During his life Olaf Haraldsson the Saint, king of Norway from 1015 to 1030, faced the enmity of Knud the Great, king of England and Denmark, who in 1028 forced him to exile and conquered his reign. In recounting the strife between the two kings, the Norwegian chronicles and the Old Norse sagas side with Olaf, while the Danish sources show some uneasiness caused by Knud's indirect involvement in the martyrdom of his enemy. Thus, in the Danish works the outcome is a difficult and somewhat ambiguous balance between the king who created the Empire of the North and exalted Denmark above all other nations, and the one who, after his canonization in 1031, became the most popular and renowned saint in Scandinavia.