The Children of Edgar (2) – King Edward the Martyr

The Fall of Anglo-Saxon England Part III

No Worse Deed For The English Race Was Done Than This
When King Edgar ‘the Peaceful’ died unexpectedly on 8th July 975 he was survived by his two sons Edward from his first marriage to Æthelflæd ‘Eneda’, the so-called ‘White Duck’, and is younger son Æthelred from his marriage to Queen Ælfthryth. Edgar’s marriage to Ælfthryth had produced two sons, but the eldest Edmund died young in 970 or 971, probably no more then 5 or 6 years of age.

The Wicked Queen Elfrida
by Joseph Martin Kronheim (1868)

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle does not record a succession crisis as such following Edgar’s death, the contemporary Winchester A manuscript merely states that after Edgar’s passing “his son Edward, an ungrown child, succeeded.” However, a monk from Ramsey Abbey named Byrhtferth, writing a Life of Oswald (Vita Oswaldi) between 995-1005, mentions a succession dispute between Edward and Æthelred. This was not unusual in late Anglo Saxon England in which there was not a given right of succession but the most suitable successor would be elected by a royal council consisting of noblemen, ealdormen, and bishops known as the witan, or witenagemot (“meeting of wise men”).

Two factions emerged during this disagreement; Edgar’s widow Ælfthryth, Æthelwold Bishop of Winchester and Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia promoted the young Ælfthryth, probably now around 7 or 8 years of age, while Dunstan the Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelwine Ealdorman of East Anglia and Byrthnoth of Essex argued for Edgar’s eldest son Edward, now around 13 or 14, to succeed to the kingdom.

It would be surprising if a king, such as Edgar, known for his organisational skills, had not made his wishes clear for the succession after his death, yet any such intent is absent from the sources. Our best clue to Edgar’s thinking may be found in the witness lists of royal charters. For example, in the refoundation charter for the New Minster, Winchester, drafted by Bishop Æthelwold in 966, below King Edgar’s and Archbishop Dunstan’s attestations appears the “ætheling Edmund” where he is described as ‘prince, lawful son of the aforesaid king’, then his older half-brother Edward is listed simply as ‘prince born to the same king’ followed by Queen Ælfthryth as ‘the lawful wife of the aforesaid king’. Æthelred is absent as he was probably not yet born.1

Notably, Edward is never referred to ‘ætheling’ in contemporary sources but as simply the ‘king’s son’.2 It has been suggested the reason for this was that Edward was illegitimate as there is no clear evidence that King Edgar was married to Edward’s mother Æthelflæd, who herself is not mentioned in contemporary sources. Edgar’s widow, Ælfthryth argued that as she was the only wife of Edgar that had been consecrated as Queen, at the same time as the king at Bath in 973, her son Æthelred therefore had priority.

However, any succession dispute or disagreement was quickly resolved in a matter of days and illegitimate or not, Edward as the king’s eldest son with the support of Archbishop Dunstan was elected king on 19th July 975. Edward may have won preference simply as the elder son whereas electing Æthelred would have required a long period of regency government. Æthelred was awarded all the lands of the king’s sons.

The Short Reign of King Edward
Edward’s short reign, 975-978, was pretty uneventful and typically receives just a few lines in the history books; it is the dramatic end of his reign that receives the most attention.

The omens were not good for the young king. The Winchester version of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, A manuscript, entry for 975 records that following Edgar’s death his son succeeded to the kingdom “an ungrown child”. The Winchester chronicle continues: “A star appeared in the firmament that wise soothsayers call by the name of ‘comet’ which brought famine over the earth”. According to the Peterborough Chronicle, the E manuscript, the star ‘comet’ appeared immediately after harvest time that same year and adds “the following year a great famine and very manifold disturbances throughout the English race.”

Comet over Anglo Saxon England

A major conflict is not reported during the two rival factions of Edward’s and Æthelred’s supporters at this time. However, the “manifold disturbances” mentioned in the Chronicle appears to reflect certain magnates taking backing lands that they had lost to religious houses during Edgar’s monastic reforms. For year 975 the A manuscript records that “widely and everywhere in Mercia; wise servants of God were scattered” and the Peterborough Chronicle, E manuscript, states “Edward, Edgar’s son, succeeded to the kingdom” then the very next entry continues that Ealdorman Aelfhere (of Mercia) ordered many monastic institutions to be overthrown which king Edgar had earlier ordered bishop Aethelwold to establish. The Worcester Chronicle, D manuscript, displays an identical record as the Peterborough Chronicle for year 975 but with the additional paragraph:

“In his days, because of his [Edward’s] youth, God’s adversaries Ealdorman Aelfhere and many other, impeded the monastic rule, dissolved monasteries and drove away monks, And over again widows were robbed and many wrongs and injustices arose up thereafter, and after it always got much worse.”3

The Chronicle also records that Oslac, the famous earl, (Ealdorman of York) was banished from the English race at this time, yet no reason is given. The Abingdon II Chronicle (C manuscript) records for the year 975 “And then also the valiant man Oslac was driven from the country, over the tossing waves, the gannet's bath, the tumult of the waters, the homeland of the whale; a grey-haired man, wise and skilled in speech, he was bereft of his lands.” The fate of Oslac is somewhat of a mystery, there are doubts whether he was of Scandinavian or Anglo Saxon stock and the reason for his banishment is unknown. Thus, from the Chronicle evidence for the first year of Edward’s reign we see the lands lost to religious houses of Mercia during Edgar’s reforms were recovered by Ælfhere and there was unrest in the north resulting in a coup against Oslac. We might hazard a guess that Oslac continued to support a bid for Æthelred to be king or opposed Ealdorman Aelfhere’s treatment of the monasteries.

Thus, we find some evidence of disturbances in the early part of Edward’s reign but how severe these were is impossible to tell from the Chronicle entries. It may reflect the weakness of a child king that some magnates such as Ealdorman Ælfhere was seemingly adopting a free rein to recover his lands lost to the monasteries under Edgar. The consequence of this is that Edward is often considered to have been anti-monastic.

Edward’s reign seems to have taken a downward turn in 978 when the Peterborough Chronicle (E) records that “All the foremost councillors of the English race fell from an upper floor at Calne, Dunstan alone was left standing up on a beam, and some were very injured there and some did not escape with their life.” This entry is open to speculation that the disaster at Calne likely wiped out several of Edward’s leading supporters on the royal council which seriously weakened his position leaving the young king vulnerable.

The Martyrdom of a King
The very next entry in the Peterborough Chronicle (E) for the year 979 records that Edward was killed and Aethelred succeeded to the kingdom. All other versions of the Chronicle are in agreement that this occurred in 978 but fail to elaborate on events.

The full entry in the Peterborough Chronicle (E) states that Edward was murdered in the evening on 18th March at Corfe gap 4 and they buried him at Wareham without any royal honours, the writer laments “No worse deed for the English race was done than this since they came to this land”. The entry adds Aethelred succeeded to the kingdom and very quickly after was consecrated at Kingston. The next entry in the Peterborough Chronicle (E), year 980, states that “Ealdorman Aelfhere fetched the holy king’s body from Wareham and carried it with great honour to Shaftesbury.”

The route of the 979 translation from Wareham to Shaftesbury 
now a 32-mile pilgrimage route in Dorset named 'St Edward's Way'

An anonymous short Latin poem probably composed in the 990s found in a manuscript composed a little later at Canterbury c.1000, claims that Edward was killed by an act of betrayal of the king’s own people and includes the earliest account of the translation of Edward’s body from Wareham to Shaftesbury.5

The monk of Ramsey named Byrhtferth includes a descriptive account of the murder in his Latin Life of Oswald of Worcester (Vita Oswaldi). Byrhtferth, who gives the murder a biblical slant by comparing Edward’s ordeal to the betrayal of Christ by Judas, telling us that the young king went to visit his half-brother Æthelred at his step-mother Ælfthryth's estate at the Gap of Corfe in the Purbeck Hills in Dorset. Ælfthryth's leading men went to greet Edward while Æthelred stayed inside with his mother. Byrhtferth continues:

“The men, all armed, took hold of Edward. The one on his right-hand side pulled him towards him, as if to give him a kiss, while another grabbed his left side firmly and stabbed him. Edward fell from his horse, dead. His body was taken by his thegns to the house of a poor man, and covered only by a cheap blanket.”

Byrhtferth adds that Edward’s body was hastily buried without the appropriate honours. A year later the body was discovered incorrupt and Ealdorman Ælfhere then arranged the translation to a more fitting, unspecified, burial place.6 Today’s historians generally see no reason to doubt Byrhtferth’s account.

Edward was quickly declared a saint and descriptions of his murder and burial became more elaborate in later versions of the story as his cult grew, yet these accounts seem rather confused over the date. The so-called northern recension of the Chronicle (Worcester D, and Peterborough E, manuscripts) record the murder of Edward immediately followed by Æthelred’s coronation in quick succession in 979 as noted above.

However, a number of Æthelred’s diplomas indicate that his reign began in 978 which concurs with the near contemporary Winchester, A manuscript, of the Chronicle which states the year of his accession was the same year as Edward’s murder. The Abingdon II, C manuscript, concurs with the Winchester Chronicle that it was the same year, then in the following entry states for 979 that Aethelred was consecrated as king 14 days after Easter at Kingston.

The confusion between the Chronicle versions appears to be due to Æthelred’s subsequent accession shortly after Edward’s murder on 18th March 978 and then his formal consecration over a year later on 4th May 979. But why the delay between Æthelred’s accession and consecration?

In his Life of Oswald Byrhtferth tells us that Edward was buried in haste, without ceremony befitting a king which is repeated in the Northern Recension of the Chronicle that adds Edward’s body was buried at Wareham. The treatment of Edward’s body is one of the most shocking aspects of the whole affair. There is no contemporary source that provides a satisfactory explanation for what happened to it. He was an anointed king, as such there was an element of divinity about Anglo Saxon kings, his murder would have been seen as a sin of the highest order and must have sent shockwaves throughout the nation of the English.

One possible explanation for the delay in Æthelred’s consecration is that Archbishop Dunstan refused to anoint him as king until Edward’s body was found and received a proper burial befitting a king. The ceremonial translation of Edward’s relics finally bringing closure to his ordeal.

Later, post-Conquest accounts became more elaborate, however, there is general agreement that a year after the murder Edward’s body was discovered incorrupt, a sign of a sanctity, which the Ealdorman Ælfhere then translated it to more appropriate resting place. Most accounts concur that this translation was to Shaftesbury Abbey but in the Life of Oswald, Byrhtferth does not specify a location.

In addition to the shocking treatment of Edward’s body the other disturbing fact is that the murderer(s) of an Anglo Saxon king of England are never identified in contemporary sources, coupled with the lack of action by the newly crowned king Æthelred to track down and punish his half-brother's killers. Indeed contemporary records are totally blank on this matter.

However later post-Conquest texts lay the blame for Edward’s murder firmly with Queen Ælfthryth and portray her as the archetypical evil step-mother.

Corfe Castle

The Wicked Step-Mother
The late 11-century Passio et Miracula Sancti Eadwardi Regis et Martyris (Passion and Miracles of Saint Edward, King and Martyr) attributed to the prolific hagiographer Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, later of Canterbury, is the earliest account to implicate Queen Ælfthryth in the murder of king Edward, her own step-son.7 Ælfthryth had the most to gain by removing Edward, the barrier preventing her son Æthelred from becoming king; she was destined to be the nation’s prime suspect.

Goscelin’s Passio tells us that Edward went out hunting with some knights and his dogs near a village called Wareham. He purposed to visit his brother Ethelred who was at his mother Ælfthryth’s estate at Corfe some three miles from the village. Edward became separated from the hunting party and was now alone as he approached Corfe.

When Edward arrived at Ælfthryth’s residence he was offered to stay as a guest but he declined and asked for a drink. On taking the drink from the cupbearer who made as if to kiss to him, Edward was pierced in his bowels from behind with a dagger. Being inflicted with a serious wound, he fell from his horse to the ground, lifeless. Goscelin tells us this took place during the season of Lent, on the 15th day before the Kalends of April (18th March).

Ælfthryth ordered her thegns to hide Edward’s body at a blind woman's house that was nearby. They dragged the body by the feet to the house and covered it with straw. The next day, after Edward's body had spent the night at her home, the blind woman's sight had miraculously been restored. On hearing of this miracle Ælfthryth, eager to prevent any potential veneration of her step-son, the next day had Edward’s body moved and hidden in a marshy location.

The next year a column of fire revealed the place where the body was hidden. Men from Wareham recovered Edward’s body from the marsh and brought it to their Church where they buried him at its eastern curtain, on the day of the ides of the month of February (13th February).

Ealdorman Ælfhere became aware that Edward’s body had been found and arranged the translation to a more worthy place. Wilfrida (Wulfthryth) abbess of Wilton was to carry out the ceremony. Edith of Wilton, the sister of Edward himself, and daughter of king Edgar and the same Wilfrida was also present. When the body was removed from the ground and found unharmed without any corruption, Edith ran up and embraced it and conferred many kisses. The body of the martyr was placed on a bier and taken to Shaftesbury where it was buried in the north part of the principal altar with great honour on the twelfth day before the kalends of March (18th February).8

An Unsolved Crime
It must be admitted that there is no contemporary evidence to suggest Ælfthryth was responsible for the slaying of the young king although Edward was murdered when he visited his half-brother Æthelred at her estate at Corfe. What does seem odd is no one was ever held to account for the murder. If it is accepted that Æthelred was too young to be have been directly involved, we cannot present the same defence for his mother Ælfthryth who, if not the murderer herself, must at least have known which of her thegns carried out the deed, yet she took no action against them.

Whereas contemporary sources remained silent with regard to the murderer later medieval chroniclers, following the Passio, had no doubt that Ælfthryth was guilty. By the late-11th century - early 12th century a tradition had grown that the Queen not only planned Edward’s murder but executed it with her own hands.

Early-12th century Anglo-Norman chroniclers followed with accounts that had clearly been influenced by the Passio. Henry of Huntingdon wrote in his Historia Anglorum (History of the English) that he had heard that Ælfthryth personally stabbed her stepson to death while offering him a cup of wine. William of Malmesbury’s further elaborated the story in his chronicle, Gesta Regum Anglorum (the Deeds of the English Kings) again with Queen Ælfthryth as the one who dealt the lethal blow.

As king, Æthelred failed to hunt down the killers of his half-brother - perhaps he was covering for his mother? Indeed, Æthelred directly supported Edward’s rapid elevation to sainthood and his veneration at Shaftesbury promoting his cult into the 11th century; the action of a beloved brother or guilty participant?




Notes & References
1. Richard Abels, Æthelred the Unready: The Failed King, Penguin Monarchs, 2018, p.11.
2. An ætheling (Old English: æþeling) was a prince of the royal dynasty in Anglo-Saxon England who was eligible to become king.
3. Michael Swanton, translator and editor, The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Dent, 1997, p.121.
Swanton notes that this paragraph is peculiar to the Worcester Chronicle (D), which he considers to be in the style of Archbishop Wulfstan.
4. Corfe ‘geate’ = ‘cutting, passage’, relates to a prominent gap in the Purbeck Hills where Corfe Castle stands today. The first stone constructions on the motte was under William the Conqueror, yet archaeological evidence has been found for a large Anglo-Saxon wooden structure that stood on the site before the Norman conquest.
5. Levi Roach, Æthelred the Unready, Yale University Press, 2017, pp.73.
6. Ibid. pp.73-74.
7. In medieval hagiography, a Passion (Latin ‘passio’ = ‘to suffer’) was a written account detailing the execution of a Christian martyr. As Edward was betrayed by fellow Christians he was considered a martyr. It is Edward’s death as a ‘holy innocent’ that earned him sainthood rather than the deeds of his reign (Roach, p.169).
Goscelin’s account is said to be based partly on an earlier account of St Edward which may have been written at Shaftesbury in the early years of the 11th century - Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred the Unready 978-1016, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p168.
8. The Passion of St. Edward, King and Martyr by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, Translated by Ryan Grant, Introduction by Eric Sammons, Saragossa Press, 2020. The Latin text used for Grant’s translation is based on Christine Fell’s analysis of the various manuscripts (Fell, Edward, King and Martyr, University of Leeds,1971).


A Note on the Anglo Saxon Chronicle
The first version of the Chronicle, now lost, was thought to have been created in Wessex during the reign of King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899) with emphasis on the survival of the English nation in the face of Viking invasion. This original, referred to as the ‘Common Stock’, was copied and distributed to monasteries across England in the late 9th century which were then independently updated. Thus, The Anglo Saxon Chronicle does not exist as one singular uniform text but a number of individual texts with a similar core but with considerable local variations.

The Principal manuscripts:
A. The Winchester (or Parker Chronicle) ms
B. The Abingdon I ms – includes the Mercian Register (902-924)
C. The Abingdon II ms – mid-11th century
D. The Worcester ms - mid-11th century (Northern recension)
E. The Peterborough ms (Northern recension)
F. The Canterbury ms (Northern recension) – bilingual version

Notable variations between manuscript versions of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle can be found, for example in the ‘Northern Recension’, as noted above in annals 975-979, which provided the basis for mss D, E and F, was likely produced in the early-11th century at York and said to derive from a copy of the ‘common stock’ with additional material from earlier northern annals.

Mss C,D,E are notable for the anonymous chronicler’s pessimistic account for 983 to 1022 and criticism of Æthelred the Unready and his council that resulted in the Danish conquest of England.

Sources:

- Michael Swanton, translator and editor, The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Dent, 1997, Introduction, pp.xi-xxxv.
- Simon Keynes, ’Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ in M Lapidge, J Blair, S Keynes, D Scragg, editors, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Blackwell Publishing, First Edition, 2001, pp.35-36.

* * *

The Children of Edgar (1) – Edith of Wilton

The Fall of Anglo-Saxon England Part II

The Saint who nearly became Queen
As we have seen in Part I King Edgar the Peaceful had relationships with three women who all bore him children. His marriage status in these liaisons is confused to say the least. According to 12th century chroniclers Edgar’s first child, a son named Edward, was the result of his relationship with Æthelflæd ‘Eneda’ (the White Duck), said to be the daughter of an ealdorman named Ordmær. Edgar is said to have married Æthelflæd while he was king of Mercia 957-959 and she died in the early 960’s shortly after their son Edward was born around 962. Yet Æthelflæd is not found in any contemporary source and is only named in Post-Conquest accounts.

St Edith of Wilton

We find a little more information on Edgar’s second relationship with a woman named Wulfthryth which produced a daughter, Edith (Eadgyth). Mother and daughter later both became Saints. But again, as with Æthelflæd ‘Eneda’, there is confusion over the king’s martial status with Wulfthryth who is often described by historians as the king’s concubine. If Edith was born around 961, as the sources claim, then it is possible it was an extramarital affair during his marriage to Æthelflæd. There is further confusion in the sources if Wulfthryth was actually a member of the religious community of Wilton Abbey at the time she was seduced by the king or was a novice awaiting orders. Whatever her status, Edgar is said to have abducted her and the child Edith was the result. It appears to have been a short term affair as Wulfthryth soon returned to the abbey with her young daughter.

The primary source for the life of St Edith is Goscelin of Saint-Bertin (c.1040-1106), later of St Augustine’s Canterbury, one of the most prolific hagiographers of female saints' lives in 11th century England. Goscelin was born in Flemish Brabant and became a monk of St Bertin's at Saint-Omer before moving to England. He visited English monasteries collecting materials for his work. A century after Edith’s death in 984 Goscelin was at Wilton Abbey serving as a chaplain where he gained much of the material for his Vita S. Edithae (The Life of St. Edith), written between 1078 and 1087, from the abbey’s community which we might therefore expect to be a reasonably accurate account.

However, historian Susan Ridyard, specialising in medieval religion and the history of sainthood, has noted several anomalies in Goscelin’s account between the histographies of William of Malmesbury (c. 1090-c. 1143). In William’s early-12th century Gesta Pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Bishops) he tells us that at the time of her liaison with King Edgar, Wulfthryth was not a nun but a lay girl who had taken the veil in an attempt to thwart the king’s advances. She failed and became pregnant. William adds that Dunstan’s disapproval of the king’s behaviour resulted in the imposition of a seven year penance.

In the Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the English Kings, c.1125) William writes that Edgar’s seduction is of an ‘unnamed virgin dedicated to God’ which resulted in Dunstan imposing a seven year penance on the king. Then, in describing Edgar’s children, William again describes Edith’s mother as a lay girl who took the veil to prevent her being seduced by the king. Here William does not identify Wulfthryth as the ‘unnamed virgin’.

William account appears to follow the seduction story that first appears in the versions of ‘Life of St Dunstan’ by the Canterbury monks Osbern (c.1070-1080) and Eadmer (c.1100-1120). The earlier account of Osbern states that the young woman that the king seduced is an unnamed veiled virgin, whereas in Eadmer’s later account of St Dunstan he writes that she is an unnamed lay girl studying at Wilton who snatched a veil from one of the nuns, presumably to disguise herself as a nun, in order to protect herself from the amorous king.

In contrast in his Life of St Edith Goscelin does not suggest that there was anything improper about Edgar’s relationship with Wulfthryth stating that their ‘indissoluble vows’ could only be broken by her entry into the religious life. The implication here is that Wulfthryth and King Edgar are as good as married as they have taken vows. It is highly unlikely that Goscelin was not aware of the stories concerning King Edgar’s seduction of a nun at Wilton which resulted in their daughter Edith. Ridyard concludes that Goscelin preferred to ignore them. However, it must be noted that, excepting Osbern’s version, the accounts of Edgar’s seduction of a nun at Wilton are later than Goscelin’s writing on Edith.

Goscelin praises the devotion of Cnut, Danish King of England (r.1016 -1035), to St Edith and the enrichment of her tomb with a golden shrine at Wilton Abbey. However, William of Malmesbury is not so complimentary of Cnut who he claims derided St Edith in saying “Surely you do not expect me to believe that any daughter of Edgar’s could be a saint?”1

David Rollason concurs that St Edith’s cult was held in high regard by royalty being patronised by King Cnut with his Queen Emma and also by Queen Edith of Wessex, wife of Edward the Confessor (r.1042-1066).2 It seems likely that Cnut’s involvement with the cult of St Edith at Wilton was to strengthen his association with the West Saxon Royal House, which he had started by marrying Emma, widow of Æthelred the Unready, d.1016. Wilton Abbey clearly held a special place in the heart of Edith of Wessex,  daughter of Earl Godwine and last Anglo-Saxon Queen of England; she was educated there and rebuilt the abbey church in stone at sometime after Swein Forkbeard attacked the settlement of Wilton and burned it to the ground in 1003. It seems likely the abbey, favoured hunting grounds of the Vikings, was damaged during the attack although the abbey is not specifically mentioned in the attack as recorded in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle Canterbury (F) manuscript.

In his Life of St Edith, Goscelin includes the story of King Edward the Martyr’s murder in March 978. Goscelin writes that when the high nobility became aware of King Edward’s murder they declared that his younger half-brother Æthelred was not fit to rule and the throne was offered to Edgar’s daughter Edith of Wilton. Here Goscelin claims that Ælfhere, ealdorman of Mercia, was behind this initiative which is at odds with other sources which regarded the Mercian magnate as one of Æthelred’s foremost supporters. This version of the story is only found in Goscelin’s Life of St Edith, which Ridyard considers highly unlikely to be true. Whatever the truth of the matter, history tells us that Edith did not become Queen of England and spent her whole life at Wilton and even declined the position of abbess of three convents. Goscelin also claims that St Edith became abbess of her beloved abbey at Wilton.

When St Edith died, just 23 years of age, she was buried in an oratory dedicated to St Dionysius (St Denis) that she had built and funded herself. Goscelin claims that Edith’s translation at Wilton was carried out thirteen years after her death, for which St Edith summoned St Dunstan to Wilton to carry out the translation of her body to a shrine in the porticus dedicated to the Archangel Gabriel where miracles soon occurred.3 Edith died in 984, Dunstan died 988. Rollason states that St Edith’s translation was 13 years after her death, that is 997, long after Dunstan’s passing.4 Ridyard concludes that Goscelin either made an error in the date of her translation or the number of years between her death and translation, or it was carried out by another Bishop. Ridyard suspects that the error is due to Goscelin’s over-emphasis of the role of Dunstan in the life of Edith.5

As Goscelin claims his account of the life of Edith is based on oral accounts of the nuns at Wilton, which he visited a century after her death, none are contemporary accounts and seem to be based on muddled memories of the Wilton community.

The Seven Year Penance
Whichever account is the most truthful King Edgar has been remembered as a seducer of nuns. This would offer some explanation as to why St Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury, imposed a strict seven year penance on Edgar, presumably, if we are to believe these stories recorded in Saints’ Lifes, for abducting and seducing Wulfthryth. During this period the king could not wear his crown and was to distribute alms and fast regularly.

The seven year penance would explain why Edgar was not consecrated as king until 973 at a ceremony at Bath Abbey along with his third consort Ælfthryth who he had married in 964 or 965. Ælfthryth was the first 10th century Anglo Saxon woman to be titled Queen (regina). There is no record of an earlier coronation for Edgar. We know more of Ælfthryth than either of Edgar’s first two acquaintances; she was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon and widow of Æthelwold ealdorman of East Anglia, the son and successor of Æthelstan ‘Half King’. The union of Edgar and Ælfthryth produced two sons Edmund ætheling born around 966 and Æthelred around 968. Edmund died young, around 971.

The Cult of Royal Saints
It has been suggested that a possible alternative explanation for Edgar waiting until 973 for his consecration is that in that year he turned 30, significantly the age that bishops of the Anglo-Saxon church in England were generally required to be before episcopal consecration (anointing), the traditional age of Christ when he began his ministry. But generally the age of consecration does not appear to have been an issue for Anglo Saxon kings, for example, both of Edgar’s son Edward and Æthelred were consecrated very young. However for Edgar who was closely associated with Dunstan and the Benedictine Reform movement of the 10th century the age of consecration may have held special reverence.

Anglo Saxon kings and their lineage held a special place in pre-Conquest tradition; it was considered that there was an air of divinity about Anglo Saxon kings, they had been chosen by God, and were anointed with Holy oil putting them on a standing with Holy men. Consequently, the killing of an Anglo Saxon king was not just murder it was a sin of the highest order, a sin against God's anointed, an offence against God. Many murdered Anglo Saxon kings were quickly elevated to sainthood, perhaps the most well known example is Saint Oswald, king of Northumbria, killed and dismembered by the pagan King Penda of Mercia at Maserfelth in 642. The sign of a saint was typically that the body was found incorrupt (undecayed) on translation to a new shrine where miracles occurred. Later kings would richly embellish their shrines.

A cult of Royal saints emerged during the Anglo Saxon era which was a time when there was no formal process of canonization, the church responding to local communities where regional bishops would declare martyrs and confessors as saints. It was not until 993 that the first formal canonization took place when Pope John XV held a papal enquiry prior to declaring Ulrich of Augsburg a saint.

Lanfranc, the first Norman archbishop of Canterbury appointed in 1070, who described himself as the ‘new Englishman’ (novus Anglus), was sceptical of the validity of many of the Anglo Saxon saints, questioning English hagiographical traditions. Shortly after his appointment he began to replace the British Bishops with Norman prelates who began testing the authenticity of native saints' relics resulting in many Royal Saints being removed from liturgical calendars.

In Lanfranc's initial list of festivals for his Monastic Constitution, St Ælfheah (Alphege), former Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred by the Vikings in 1012, was the only Anglo-Saxon saint included, even St Dunstan was omitted. However, Lanfranc overcame his initial scepticism of many Anglo-Saxon saints and seems likely to have commissioned Osbern of Canterbury to write Miracula Dunstani (Miracles of Saint Dunstan, c.1090) after the saint had cured him of a life threatening sickness. Goscelin dedicated his Life of St Edith to Lanfranc, in which he refers to the Norman Archbishop as the ‘most efficacious vicar of St Dunstan’.6

The process of local sanctification was resolved in 1170 when Pope Alexander III declared that the act of canonization belonged exclusively to the Pope.

King Edgar The Saint
Following his death on 8th July 975 at age 32 Edgar’s body was taken to Glastonbury Abbey where his grandfather Edmund I had been buried. Glastonbury held a special association with Dunstan, close advisor and confidante to Edgar, and former abbot of the abbey which had been at the forefront of monastic reforms pushed through by King and Archbishop.

With both his son Edward and daughter Edith venerated as saints it was inevitable that Edgar’s sanctity would be declared at some point. Yet, the only evidence of Edgar’ sanctity is from Glastonbury itself, as a saint he is absent from the Secgan, the 10th century list of Saints’s resting places, and is not mentioned in pre-1100 calendars. It would seem his veneration was limited to Glastonbury. 

William of Malmesbury was employed by Glastonbury in the early 12th century to write the early history of the monastery.7 In his De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (c.1129-35) William noted that abbot Æthelweard, c.1024-53, the penultimate Saxon abbot at Glastonbury, had prepared a reliquary for Edgar’s remains, assuming that by now it would be just dust and bones. On opening Edgar’s tomb in 1052 the abbot found the body incorrupt, a sign of sanctity. As the reliquary was too small to accommodate the whole body Æthelweard carved up the corpse to make it fit. As he cut into the corpse blood began to flow, which was also regarded as a sign of sanctity. Miracles were later witnessed at Edgar’s shrine above the High Altar in the abbey church were it remained until the Dissolution in the 16th century.8 The outcome for abbot Æthelweard was not so pleasant, he is said to have gone mad for his harsh treatment of the saint’s body. Soon afterwards he fell as he left the church and broke his neck.9

Notes & References:
1. Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp.42-44.
2. David Rollason, Saints and Relics in Anglo Saxon England, Basil Blackwell, 1989, p.140.
3. John Crook, English Medieval Shrines, The Boydell Press, 2011, p.95.
4. David Rollason, Saints and Relics, p.140.
5. Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints, pp.40-41.
6. John Crook, English Medieval Shrines, p.118.
7. John Scott, The Early History of Glastonbury Abbey: An Edition, Translation, and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, Boydell Press, 1981, pp.134-5.
8.  David Rollason, Saints and Relics, pp.140-41.
9. James P Carley, Glastonbury Abbey: The Holy House at the Head of the Moors Adventurous, Gothic Image, 1996, p.13.

* * *

The Fall of Anglo Saxon England

Part I: The Calm Before the Storm

Beyond Brunanburh
In the autumn of AD 937 Æthelstan, king of the English, with his half-brother Edmund, led the men of Wessex and Mercia into battle against an invading alliance led by Olaf Guthfrithson, Viking King of Dublin, Constantine II, King of the Scots and Owen, King of Strathclyde. Olaf had invaded Northumbria allied with Constantine II of Scotland. They marched south and took control of York and Scandinavian settlements in the Midlands forcing a confrontation with Æthelstan. The battle of Brunanburh was fought at an unknown location, probably Bromborough on the Wirral, lasting from dawn to dusk. It is remembered as one of the bloodiest conflicts in early Medieval history. Thousands fell that day, including Owen of Strathclyde, four Scandinavian kings, two of Æthelstan’s cousins Alfric and Ethelwin, and seven Northumbrian earls. 

Was the battle of Brunanburh fought on the Wirral

The outcome was a resounding victory for Æthelstan unifying England, bringing Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, Northumbria and Wales together as one kingdom and established Æthelstan as superior king over Strahclyde and Scotland. The battle also arrested the Viking threat with the Anglo Saxons recovering lands ceded to the Norsemen in the Danelaw by Æthelstan’s grandfather Alfred the Great and recovered to the south of the Humber by his father Edward the Elder and his foster-mother Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians.

But the victory was short-lived; two years later Æthelstan was dead and Olaf Guthfrithson, who was defeated at Brunanburh, was back in York. Olaf built an alliance with the Scots, the Vikings from Dublin and the Western Isles and settlers from the Danelaw. He went on to recapture the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, and Stamford, which effectively pushed the boundaries of Wessex back to where they had been two decades previously. Olaf then campaigned against Bernicia in the north and reopened trade routes between Scotland and York. 

By 941 Olaf Guthfrithson was dead and his cousin Olaf Cuaran king of York, a position he had held previously as a child. Within a year Cuaran had lost the Five Boroughs to King Edmund I, half-brother of Æthelstan and the eldest son of King Edward the Elder and his third wife, Queen Eadgifu. Edmund then retook York in 944 and Cuaran initially fled to Strathclyde but ended up in Ireland where he was proclaimed King of the Vikings in Dublin where he then reigned for the next 35 years.

Control of York was again open to challengers when Edmund died suddenly in 946 at the age of 24. The seat was offered to Eirik Bloodaxe, the former Norwegian king, now in exile in Orkney. Bloodaxe’s assertion was that he was the rightful heir and claimed that Æthelstan had promised him the kingship of York. Proving unpopular Bloodaxe was driven out by the people of York in 948 with Olaf Cuaran returning but he was also forced to abdicate after a coup in 952.

Excavations at Coppergate, Viking York 

Eirik Bloodaxe was suspected of having a hand in the plot to oust Cuaran and sure enough he returned as king of York for the second time. Yet his days were numbered when his most powerful supporter Archbishop Wulfstan was captured by the English. In 954 Bloodaxe was driven out of York for the last time as the result of a coup lead by Oswulf of Bamburgh, ealdorman of the Northumbrian Anglo Saxons. After leaving York, Bloodaxe made his way north and was ambushed and killed at Stainmore, a remote pass on the old Roman road (modern A66) north from York to Penrith. The death of Eirik Bloodaxe finally marked the end of the York-Dublin axis and the last of the family of Ivar the Boneless, the Uí Ímair dynasty, to hold Royal power in York.

Edmund’s death on 26 May 946 is somewhat of a mystery. According to John of Worcester Edmund was stabbed to death while attempting to protect his seneschal from an attack at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire, others claim he was the victim of a political assassination. He was buried at Glastonbury Abbey by Dunstan who he had appointed as abbot. Edmund had two sons, Eadwig and Edgar, from his first wife Ælfgifu, both minors at the time of his death, so Edmund’s younger brother Eadred took the throne. 

Eadred was a strong supporter of English Benedictine Reform under the influence of Dunstan and Æthelwold, Abbot of Abingdon. Dunstan became close to the king and was one of his most trusted advisers and as Eadred became ill towards the end of his reign more responsibility was passed to Dunstan. Eadred’s illness worsened and he passed way on 23rd November 955 age 32. He was succeeded by his nephew Eadwig, eldest son of Edmund I.

Eadwig (or Edwy) came to the throne at about 15 years of age. Eadwig has been remembered for the tale found in the Life of St Dunstan of his coronation when he slipped away from the ceremony at Kingston on Thames and was discovered by Dunstan, then abbot of Glastonbury, in bed with two women, said to be a mother and her daughter. Dunstan dragged him back to the coronation ceremony. Eadwig is said to have married the younger woman Aelfgifu, but it was her mother who was responsible for getting Dunstan banished. 

St Dunstan and the Devil

With Dunstan in exile in Flanders Eadwig gained a reputation as the enemy of the monasteries after transferring much land away from them and giving it to his favourites. Mid-way through his reign in 957 the country was divided between Eadwig, south of the Thames (Wessex), and his younger brother Edgar, who controlled the land north of the river (Mercia and Northumbria). After a short reign Eadwig died on 1st October 959 while still a teenager and the whole kingdom came under Edgar’s rule. Sudden, mysterious deaths of unpopular monarchs and young princes in-line-to-the-throne can be found throughout Medieval history and not unique to Anglo Saxon England; Eadwig’s sudden death at a young age is no exception and looks suspiciously like he was removed from power. Edgar was immediately accepted as king of all England.

Peace and Unity
Edgar ‘the Peaceful’, younger son of Edmund I, and a great-grandson of Alfred the Great, became the first king of a united England in 959 and reigned until 975. Prior to Edgar’s reign the country had been subject to Viking incursions for almost two centuries but there were none during his reign, a period of peace and unity, described by some commentators as a Golden Age. Immediately on his accession Edgar brought Dunstan back from exile and appointed him Bishop of Worcester and then London. Dunstan was soon elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury, receiving his pallium from Pope John XII in Rome in 960. With the support of the king, Dunstan restored monastic life in England and reformed the English Church. 

Edgar and his wife Ælfthryth were consecrated king and queen at Bath Abbey on 11th May 973. There is no record of Edgar being crowned earlier in his reign, indeed the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been interpreted as if it was his first coronation. Ælfthryth was Edgar's third wife after they married in 964 they had two sons, Edmund, who died young, and Æthelred. After the ceremony at Bath Edgar had his army march north along the Welsh border to Chester while he sailed around the coast of Wales with a massive fleet through the Irish Sea into the mouth of the River Dee. No doubt this was a show of military strength to the Welsh, the Vikings in Ireland, Man and the Western Isles.

King Edgar rowed down the River Dee

The story goes that when Edgar arrived at Chester he was rowed down the river Dee in the Royal barge by eight tributary sub-kings from Scotland, Cumbria and Wales, with Edgar at the helm. The barge was rowed down the river Dee to the monastery of St. John the Baptist then returned to Chester. This event is doubted today, it being argued that Edgar was probably rowed by regular boatmen not sub-kings. Some even question if it happened at all, with suspicions that the tale was invented by later chroniclers to demonstrate Norman supremacy over Scotland and Wales by capturing the Anglo Saxon throne.

The number of ships claimed to be in Edgar’s fleet varies between several hundred and several thousand. The highest figure is supplied by the 12th century chronicler John of Worcester who claims this massive fleet had three divisions of 1,200 ships each, stationed in the east, west and north. Every year the fleet would circumnavigate the island as a display of the King’s naval strength. These figures are doubted by today’s historians who argue that such a large fleet was impossible to maintain both financially and logistically in 10th century Anglo Saxon England. However, even allowing for 12th century propaganda of exaggeration Edgar almost certainly had a large naval force at his disposal which was a deterrent to Viking coastal raids which had ceased during his reign.

The Viking Domesday stone: does this 9th-century grave marker
found at Lindisfarne depict the Viking raid of 793

The Martyr and the Comet
Two years after the ceremony at Chester the so-called “Golden Age” of Anglo Saxon England ended with Edgar’s death at the age of 32 on 8th July 975. He was buried at Glastonbury Abbey like his father Edmund I. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records that a comet was seen in the autumn sky after Edgar’s death. To the superstitious Anglo Saxons comets were generally regarded as harbingers of doom and signalled the country’s fortunes would change following Edgar’s death. And how right they were; sure enough the following year a severe famine swept across England, yet worse was to come.

Edgar is known to have had four children from his three consorts, the eldest Edward (The Martyr) was appointed king which immediately lead to a succession dispute as he was of questionable legitimacy. Before he became king, around 957, Edgar’s first wife was Æthelflæd Eneda, known as ‘the white duck’, daughter of Ordmær a wealthy landowner from Hertfordshire. Ordmaer had connections with Æthelstan ‘Half King’ who’s wife Ælfwynn fostered Edgar after his mother died. The product of Edgar and Æthelflæd’s liaison was a son named Edward born around 962. Æthelflæd died later that year or the following year.

Edgar’s second wife was Wulfthryth, said to be the daughter of a Wessex nobleman. This marriage produced a daughter named St Edith who became a nun at Wilton Abbey, her mother Wulfthryth joined her and became Abbess at Wilton around 965. It appears Edgar relationship with Wulfthryth  must have been relatively short as he was remarried by 964.

Edgar's third consort was Ælfthryth was daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and the widow of Æthelwold, ealdorman of East Anglia, who had died in 962. Æthelwold was son of Æthelstan ‘Half King’, a powerful magnate who was awarded control of the eastern Danelaw by King Æthelstan in the 930s, such was his authority that he was given the epithet ‘Half King’. He was a supporter of Dunstan’s monastic reforms and retired as a monk to Glastonbury Abbey

Edgar and Ælfthryth had two sons, Edmund, and Æthelred (The Unready) who was probably born in 968. The Chronicle records that Edmund died young in 971 being buried at Romsey Abbey. As we have seen above Edgar and Ælfthryth were consecrated King and Queen  at Bath in 973, the first Anglo Saxon woman to be designated such, a position which Ælfthryth used in her argument that her surviving son Æthelred was the rightful heir to the throne following Edgar’s death as his first two wives had never been consecrated as Queen.

Corfe Castle: The site of Edward's murder?

Historians question if Edgar had married his first or second consorts, often described as no more than brief, temporary liaisons. Indeed, an 11th century story included in Osbern’s Life of St Dunstan claims Edward was the result of Edgar seducing a nun from Wilton Abbey. Osbern, or his source, seems to have confused the tale of Edgar’s first child Edward with his second, Edith of Wilton, daughter of Wulfthryth who, as one tale claims, the king abducted her from Wilton Abbey. It is uncertain whether Wulfthryth was the king’s wife or mistress, yet after her brief liaison with the king she returned to the abbey with her daughter Edith, where she became abbess and later both venerated as saints.

Two factions now emerged for succession of the King. Edgar’s widow Ælfthryth, Æthelwold Bishop of Winchester and Ælfhere ealdorman of Mercia promoted the young Æthelred, probably now about 8 years of age, while Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelwine ealdorman of East Anglia and Byrthnoth of Essex argued for the eldest son Edward, now around 13.

It is hard to believe that a king such as Edgar did not make provision for his succession after his death. In charters we find the witness signatures of the æthelings in the order Edmund, Æthelred, then Edward as if this was how Edgar regarded the line of succession. As Edmund died young this put Æthelred in line to succeed the king with the legitimacy of Edward being questioned. Ælfthryth argued that out of all three of Edgar’s consorts only she had been consecrated Queen therefore her son Æthelred was first in line. However, on the other hand it is unlikely that Dunstan would promote Edward’s claim if he was illegitimate and Edgar’s eldest son Edward was appointed king in 975.

Tomb of Edward the Martyr, Shaftesbury

Edward’s reign was a short three years, on 18 March 978 he was murdered at the Gap of Corfe at the age of 16, his body hurriedly buried in a shallow grave at Wareham. Suspicion points at his step-mother Ælfthryth being complicit in the young king’s death, after all Corfe was part of her estate. Owing to his young age Æthelred almost certainly did not participate in the murder of his elder half-brother but his thegns may have acted in what they thought was restoring his birthright. A year later Edward the Martyr was reburied at Shaftesbury Abbey and recognised as a saint. His half-brother Æthelred promoted the cult.

Subsequently Æthelred became king and reigned from March 978. His name Æthelred meant in Old English, Æðel (noble) and ræd (counsel), yet the chroniclers gave him the epithet "Unready" or "Unræd" a pun on his name meaning ‘bad counsel’. Æthelred (II) was King of the English to December 1013 and after a short period in exile returned to the throne from February 1014 until his death on 23 April 1016. History has perhaps been unduly harsh on Æthelred, these were extremely testing times for any monarch; shortly after Æthelred’s accession the Vikings returned to the shores of England.

* * *

Æthelflæd - Lady of the Mercians, A Talk at Stafford

Wednesday 16th September, 1.30pm @ Stafford Library

This free talk will focus on the remarkable life of Æthelflæd, the only woman ruler of an Anglo Saxon Kingdom, and Stafford's role in the fight against the Vikings.

Æthelflæd ruled as Lady of the Mercians in the English Midlands from 911 until her death at Tamworth on 12th June 918. 

Born c. 870 during the turbulent period of raids by the Danes deep into Anglo-Saxon England, she was the eldest child of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex.

With her husband Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, she was instrumental in recovering Mercia beyond the Danelaw frontier by establishing a series of fortified burhs throughout the Midlands. After Æthelred’s death in 911, the year after the battle of Tettenhall, Æthelflæd ruled alone as the Lady of the Mercians, Queen in all but name.

From 911 Æthelflæd continued to establish burhs on the West Mercian boundary at Scergeat,  Bridgnorth, Eddisbury, Warwick, Chirbury, Weardbyrig, Runcorn.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle records for the year “913 - Æthelflæd went with all the Mercians to Tamworth and built the burh there, afterwards before Lammas built the fortress at Stafford.”

Commemoration
Outside Tamworth castle is a grand 6m tall column mounted with a statue of Æthelflæd with her nephew Æthelstan, first king of all England. Yet at Stafford, which also functioned as a vital Mercian burh at this time, all we have is a simple round white plaque commemorating the 1100th anniversary of the foundation of Stafford in 913. Is it not time the local authorities showed their pride in Stafford’s history and commissioned a proper statue of Æthelflæd in memory of her foundation of the county town?

See: Æthelflæd & Vikings – a series of articles celebrating the 1100th anniversary of the foundation of Stafford in 913 and the death of Æthelflæd the last Queen of the Mercians.

* * *

 

The Ghosts of Avalon

The Battle of Camlan according to Geoffrey of Monmouth:

While King Arthur is on campaign against the Romans in Gaul he entrusted the governance of Britain to Mordred. Mordred took the crown for himself and was living adulterously and out of wedlock with Queen Guinevere, who had broken the vows of her marriage. In his own words, Geoffrey prefers to say nothing further on this matter, however he does describe the battle which King Arthur fought against his treacherous nephew. Geoffrey says he heard this from Walter of Oxford, the man he claims gave him a certain ancient book in the British tongue that he translated into Latin for his ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ (Historia Regum Britanniae, c.1138).

Gallos, Tintagel

Geoffrey’s story continues: On hearing of Mordred’s usurpation Arthur quickly set sail for Britain. Mordred inflicted great slaughter on Arthur's army as they attempted to land at Richborough in Kent. Auguselus, The King of Albany and Gawain, the King's nephew, were among those that perished that day. Eventually Arthur's men secured landfall and forced Mordred's army to flee.

Mordred's army regrouped and marched on Winchester the following night. On hearing this Queen Guinevere fled from York to the City of the Legions (Caerleon) and took the vows of the nuns at the church of Julius the Martyr and promised to lead a chaste life.

After burying his dead soldiers on the third day after landing Arthur marched on Winchester and besieged his nephew Mordred who had taken refuge there. Mordred refused to abandon his plans and pitched battle ensued with his uncle, the King. Having suffered heavy losses Mordred once again fled from the battlefield and made for Cornwall by ship.

Arthur followed him to the River Camblam where Mordred’s forces  was waiting for him. Mordred drew his men into battle order, now determined to either win or die. Mordred still had sixty thousand men under his command from which he mustered six divisions. In each he placed six thousand, six hundred and sixty six armed men. From the remainder he formed one single division which he placed under his own command, having assigned leaders to each of the others.

Arthur was also marshalling his army. He divided his men into nine divisions of infantry, each drawn up in a square, with a right and left wing, appointing a commander to each.

Combat commenced with great slaughter on both sides. Arthur with a single division of 6,666 men charged at the squadron where he knew Mordred was. They hacked their way through with their swords as Arthur continued to advance, inflicting terrible slaughter as he went. At this point Mordred was killed and many thousands of his men with him.

The others in Mordred's army did not flee but carried on fighting and massed together under their leaders to stand their ground. Arthur himself was mortally wounded and was carried off to the isle of Avalon, so that his wounds might be attended to. He handed the crown of Britain to his cousin Constantine, the son of Cador Duke of Cornwall, this in the year 542.1

*

And so Arthur enigmatically disappears from Geoffrey's Historia as mysteriously as his arrived; from his conception at Tintagel, as a result of the magic arts of Merlin, to his mortal wounding at Camlan, Geoffrey gives Arthur a mythical dimension and created an immortal national hero. 

Later Geoffrey elaborated on the death of Arthur in his poem Vita Merlini (c.1151), in which the King is taken to a mystical Otherworld island paradise the 'Island of Apples' which he undoubtedly meant to be the same place as the 'Isle of Avalon' of his main history, to be healed of his wounds by his kinswoman Morgan where she lives with her sisters. But in this later poem Geoffrey does not actually name Avalon. Thus, Arthur disappears to this mysterious island, mortally wounded but there is no grave for Arthur.

The River Camel
Clearly Geoffrey has taken the name of the third and final battle between Arthur and Mordred from  the 10th century Welsh Annals (Annales Cambriae) which recorded the battle in which Arthur and Mordred fell in the year AD 537. Geoffrey placed Camlann on the River Camblam in Cornwall where both Arthur and Mordred perished in this most savage conflict. 

Camlann entry in Annales Cambriae

The chronicle entry in the Welsh Annals merely states “The battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell: and there was plague in Britain and Ireland”. Any further elaboration is due entirely to Geoffrey’s imagination and his ability as a creative writer to embellish snippets of history with fantastic stories. From the entry in the Welsh Annals we cannot even be certain that Arthur and Mordred were on opposing sides, let alone in a love triangle involving Arthur’s queen.

No doubt drawn by the name of the river Camel in Cornwall this place was identified by antiquarians and historians long ago as the site imagined by Geoffrey to be Camblam. This is perhaps unsurprising as in his Historia Geoffrey provides Arthur with a close connection to Cornwall: he is named in the Prophecies of Merlin (Book VII of the Historia) as the Boar of Cornwall; he is conceived at Tintagel by Merlin’s magic arts; Cador, Duke of Cornwall, was his trustiest adviser who was also father of Arthur's chosen heir and cousin Constantine; his mother Ingerna was Duchess of Cornwall; and his wife Ganhumara (Guinevere) was said to be of Roman stock and raised in Cornwall by Cador. And then Geoffrey’s story turns full circle and Arthur is mortally wounded in Cornwall at the river Camblan only a few miles from the place of his conception.2   

According to local legend the battle took place on the River Camel at a place today named Slaughterbridge, Camelford, presumably in memory of the carnage. Nearby, on the bank of the River Camel at the water’s edge lies an ancient stone known as King Arthur Stone, or Arthur’s Tomb, first recorded by the Cornish antiquarian Richard Carew in 1602. The stone was recorded in the 18th century as having been used as a footbridge at Worthyvale from where it was removed and placed in its present location as a feature in Lady Falmouth’s secret garden. Today this stone is registered as an ancient scheduled monument and currently included on the at risk register owing to its location on the river bank where it is susceptible to water damage from high water levels.

The 3m long stone has survived in remarkably good condition with its inscription apparently complete. The main inscription is in Latin and there is also an Ogham script on one side making it one of only six such memorial stones in south west England. The Ogham inscription, first recorded in 1875, occurs on Christian monuments of the 5th - 6th centuries AD. The use of inscriptions in both Latin and Ogham, and the formula employed in the Latin inscription combined the style of the lettering suggests a 5th-6th century to 8th century date. 

The Latinus Stone

Back in the early 17th century, no doubt inspired by Geoffrey’s account of the battle of Camlann, Carew claimed the inscription on the stone bore Arthur's name. The final two letters 'M….AR...' has led to interesting theories based on the interpretation as representing 'Magni Arturi', or Arthur the Great.

Lewis Thorpe visited the site in 1960 and describes the stone as having partially defaced lettering in mixed classical and rustic capitals, the letters straggling and irregular. However, Thorpe was still able to decipher the inscription: ‘LATIN. . .IIC IACIT FILIVS M . . . AR. . .’  for which he offers the possible translation: ‘Latinus hic iacet filius Merlini Arturus’.3

Unfortunately, these are both misreadings of the last three letters as this stone has nothing to do with King Arthur. Historic England interpret the Latin inscription as:

`LATINI [H]IC IACIT FILIUS MA. . . RI' = `the body of Latinus lies here, son of Ma'.4

Latinus was possibly an unknown local Celtic chieftain, otherwise unrecorded. Ma was possibly of full name Macari or Macarus, again unknown

However, according to Geoffrey, Arthur was not buried at Camlann, but thereafter taken to Avalon, which may be nearer the battle site than we think.

The First Avalon?
Today this site is part of the themed visitor centre now known as ‘The Vale of Avalon’, formerly the Arthurian Centre, off the B3314, at Slaughterbridge, Cornwall, about 4 miles south-east of Tintagel.5

The Centre hosts an indoor exhibition of Arthuriana and Cornish history with gift shop, but appears to be permanently closed and said to be open only on Heritage Open Days 2026 (*see note 6). The area next to the Centre is known as Camlann – purportedly the legendary site of King Arthur's last battle. 

From the exhibition centre you can walk through the grounds, past the remains of the deserted medieval village, across the battlefield, down to a viewing platform above the river Camel to view the main attraction; the 6th century Arthur Stone lying on the bank close to the water’s edge.

Today the area is known as Worthyvale but the Domesday Book of 1086 record the name of the manor that this site lies on as – GUERDEVALAN. This is a Cornish word derived from the word for "Vale of Apples" and is claimed by the Arthurian Centre as the earliest reference to ‘Avalon’.

However, it need be little more than a reference to an orchard as there is no known mystical association with the place. Certainly this is not the place Geoffrey had in mind for Avalon as he elaborates on the mythical island in the Vita Merlini.

Unsurprisingly, given the purported local connection with Arthurian legend, the Cornish ‘Latinus’ stone is seen as a relic of the battle of Camlann. However, the original location of the stone is unknown; it has clearly been moved from its place of origin. An alternative argument associates the stone with a battle fought in AD 825 at a place called Gafulford, which has been interpreted as an earlier form of the name Camelford. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle simply records for that year "The Westwealas (Cornish Britons) and the Defnas (Men of Devon) fought at Gafulforda" without naming the victors - however it has been suggested that the battle secured the south-west border of Wessex. The date of the battle being close to the dating of the Latin inscription on the Latinus stone.

The site of the battle of Gafulford is unknown. The problem with the ‘Gafulford = Camelford’ proposal is that Camelford is deep in Cornwall and unlikely to be the site of a border conflict with an expanding Wessex. Thus, Galford, near Lewdown in Devon is considered the most likely in the context of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. In conclusion the stone may simply be a memorial unconnected to any battle.

Alas, the Latinus stone has as much to do with Arthur as Camelford has with Camlann and we should reject both in any serious search for Arthur’s last battle.

Notes & References
1. Here I follow Lewis Thorpe’s translation of the Historia Regum Britanniae from Camb. Univ. Libr. MS.1706 as printed by Acton Griscom in 1929]. Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Books, 1966, pp.257-261.
2. O J Padel, CMCS, No 8 Winter 1984, pp.1-29.
3. Thorpe, pp.259-60.
4.  Historic England: An early Christian memorial stone 380m south east of Worthyvale Manor
5. ‘The Vale of Avalon’ formerly the Arthurian Centre, off the B3314, at Slaughterbridge, Cornwall.
6. At the time of posting The Vale of Avalon (The Arthurian Centre), Slaughterbridge, was NOT listed as an event on The Heritage Open Day page (Cornwall). 

* * *

King Arthur in Avalon?

On the Illustrious Arthur
When William of Malmesbury was invited to write the early history of Glastonbury Abbey in 1129 he spent much time searching their library archive and noting the names on memorial stones in the abbey grounds but, rather tellingly, did not record any mention of Arthur’s burial there. In his chronicle the Deeds of the English Kings (Gesta Regum Anglorum, c.1125) William treats Arthur as a historical figure who the Britons still told many fables even in his own day and writes that “The sepulchre of Arthur is no where to be seen, whence ancient ballads fable that he is still to come.” 

After spending time at Glastonbury William made further additions to this chronicle which were published in later editions, this has enabled manuscript scholars such as John Scott1 to detect later interpolations in his original work, [as discussed above in Fake and Forgery at Glastonbury Abbey] but to William the location of Arthur’s grave remained a mystery and he does not associate the legendary king with Glastonbury at all. We have also seen how in the Life of Gildas, c.1130-1150, Caradoc of Llancarfan2 has a stand-off at Glastonbury between Arthur and Melvas, king of the Summer country, who has abducted Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) and held her captive there owing to the natural protection of its reed, river and marsh. Arthur has spent a year searching for his wife then hears she being held at Glastonia. He assembles the whole armies of Cornubia and Dibneria (Latin for Cornwall and Devon) and besieges the glass city and prepares to attack. The abbot of Glastonia and Gildas the Wise manage to obtain peace between the two kings and Gwenhwyfar is released. If we are to locate the two kings from this tale then clearly Arthur is king of Devon and Cornwall, while Mevas is king of Somerset, the land of the Summer People. Therefore we can assert that Caradoc does not locate Arthur at Glastonbury either.

In his De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie (On the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury) William writes chapters on the Saints Gildas, Patrick, Indract, Bridget, Benignus, Columba, David and recounts many more as he lists the relics of saints and nobles deposited at Glastonbury including the translation of St Dunstan from Canterbury before adding a short chapter ‘On the Illustrious Arthur’.3

Here William recalls how we read in the deeds of the most illustrious King Arthur, which is assumed to be a reference to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia which was originally titled De gestis Britonum (The Deeds of the Britons), how Arthur led a youth named Ider, the son of King Nuth, to Frog Mountain (Brent Knoll) to test him in battle against three giants. Ider went on ahead of Arthur without the king knowing and attacked and killed the giants. When he arrived Arthur found Ider lying lifeless and assumed he was dead. Arthur considered himself responsible for the young man’s death so when he returned to Glastonbury he established 80 monks there for his soul, generously granting them lands and gold, silver, chalices and other ecclesiastical ornaments.4

We find another version of this story in John of Glastonbury’s chronicle5 at chapter 33 but in John’s account it is the Mountain of Areynes (Mount of Spiders) in North Wales and Arthur established 24 monks but presented the same gifts of land and gold, silver, chalices and other churchly adornments. John names the lands given to Glastonbury as Brent Marsh and Polden among many others. No one knows the source of Ider’s story but it was clearly derived to explain how Glastonbury acquired the lands around Brent Knoll. If Geoffrey of Monmouth had been aware of the story he surely would have used it as he had a fascination with giants and has several giant-killing episodes in his Historia, but Geoffrey only makes a brief reference to Ider as Hyderus son of Nu (Hiderus filius Nu) in the skirmish of Autun in Arthur’s Gallic campaign.6

In the next chapter of John’s Cronica, chp 34, he mentions a convent of Holy Virgins on Wearyall where Arthur liked to stay and rest. He experiences a dream which involves a ride to the nearby chapel of St Mary at Beckery. The episode is referred to as ‘King Arthur’s Chapel Ride’ and bears a close relationship to a similar episode recorded in the opening section of Perlesvaus, or The High Book of the Holy Grail. In William Nitze’s study of the Perlesvaus he determined that John did not borrow from the Perlesvaus but both accounts derive from a common Latin original.7  We will return to Perlesvaus and its relationship with Glastonbury later. The remains of a chapel at Beckery have been discovered where burials, presumably monks, have been dated to the 5th or early 6th Century AD. Yet no evidence for a nunnery on Wearyall has ever been detected.

Scott states that the source of the story of Ider cannot be determined8 and asserts that it was obviously interpolated after the purported discovery of Arthur’s grave at Glastonbury. He adds that William indicates in Gesta Regum Anglorum that he is interested in authentic history about Arthur and would have no doubt included this story had he known and believed it. Scott dismisses the whole chapter ‘On the Illustrious King Arthur’ as a later interpolation in William’s original work.9

Rachel Bromwich names the youth as Edern mab Nud, a mythical figure, who like his brother Gwynn ap Nudd, he is a euhemerization of a Romano-British deity, Aeternus son of Nodons, who is far less prominent than in Welsh sources than his brother Gwynn ap Nudd, indeed Ider (Edern) is absent from the Triads of the Island of Britain.10 He appears in the so-called 'Arthurian Court List' in Culhwch and Olwen, in The Dream of Rhonabwy leading a group of Danes while serving as an advisor to Arthur, and also in Geraint and Enid. He was well known in Continental Arthurian Romance appearing on the Modena archivolt as Isdernus and Yder fiz Nut in Chretien de Troyes poem Erec et Enide and Yder son of Nuc in the 13th century French Romance. Evidently he was much more widely known in Continental sources than Welsh which supports Scott’s contention that he was a later addition to William’s De Antiquitate.11

Authors and Demons
The 12th century witnessed an explosion of Arthurian literature which had started with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae, c.1136). Geoffrey’s book, which contained the first full biography of the great King Arthur, was an immensely popular and influential work, although some contemporary historians had their doubts. In his Prologue to the Historia Geoffrey states that his work is a translation of a "librum vetustissimum" (a most ancient book), written in the British language and given to him by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. Many doubt this book ever existed and Geoffrey is accused of manufacturing much of his 'history'; he seems to have taken certain elements from historical sources and embellished them with his own tales. Writing at the end of the 12th century William of Newburgh declared that "it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur ….. was made up, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons." 

Another critic of Geoffrey’s work was Gerald of Wales who in his Journey through Wales (Itinerarium Kambrie) tells the story of a Welshman named Meilyr who was immediately aware if someone was lying as he saw a demon dancing on the liar's tongue. He could spot parts in books that were not correct and contained a false statement. On explaining how he did this Meilyr said the devil pointed it out with his finger. When St John’s Gospel was placed on his lap the demons fly off and disappeared. If the Gospel was then removed and Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain put in in its place the demons would return.12

However, Geoffrey’s Historia was widely considered a credible history of Britain until the 16th century yet today is generally considered a work primarily of fiction, little more than a 12th century novel. During his tenure as Abbot Henry of Blois is said to have presented a copy of Geoffrey’s magnum opus to the library at Glastonbury which seems to have influenced certain actions of the monks when the need arose. But significantly Geoffrey did not associate Arthur with Glastonbury, or Glastonbury with Avalon; in his Historia Geoffrey writes that Arthur was carried off to the Isle of Avalon to be cured of his wounds.13 Geoffrey fails to elaborate on Avalon, the only previous mention he makes of it is that he states Arthur’s sword Caliburn was forged there.14 He never mentions Glastonbury in his whole text. 

Some years later Geoffrey returns to this theme in his Life of Merlin (Vita Merlini, c.1155); perhaps he felt the entry in his Historia was all too brief and required further explanation. In this much shorter work Geoffrey does not mention Avalon by name but it is clear he means the same place as he writes of the abode of Morgan and her sisters, where they took Arthur after the battle of Camlann to be cured of his wounds. In the Vita Merlini Geoffrey is clearly referring to the concept of ‘The Elysian Fields’ also known as ‘The Isles of the Blessed’ of Greek mythology located at the end of the earth in the western ocean, an afterlife paradise for those favoured by the gods. Here Geoffrey calls it the ‘Island of Apples which gets it name from the Fortunate Island’.15 Geoffrey is obviously referring to the Celtic version of Elysium, an island of plenty bearing the name for ‘apple tree’ = afallen (Welsh), aball (Irish), aballo (Gaulish). In the Brut y Brenhinedd, the Welsh versions of Geoffrey’s Historia,  the Island of Avalon is rendered as Ynys Afallach, the island of a Deity in some tales referred to as the King of Annwn, the Celtic Otherworld.

Twenty years after Geoffrey’s Historia the Norman poet Wace produced the Roman de Brut, 1155, which largely followed Geoffrey’s story, but introduced new elements such as the Round Table. These early works were known as the Brut tradition, a chronicle on British history starting with Brutus of Troy and ending with the 7th century Welsh king Cadwallon ap Cadfan. The first English version was written by the priest Layamon expanding on Wace’s story.

This followed with an explosion of Arthurian literature in the last quarter of the 12th century ignited by Chretien de Troyes who after writing several Arthurian Romances introduced the Grail to the Arthurian cannon. Chretien left his work on the Grail unfinished which resulted in a multitude of ‘continuations’. Much of this Continental Romance literature focused on the exploits of Arthur’s knights with the king himself relegated to a minor role in the tales.

Glastonbury as Avalon
In conclusion, to writers of the early 12th century, such as Caradoc Llancarfan, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Glastonbury was not associated with the mythical Island of Avalon. Similarly, King Arthur was not attached to Glastonbury living or dead. William of Malmesbury who had studied Glastonbury inside and out could not find any trace of him there and did not include him in his original De Antiquitate as he left it; we can be certain that all Arthurian references in the De Antiquitate are later interpolations.16 Geoffrey of Monmouth does not connect Arthur with Glastonbury in anyway; the King is conceived and falls in Cornwall. Caradoc of Llancarfan has Arthur preparing to attack Glastonia because Melvas is holding Gwenhwyfar there because its marshes make it impregnable.17 Caradoc was invited by the monks to write an account of Arthur associated with Glastonbury and the tale of Ider was taken from a later source and inserted into William’s original version of De Antiquitate; both accounts created to explain the monastery’s claims to its substantial land holdings, gifted by King Arthur of course.

Yet, the situation at Glastonbury and the privileges that its independence brought was about to change at the end of the 12th century with a discovery that would shake the Arthurian story to its very roots.

Notes & References
1. John Scott,The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation, and Study of William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastonie Ecclesie, Boydell Press, 2009,
2. Caradoc of Llangarfan: The Life of Gildas - Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University.
Hugh Williams, translator. Two Lives of Gildas by a monk of Ruys and Caradoc of Llancarfan.
First published in the Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1899.
3.  Scott, pp-87-89.
Scott has identified many later interpolations into William’s original work.
4. Scott, See Note: 77 on p.197.
5. James P Carley, The Chronicle of Glastonbury Abbey: An Edition, Translation and Study of John of Glastonbury’s Cronica sive Antiquatates Glastoniensis Ecclesie, tranlation by David Townsend, The Boydell Press, 1985, p.75.
6. Lewis Thorpe, Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the Kings of Britain, Penguin Book, 1966, pp.243-46.
7. Carley, Cronica, see end note p.284
8. Scott, note 77, p.197.
9. Ibid.
10. Bromwich and D Simon Evans, Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale, University of Wales Press, 1992, pp.70-71.
11. Scott, note 77, p.197.
12. Owain Wyn Jones, The Most Excellent Princes: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Medieval Welsh Historical Writing, in A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brill, 2020, pp.257–290.
13. Thorpe, p.261.
14. Thorpe, p.217.
15. Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini - translated by Basil Clarke, in The Life of Merlin. Cardiff: UWP, 1973 - Mary Jones Celtic Literature Collective.
16. Scott, p.34.
17. Caradoc of Llangarfan: The Life of Gildas.

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