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.

* * *