October 15, 1066: Edgar Ætheling is elected King of the English

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Canute the Great, Edgar Ætheling, Edmund Ironsides, Edward the Confessor, Edward the Exile, Harold Godwinson, King Edgar II, King Harold II, King of England, King of the English, King William I, William the Conqueror, Witenagemot

Edgar Ætheling or Edgar II (c. 1052 – 1125 or after) was the last male member of the royal house of Cerdic of Wessex. He was elected King of English by the Witenagemot in 1066, but never crowned.

Edgar was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, where his father Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside, had spent most of his life, having been sent into exile after Edmund’s death and the conquest of England by the Danish king Canute the Great in 1016.

His grandfather Edmund, great-grandfather Æthelred the Unready, and great-great-grandfather Edgar the Peaceful were all kings of England before Cnut the Great took the crown. Edgar’s mother was Agatha, who was described as a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor or a descendant of Saint Stephen of Hungary, but whose exact identity is unknown. He was his parents’ only son but had two sisters, Margaret and Cristina.

In 1057, Edward the Exile arrived in England with his family, but died almost immediately. Edgar, a child, was left as the only surviving male member of the royal dynasty apart from the king. However, the latter made no recorded effort to entrench his great-nephew’s position as heir to a throne that was being eyed by a range of powerful potential contenders, including England’s leading aristocrat Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, and the foreign rulers William II of Normandy, Sweyn II of Denmark and Harald III of Norway.

Succession struggle

When King Edward the Confessor died in January 1066, Edgar was still in his early teens, considered too young to be an effective military leader. This had not been an insurmountable obstacle in the succession of previous kings.

However, the avaricious ambitions that had been aroused across north-western Europe by the Confessor’s lack of an heir prior to 1057, and by the king’s failure thereafter to prepare the way for Edgar to succeed him, removed any prospect of a peaceful hereditary succession.

War was clearly inevitable and Edgar was in no position to fight it, while he was without powerful adult relatives to champion his cause. Accordingly, the Witenagemot elected Harold Godwinson, the man best placed to defend the country against the competing foreign claimants, to succeed Edward.

Following Harold’s death at the Battle of Hastings against the invading Normans in October, some of the Anglo-Saxon leaders considered electing Edgar king. The new regime thus established was dominated by the most powerful surviving members of the English ruling class: Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ealdred, Archbishop of York, and the brothers Edwin, Earl of Mercia and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria.

The commitment of these men to Edgar’s cause, men who had so recently passed over his claim to the throne without apparent demur, must have been doubtful from the start. The strength of their resolve to continue the struggle against William of Normandy was questionable, and the military response they organised to the continuing Norman advance was ineffectual.

On October 15, 1066 Edgar the Ætheling is elected and proclaimed King Edgar II of the of English by the Witan (Witenagemot); he is never crowned.

When William crossed the Thames at Wallingford, he was met by Stigand, who now abandoned Edgar and submitted to the invader. As the Normans closed in on London, Edgar’s key supporters in the city began negotiating with William.

In early December, the remaining members of the Witan in London met and resolved to take the young uncrowned king out to meet William to submit to him at Berkhamsted, quietly setting aside Edgar’s election. Edgar, alongside other lords, did homage to King William at his coronation in December.

Edgar is believed to have travelled to Scotland once more late in life, perhaps around the year 1120. He lived to see the death at sea in November 1120 of William Adeling, the son of his niece Edith and heir to Henry I, King of the English. Edgar was still alive in 1125, according to William of Malmesbury, who wrote at the time that Edgar “now grows old in the country in privacy and quiet”. Edgar died some time after this contemporary reference, but the exact date and the location of his grave are not known.

I do consider Edgar as a legitimate King of the English, albeit briefly, after the death of Harold Godwinson. Edgar was legally elected King by the lawful method of succession at that time.

January 5, 1066: Death of Edward the Confessor, King of the English

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Battle of Hastings, Duke of Normandy, Edgar Ætheling, Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson, King of the English, William the Conqueror

Edward the Confessor (c. 1003 – January 5, 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon Kings of the English. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066.

Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeeded Denmark’s Cnut the Great’s son – and his own half-brother – Harthacnut.

Edward restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut conquered England in 1016. When Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson, who was defeated and killed in the same year by the Normans under William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. Edward’s young great-nephew Edgar the Ætheling of the House of Wessex was proclaimed King after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 but was never crowned and was peacefully deposed after about eight weeks.

Historians disagree about Edward’s fairly long 24-year reign. His nickname reflects the traditional image of him as unworldly and pious. Confessor reflects his reputation as a saint who did not suffer martyrdom as opposed to his uncle, King Edward the Martyr. Some portray Edward the Confessor’s reign as leading to the disintegration of royal power in England and the advance in power of the House of Godwin, because of the infighting that began after his death with no heirs to the throne.

Biographers Frank Barlow and Peter Rex, on the other hand, portray Edward as a successful king, one who was energetic, resourceful and sometimes ruthless; they argue that the Norman conquest shortly after his death tarnished his image. However, Richard Mortimer argues that the return of the Godwins from exile in 1052 “meant the effective end of his exercise of power”, citing Edward’s reduced activity as implying “a withdrawal from affairs”.

About a century later, in 1161, Pope Alexander III canonised the king. Edward was one of England’s national saints until King Edward III adopted George of Lydda as the national patron saint in about 1350. Saint Edward’s feast day is October 13, celebrated by both the Church of England and the Catholic Church.

Malcolm III, King of Scots: Conclusion

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Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Edgar Ætheling, Malcolm III of Scotland, William I the Conqueror, William II of England, William Rufus

Malcolm III and William Rufus

When William Rufus (William II of England) became King of England after his father’s death, William I the Conqueror, Malcolm did not intervene in the rebellions by supporters of Robert Curthose which followed. In 1091, William Rufus confiscated Edgar Ætheling’s lands in England, and Edgar fled north to Scotland. In May, Malcolm marched south, not to raid and take slaves and plunder, but to besiege Newcastle, built by Robert Curthose in 1080.

This appears to have been an attempt to advance the frontier south from the River Tweed to the River Tees. The threat was enough to bring the English king back from Normandy, where he had been fighting Robert Curthose. In September, learning of William Rufus’s approaching army, Malcolm withdrew north and the English followed. Unlike in 1072, Malcolm was prepared to fight, but a peace was arranged by Edgar Ætheling and Robert Curthose whereby Malcolm again acknowledged the overlordship of the English king.

In 1092, the peace began to break down. Based on the idea that the Scots controlled much of modern Cumbria, it had been supposed that William Rufus’s new castle at Carlisle and his settlement of English peasants in the surrounds was the cause. It is unlikely that Malcolm controlled Cumbria, and the dispute instead concerned the estates granted to Malcolm by William Rufus’s father in 1072 for his maintenance when visiting England. Malcolm sent messengers to discuss the question and William Rufus agreed to a meeting. Malcolm travelled south to Gloucester, stopping at Wilton Abbey to visit his daughter Edith and sister-in-law Cristina. Malcolm arrived there on 24 August 1093 to find that William Rufus refused to negotiate, insisting that the dispute be judged by the English barons. This Malcolm refused to accept, and returned immediately to Scotland.

It does not appear that William Rufus intended to provoke a war, but, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports, war came:

For this reason therefore they parted with great dissatisfaction, and the King Malcolm returned to Scotland. And soon after he came home, he gathered his army, and came harrowing into England with more hostility than behoved him ….

Malcolm was accompanied by Edward, his eldest son by Margaret and probable heir-designate (or tánaiste), and by Edgar. Even by the standards of the time, the ravaging of Northumbria by the Scots was seen as harsh.

Death

While marching north again, Malcolm was ambushed by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria, whose lands he had devastated, near Alnwick on November 13, 1093. There he was killed by Arkil Morel, steward of Bamburgh Castle. The conflict became known as the Battle of Alnwick. Edward was mortally wounded in the same fight. Margaret, it is said, died soon after receiving the news of their deaths from Edgar. The Annals of Ulster say:

Mael Coluim son of Donnchad, over-king of Scotland, and Edward his son, were killed by the French [i.e. Normans] in Inber Alda in England. His queen, Margaret, moreover, died of sorrow for him within nine days.

Malcolm’s body was taken to Tynemouth Priory for burial. The king’s body was sent north for reburial, in the reign of his son Alexander, at Dunfermline Abbey, or possibly Iona.

On June 19, 1250, following the canonisation of Malcolm’s wife Margaret by Pope Innocent IV, Margaret’s remains were disinterred and placed in a reliquary. Tradition has it that as the reliquary was carried to the high altar of Dunfermline Abbey, past Malcolm’s grave, it became too heavy to move. As a result, Malcolm’s remains were also disinterred, and buried next to Margaret beside the altar.