Edgar Ætheling, Part 3

Edgar Ætheling had been through many ups and downs. For the trouble he had caused for William II of Normandy as an "alternate choice" for king of England, he might have been executed, but he was allowed to live, given his freedom, and also given some estates.

When William died in 1087, Edgar threw his support to William's eldest son, Robert Curthose, to whom William had left the dukedom of Normandy. The second son, William Rufus, succeeded as King of England. Robert felt he should have England, and tried to overthrow William in a conflict that was not resolved until 1091.

Part of the resolution was that Edgar be stripped of lands given to him in Normandy. Edgar fell back on an old habit: going to stay with King Malcolm III in Scotland (now Edgar's brother-in-law), who also happened to be preparing war with William Rufus. Significantly, when the two armies met, they did not fight. They decided to talk things over, and whom did the kings pick to conduct negotiations? Malcolm sent Edgar, William sent Robert. Since Edgar had been one of Robert's chief advisors, the two would be able to talk amicably.

One result of the negotiation was a reconciliation between Edward and William, that made it safe for Edgar to return to England. The peace between the two countries began to break down, however, and eventually he left England for Normandy with Robert. In 1093 Edgar was back in Scotland to speak to Malcolm at William's request: the peace treaty wasn't working, and war was unavoidable. That war killed Malcolm and his heir, Edward, Edgar's nephew. (Edward was not his eldest; that was Duncan, who was kept at William's court.) Another army against Scotland had Edgar at its head in 1097 and helped to establish another son of Malcolm, Edgar, on the Scottish throne.

Orderic Vitalis wrote that Edgar Ætheling was the leader of an English fleet in support of the First Crusade. Orderic must be wrong, since the English supporting fleet reached Syria in March 1098, and Edgar was known to be in Scotland in late 1097. There was no time between the two events for him to reach Syria. William of Malmesbury said that Edgar made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Orderic may just be confused about the reason and timing for Edgar's trip.

After Jerusalem, William Rufus died when Robert Curthose was too far away to claim the throne, which was grabbed by their younger brother, who became King Henry I. Naturally, Robert went to war over this, and naturally, Edgar joined him. Naturally, they failed again; Robert was imprisoned for the rest of his life, and Edgar was let go, since by this time Henry had married a daughter of Malcolm and Edgar's sister, making Edgar his uncle by marriage.

William of Malmesbury wrote that, in 1125, Edgar was still alive and growing old in privacy and quiet. A tumultuous life came to a peaceful end, but we do not know where or when.

Next I want to turn to Malcolm III "Canmore" who was a significant player in these events.

Edgar Ætheling, Part 2

For Edgar Ætheling, landing in Scotland in 1068—whether by accident or design—was fortuitous. King Malcolm III took a liking to Edgar's sister Margaret, who was probably in her early 20s. They married in 1070 (see illustration), and had several children, including kings of Scotland David I and Alexander I.

Edgar's new brother-in-law supported Edgar's claim to the throne of England. Edgar's and Malcolm's plans caused the north of England—what is now Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Lancashire—to start a series of local rebellions against Norman rule. This led to the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's campaign to subdue the northern territories and stop Edgar's plans. The Harrying was vicious, using scorched earth tactics to starve out the rebels and replacing all English aristocracy with Normans.

Edgar had returned to England to become the focal point for the rebellions, but retreated to Scotland when things got bad. Later that year, King Sweyn of Denmark arrived in the north, triggering a fresh set of uprisings. Edgar, the Northumbrians, and the Danes combined to take York from Norman control. William arrived later, bought off the Danes (they were still susceptible to Danegeld), and caused Edgar and his other followers to, once again, retreat to Scotland.

In 1072, William invaded Scotland, forcing Malcolm to recognize William's overlordship. Part of the agreement was the expulsion of Edgar, who went to Flanders where Robert the Frisian was hostile to Normandy. Edgar returned to Scotland in 1074, but then received an offer from Philip I, King of France. Philip offered him a castle near the Norman border from which he could hassle Normandy. Embarking for France, a storm wrecked his fleet along the English coast, whereupon Normans hunted him down. He fled back to Scotland on foot, after which Malcolm convinced him to give up his dreams of a throne and submit to William.

Edgar tried that route, but felt he deserved better treatment because of his status. The Domesday Book in 1086 lists two estates in Hertfordshire belonging to Edgar, although by that time he was no longer living in England. Dissatisfied, he had gone to Italy to settle in Apulia, which was occupied by Normans. A few years later, however, he returned to England.

After William's death in 1087, Edgar's fortunes seemed to rise a little with William's sons, who clearly had no concerns that this older man was going to try to take their throne. Instead, they involved him in their reigns.

For the happy remainder of Edgar's complicated life, tune in tomorrow.

Edgar Ætheling, Part 1

After the death of King Harold Godwinson on 14 October 1066 at the Battle of Hastings, the witenagemot wasted no time: the very next day, while Harold's body was being identified on the battlefield, they chose another man to be king, despite the claims of William of Normandy. That man was Edgar, called "Ætheling" ("noble").

This choice was not random. Not only was he in a line of legitimate succession, but it could be argued that his accession to the throne had been approved by Edward the Confessor before his death in January of 1066.

Edgar's great-grandfather was Æthelred. When Æthelred was killed by Cnut, his the family fled England. Ægthelred's son was Edmund Ironside, who would rule the south of England while Cnut ruled the north, until one of them died and the other took the whole island. Edmund died shortly after. Edmund's son was called Edward the Exile and spent most of his life in Hungary, where Edgar Ætheling was born. In the illustration above, you see Edmund in the upper-right, Edward the Exile in the center, and Edward's children below: Edgar, Margaret (who would later marry Malcolm Canmore and even later become a saint), Edmund (who died young), and Cristina.

In 1056, Edward the Confessor recalled Edward the Exile and his family to England to make Edward his heir. This was actually Edward's attempt to have an Anglo-Saxon dynastic succession in the face of the increasingly powerful Godwins. Unfortunately, Edward died shortly after returning to England, in 1057. Still, to the witenagemot, this meant that Edward's son Edgar was a potential successor. One day after Hastings and the loss of Harold, the witenagemot chose Edgar as the new king. He was perhaps 14 years old.

Edgar had powerful supporters: Earls Edwin and Morcar, Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York. What he did not have was an army. The powerful men who supported him did not put together a very serious defense. Whatever claim he had through Edward's choice of Edgar's father had been ignored months earlier by these same men in favor of Harold, so their determination to support him is questionable; you might call it the last gasp of "national pride" before the inevitable Norman takeover.

In fact, Edward was never formally crowned, and by December the witan and Edgar's key supporters were agreeing to negotiate with William. Everyone, including Edward, agreed to pay homage to William.

William kept Edgar with him, first on his return to Normandy in 1067 and then back to England. A brief attempt at rebellion by the northern earls Edwin and Morcar in 1068 was quickly suppressed. We do not have confirmation that Edgar was part of it, but it is true that he and his mother and sisters landed on the coast of Scotland around that time. Either he was in the north as part of the rebellion or he was attempting to return to Hungary, the land of his and his siblings' birth.

They were taken in by King Malcolm III, a connection which offered another opportunity for Edgar to become king. I'll tell you how that went next time.

The Approach to Hastings

William II, Duke of Normandy, had his forces ready to deploy to invade England. He believed he had a legitimate claim to the throne that Harold Godwinson had been given. Harold's armies had been guarding the coasts against William's invasion, but the attack in the north by Harold's brother Tostig and King Harald of Norway had drawn Harold's forces north to deal with them. After initial success by Tostig and his allies, Harold defeated them soundly at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September.

With Harold's army in the north, William saw his chance: he set sail and landed on the south coast of England on 28 September, in Pevensey Bay. Pevensey had an old Roman fort, abandoned after the 5th century. Harold Godwinson, long before he became king, had rebuilt the place in 1042. It was the location of part of his army in 1066, until they had to leave it to march north to Stamford. After 1066, William gave the fort to his half-brother Robert, Count of Mortain. The stone remains that can be seen now (see illustration) are from Robert's expansion plans.

William did not stay in Pevensey. He marched to Hastings on the coast, about nine miles away, then went several miles inland, to a place now called "Battle" and where there is an Abbey called Battle. William's men quickly built a wooden castle for his dwelling and then started gathering food and provisions from the countryside.

King Harold probably received news of William's landing while he was bringing the army south. It looks like they marched about 27 miles per day, still impressive but not as exhausting as their march north. Harold spent a week at London, resting and preparing for battle. He was unable to surprise the Normans as he had the Norwegians. By the time he got to Hastings, William had taken a defensive position on Battle/Senlac Hill, giving him the advantage of higher ground.

I've written of the battle before. Harold was killed, by an arrow to the eye. William of Jumieges wrote that William killed him. William of Poitiers offered no details about Harold's death. Harold's body was identified the next day. His mother, Gytha, offered the body's weight in gold to William, who refused the offer and ordered the corpse be thrown into the sea. (No one records that this actually happened.) Waltham Abbey, founded by Harold, claimed his body had been secretly buried there. The legend that he secretly fled the battle and became a hermit in Chester can be dismissed.

William thought his way to the throne was now clear, but the witenagamot had another idea. The year 1066 in England was the year of four kings: Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, and William of Normandy were the first's second, and fourth, respectively. There was a descendant of English kings who happened to be available. Tomorrow I'll tell you about Edgar the Ætheling.

King David I of Scotland

King Henry I of England changed a lot of the political atmosphere that had been damaged by his brother, William Rufus. One of his changes was forging a good relation with King David of Scotland, starting when David was very young.

Although he had an illustrious Scots heritage through his father, Malcolm III, and grandfather, Duncan I (the basis for the character of that name in Shakespeare's MacBeth), David's English mother, Margaret of Wessex, gave him a strong connection to England.

David was probably born c.1084. His father was killed while invading Northumberland in 1093, and his mother died shortly after. The throne of Scotland was seized by his uncle, Donald III, and David and his brothers were exiled. It is believed that the boys were brought safely to England by their maternal uncle, Edgar the Ætheling. This was the time of King William, who sent David's older brother Duncan into Scotland with an army to depose Donald. They were unsuccessful, and Duncan was killed. William sent David's other brother, Edgar, in 1097; this time they were successful, and Edgar became king.

When William Rufus died and Henry seized the throne, he married David's sister, Matilda, who had been kept out of the political intrigues because she was a nun—but not really (check the link at her name). David was now the brother-in-law of the king of England, and so had a privileged position at the English court, becoming Anglicized—or, more accurately, Anglo-Normanized—as he matured. King Edgar of Scotland bequeathed lands south of the River Forth to his younger brother, making David a landowner in his own right as Prince of the Cumbrians.

David married Matilda of Huntingdon, daughter of the Earl of Northumberland, a match arranged by King Henry. They had two sons; one died young, but a second named for King Henry survived.

The death of King Edgar in 1107 gave the throne of Scotland to yet another brother, Alexander I. Alexander I died in 1124, and David was the remaining brother among Malcolm III's offspring. Alexander had a son with other plans, however. That was Máel Coluim mac Alexander, who decided the throne should be his, despite his illegitimacy. He chose war as his strategy to assume the kingship of Scotland. It did not go well for him.

But that's a story for tomorrow.

1066: The Other New King

Edgar and his sister, St. Margaret, landing at
Wearmouth after their ship was blown off course

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when the forces of William the Conqueror (mentioned many times; see one of them here) defeated the English and killed King Harold Godwinson. The link in the previous sentence for the Battle of Hastings tells more of the story than is generally known, namely that Harold's army had been on the march and fighting for weeks prior to Hastings. Also not generally known is that someone was proclaimed King of England the day after the Battle of Hastings, and it was not William of Normandy.

Edward the Confessor supposedly saw the impending trouble with succession to the throne of England and saw a way out: he had a nephew who was the legitimate heir: Edward (1016-1057), called "the Exile, who had fled to Hungary after being ousted from England after the defeat of his father (Edmund II "Ironside," c.989-1016) by King Cnut. Edward the Confessor had called Edward the Exile back to England to make him his heir. Sadly, the Exile died very soon after his arrival back in England in 1057. History does not record a reason, but it is possible that he was eliminated by the Godwinsons, who were very powerful and wanted to see Harold succeed to the throne.

Edward the Exile had left children behind on the continent, however. Edgar the Ætheling (c.1051-c.1126) was only a teen in 1066, but his youth was no bar to the succession. The witenagemot, the council of wise men that approved the succession in Anglo-Saxon England, met in London and chose Edgar as king the day after Harold fell at Hastings, and sent for him to return to England and lead the opposition to William of Normandy.

The men who chose him, however, chose not to defend their choice and resist William as his forces approached; instead, they negotiated with William for a peaceful turnover of the kingdom. In December, the aristocracy of England met with William at Berkhamstead to submit themselves to his rule and hand over Edgar. William took Edgar and some other English leaders into custody in order to ensure future cooperation.

In 1068, Edgar fled captivity with his mother and two sisters (Margaret and Cristina) to return to Hungary, but their ship was blown off course and landed in the north of England, where they were taken in by Malcolm* III Canmore, king of Scotland. Malcolm married Edward's sister Margaret (who later became Saint Margaret). Edgar had an "on again, off again" relationship with William and an adventure-filled life. He was still alive in 1125 according to William of Malmesbury, so his date of death assumed to be c.1126.

*Malcolm was the model for the character in Shakespeare's MacBeth.