After Killing a King

After the startling murder of Edward the Martyr, Ælfthryth's role in the incident came under scrutiny. Was she simply greeting her stepson the king and offering him refreshment after his journey to Corfe Castle to visit her and her son? Or was she deliberately distracting him with a drink so that he could be unsuspecting and unprepared while he was dragged from his horse and stabbed by her (or Æthelred's) retainers?

Or was it possibly a Becket situation, with the retainers acting on their own to remove an obstacle to Æthelred's accession to the throne, knowing this was what he or his mother wanted?

Whatever the case, the murder of a king was shocking. Kings were considered to hold their position by divine right, and killing one was an egregious sin. The hasty burial at Wareham was "unceremonious," to say the least. A year later, the body was removed to Shaftesbury Abbey. When they dug him up, he was deemed "uncorrupted," a sign of saintliness.

Contemporary chroniclers telling the tale of the murder do not name the murderer(s), which is unusual since they would be known, and presumably punished. This reticence could be explained by the writers avoiding naming publicly the person they deemed the real culprit, Ælfthryth. Naming the woman who had been crowned a queen as a plotter of assassination was a bold move.

Chroniclers might also have avoided naming the murderer(s) because they were retainers of Æthelred, and since he was by default the next king, any suggestion that he might have instigated or planned the murder was a chancy idea to put into writing.

In any case, the young Æthelred became king. I've written about him several times, so I want to fulfill a promise I made two days ago, when I said here that I would have more to say on Edgar's "middle" family, his second consort and her daughter. See you tomorrow for the story of Saint Edith.

Ælfthryth's Plans

Ælfthryth was the first wife of a king of England (Edgar the Peaceable) to be crowned queen herself. She was the third woman (that we know of) with whom Edgar had children. She had two with Edgar: Edmund, who died young, and Æthelred, born c.966.

Edgar had an older son, Edward, born c.962 by his first wife, Æthelflæd. Upon Edgar's death in July 975, the question of succession came down to Edward and Æthelred. Ælfthryth tried to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the marriage to Æthelflæd, trying to convince the nobles and populace that Æthelred was the only legitimate son and therefore should take the throne.

There is some additional evidence supporting Ælfthryth's claim. A charter of 966 lists Ælfthryth  as the "legitimate wife" and Edmund as the "legitimate son," whereas Edward is mentioned as "begotten by the same king."

Neither of the boys had reached his majority—and the evidence suggests that Edward may, indeed, have been born out of wedlock, but by the backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan, and the powerful Ealdorman of East Anglia, Æthelwine, Edward was chosen over Æthelred. An account written many decades later claims that Dunstan, seeing the opposition to Edward, pushed forward with declaring Edward king in a drastically abbreviated ceremony. In compensation, Æthelred was given the lands traditionally granted to the king's eldest son. He and his mother retired to Corfe Castle.

After Edgar's support of monastic reform—replacing secular clergy in monasteries with monks following the Rule of St. Benedict—Edward's was a very different reign. One almost-contemporary priest, Byrhtferth, described it thus:

the commonwealth of the entire realm was shaken; bishops were perplexed, ealdormen were angry, monks were struck with fear, the people were terrified, and the secular clerics were made happy, because their time had come. Abbots are now expelled, together with their monks; clerics are brought in together with their wives; and 'the last error was worse than the first'

In light of this, Ælfthryth may have been the savior of the people. In March 978 the king decided to visit his brother at Corfe Castle. When he arrived, he was met at the gate by Ælfthryth and some retainers. Some sources say he was offered a cup by his step-mother to quench his thirst after the ride. He was then pulled from the horse and stabbed by her retainers. It is said his foot was caught in the stirrup, and that his horse bolted and he wa dragged for some distance.

He was 16 years old. The body was buried quickly somewhere nearby. We'll talk about the immediate aftermath tomorrow.

Edgar's Families

King Edgar the Peaceable was known to have three consorts, one or two of whom he might even have married. Two of his sons went on to become kings of England themselves.

The first woman with whom he "consorted" and married was Æthelflæd Eneda ("The White Duck"). An 11th-century scholar named Eadmer wrote a Life of St. Dunstan in which he relates that she was the legitimate wife of Edgar by 957-959, and that she died "a few years later." The two had a son, Edward, born c.962.  Edgar was known to have relations with two others not long after 962, so Æthelflæd may have died not long after Edward's birth.

Edgar next (or concurrently) consorted with Wulfthryth of Wilton in the early 960s, but by 964 was married to Ælfthryth. By Wulfthryth he had a daughter, Edith of Wilton, who was born c.961 (yes, before the birth of the son, Edward). The story goes that Edgar took Wulfthryth out of the nunnery at Wilton Abbey and to Kent, where Edith was born. William of Malmesbury wrote that they were married, but that she renounced the marriage after Edith's birth, leaving Edgar and taking Edith with her back to Wilton Abbey, where Wulfthryth remained for the rest of her life (more on them later).

The third consort—whom he married—was Ælfthryth. This was her second marriage; her first was to Æthelwald, son of Æthelstan Half-King (mentioned in Edgar's link above), and there is an interesting story about that marriage.

Ælfthryth was considered exceptionally beautiful, and Edgar sent his trusted lieutenant Æthelwald to see if the rumors of her beauty were true and to propose that she marry Edgar. It turns out the rumors were true, and the proposal was from Æthelwald himself, who married her and told Edgar that she was not beautiful at all. Hints of this betrayal got back to Edgar, who said he would visit the poor woman, whereupon Æthelwald told her to make herself as unattractive as possible. Instead, she set her eyes on being a queen and made herself as beautiful as possible. Edgar fell for her, and either killed Æthelwald during a hunt or simply posted him to Northumbria. In either case, he got Æthelwald out of the way and married Ælfthryth in 964/65.

Ælfthryth was from the Wessex royal line, and was the first wife of a king of England to be crowned herself as queen, a ceremony which took place on 11 May 973. Queen Ælfthryth was very involved in the administration of the realm, being an advocate in at least six legal cases. She was also interested in the dynastic succession, and looked carefully at Edgar's children from his previous women. Ælfthryth had her own children with Edgar, and wanted them to succeed Edgar. I'll tell you tomorrow what steps she took to ensure that outcome. Yes, it is what you think.

Æthelred the Unready

From a 14th century manuscript

Since Æthelred keeps getting mentioned here (most notably the past two days, due to the contested inheritance of the English throne between him and his half-brother, Edward the Martyr), I thought maybe we should mention a little more about him—or at least explain his not-very-flattering nickname.

When his father, King Edgar, died Æthelred was only about 10 years old. His half-brother, Edward, was a few years older. Edward was illegitimate, whereas Æthelred was the legitimate son of Edgar's last wife, Ælfthryth. Ælfthryth and others fought to have Æthelred succeed Edgar, but others fought for the older Edward, who wound up ruling for three years.

It is highly unlikely that the then-13-year-old Æthelred had anything to do with Edward's death on 18 March 978. Æthelred was crowned a month later.

One of the chief problems faced by Æthelred was attacks by the Danes. About a year after Æthelred became king, small groups of Danes began making raids on the English coast; these happened for a couple years. Then, after a six-year span of peace, a Danish incursion caused a battle between them and the nobles of Devon. England was able at this time to successfully defend itself, but there was an interesting side-effect of these raids, and that was the connection to Normandy.

Upon occasion, the Danes would leave England and cross the Channel to Normandy to give themselves time to rest and recuperate. The Normans ("North Men"), being of Scandinavian extraction originally, "took the side" of the Danes and started viewing England as a rival. Relations between England and Normandy started becoming hostile, so much so that Pope John XV decided to step in and broker a peace treaty between the two nations, in 991. A couple generations later, relations between England and Normandy would change radically, in 1066.

991 also saw the Battle of Maldon, in which the Danes did terrible damage to parts of England and the English nobility. After Maldon,  Æthelred decided that England should pay the Danes to stay away. This started a dangerous precedent: paying off one group of Danes was no guarantee that another (or the same group) wouldn't come back and attack your shores in 997, 998, 999, 1000, and again in 1001. There were more payments, but they were followed by more invasions.

This is a runestone in Sweden,
set up to commemorate a man
who received Danegeld three
times due to raids in England.

Were the payments a good idea? This idea of Danegeld ["Dane gold"] wasn't new: even King Alfred the Great had seen fit to use money to ensure peace. It was a way to get a marauder to go away and leave lives and crops and property intact. Still, it marred Æthelred's reputation, and may have led to his nickname.

"Unready" suggests to modern readers that he was not prepared for the problems that beset his reign. His Anglo-Saxon name and nickname were Æthelred Unræd, which we translate today as "Æthelred the Unready." The ræd element means "counsel" or "advice." The name Æthelred Unræd would be a pun meaning "Noble advice, no advice." The "blame" (if that is what we should assign due to his nickname) may be imputed to his councilors, who gave him bad advice. It is the modern English understanding of the word "Unready" that makes us condemn him personally for not being prepared for what befell England while he was on the throne.

Edward the Martyr's Death

Edward's murder at Corfe Castle

The death of the 16-year-old Edward the Martyr in 978 was not one of England's finest moments. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described it simply:

“This year was King Edward slain, at eventide, at Corfe-gate, on the fifteenth day before the calends of April. And he was buried at Wareham without any royal honour. No worse deed than this was ever done by the English nation since they first sought the land of Britain. Men murdered him but God has magnified him.” [Entry for 978]

The popular explanation, from later accounts, is that Ælfthryth gave him a poisoned cup, or gave him a cup of mead to drink that distracted him so that others could kill him. One account says that she killed him herself. Her motive would have been to clear the throne for her own son, Æthelred, who was a younger son of King Edgar.

In 980, according to the A-SC, “Alderman Ælfhere fetched the body of the holy King Edward at Wareham, and carried him with great solemnity to Shaftsbury.” Edward's body was found to have the saintly quality of being uncorrupted, and his reputed holiness drew many pilgrims to his grave. He began to be thought of as a saint.

In 1001, his remains were moved to a more prominent place in Shaftesbury. Although he was never canonized, royal decree in 1008 confirmed his recognition all over England as worthy of veneration.

Then it gets interesting.

During the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII (mentioned many times, such as here), Edward's relics were hidden elsewhere in the church in order to save them from destruction.

Their whereabouts were unknown after that for 400 years.

In 1931, an archaeological dig found some bones in a casket under the church. An osteologist in 1970 determined that they were the bones of a young male who had died a violent death; everyone agreed that they had found Edward the Martyr. The director of the ongoing excavation (and owner of the land) announced that he was seeking a final resting place for the bones of this English saint. There were conditions:

1. that they were recognised as the relics of a saint,
2. that a shrine would be established for their reception, and
3. that his feast days would be observed. [link]

The (half-hearted) search was on. Then an odd player joined the negotiations.

In 1979, a schism hit the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. Unhappy with the current administration by Archbishop Auxentius, the breakaway group called itself the "Orthodox Church of Greece - Holy Synod in Resistance. " They contacted the possessor of the bones and said "We'll do it!" They founded, in 1982, a monastic group called St. Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood, housed in a monastery inside Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, south of London.

In December 1988, over 1000 years after his death, Edward the Martyr's remains were formally brought to their final (?) resting place in the Church of St. Edward the Martyr, Brookwood.