward's earldom, but throughout Cnut's reign it effectively remained under the control of the English dynasty based at Bamburgh, which had dominated the area at least since the early 10th century. They served as junior Earls of Bernicia under the titular authority of the Earl of Northumbria. By the 1030s Cnut's direct administration of Wessex had come to an end, with the establishment of an earldom under Godwin, an Englishman from a powerful Sussex family. In general, after initial reliance on his Scandinavian followers in the first years of his reign, Cnut allowed those Anglo-Saxon families of the existing English nobility who had earned his trust to assume rulership of his Earldoms. Affairs to the East At the Battle of Nesjar, in 1016, Olaf Haraldsson won the kingdom of Norway from the Danes. It was at some time after Erik left for England, and on the death of Svein while retreating to Sweden, maybe intent on returning to Norway with reinforcements, that Erik's son Hakon went to join his father and support Cnut in England, too. Cnut's brother Harald may have been at Cnut's coronation, in 1016, returning to Denmark as its king, with part of the fleet, at some point thereafter. It is only certain, though, that there was an entry of his name, alongside Cnut's, in confraternity with Christ Church, Canterbury, in 1018. This is not conclusive, though, for the entry may have been made in Harald's absence, perhaps by the hand of Cnut himself, which means that, while it is usually thought that Harald died in 1018, it is unsure whether he was still alive at this point. Entry of his brother's name in the Canterbury codex may have been Cnut's attempt to make his vengeance for Harald's murder good with the Church. This may have been just a gesture for a soul to be under the protection of God. There is evidence Cnut was in battle with "pirates" in 1018, with his destruction of the crews of thirty ships, although it is unknown if this was off the English or Danish shores. He himself mentions troubles in his 1019 letter (to