April 23, 1016: Death of Æthelred II, The Unready, King of the English

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Æthelred II the Unready, Battle of Assandun, Canute the Great, Edmund Ironside, House of Wessex. the Danelaw, King of Denmark, King of the English, Swyne Forkbeard of Denmark

Æthelred II (c. 966 – April 23, 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death in 1016.

Æthelred was the son of King Edgar the Peaceful and Queen Ælfthryth, the daughter of Ealdorman Ordgar. Her mother was a member of the royal family of Wessex. The family’s power lay in the west of Wessex.

Ælfthryth was the first wife of an English king known to have been crowned and anointed as queen. She had two sons with Edgar, the ætheling Edmund (who died young) and King Æthelred the Unready. Ælfthryth was a powerful political figure and possibly orchestrated the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr, in order to place her son Æthelred on the throne. She appeared as a stereotypical bad queen and evil stepmother in many medieval histories.

Æthelred came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, King Edward the Martyr. Æthelred’s mother may have ordered the murder of his half-brother in order to place Æthelred on the throne.

The chief problem of Æthelred’s reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s, becoming markedly more serious in the early 990s.

Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, Æthelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, Æthelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice’s Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which Æthelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. After Sweyn died in 1014, Æthelred returned to the throne,

Over the next few months Canute the Great of Denmark conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined Æthelred to defend London when Æthelred died on April 23, 1016. The subsequent war between Æthelred’s successor, Edmund Ironside and Canute ended in a decisive victory for Canute at the Battle of Assandun on October 18, 1016.

Edmund’s reputation as a warrior was such that Canute nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Canute the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on November 30, 1016 and Canute became king of all of England.

Æthelred was buried in Old St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Æthelred’s 37-year combined reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon English king, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. Æthelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn’s son Cnut. Another of Æthelred’s sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

Name

Æthelred’s first name, composed of the elements æðele, “noble”, and ræd, “counsel, advice”, is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like Æthelwulf (“noble-wolf”), Ælfred (“elf-counsel”), Eadweard (“rich-protection”), and Eadgar (“rich-spear”).

Æthelred’s notorious nickname, Old English Unræd, is commonly translated into present-day English as “The Unready” (less often, though less inaccurately, as “The Redeless”). The Anglo-Saxon noun unræd means “evil counsel”, “bad plan”, or “folly”. It was most often used in reference to decisions and deeds, but once in reference to the ill-advised disobedience of Adam and Eve.

The element ræd in unræd is the same element in Æthelred’s name that means “counsel” (compare the cognate in the German word Rat). Thus Æþelræd Unræd is an oxymoron: “Noble counsel, No counsel”. The nickname has also been translated as “ill-advised”, “ill-prepared”, thus “Æthelred the ill-advised”.

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after Æthelred’s death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications as to the reputation of the king in the eyes of his contemporaries or near contemporaries.

January 5, 1066: Death of King Edward the Confessor

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Æthelred II the Unready, Duke of Normandy, Edward the Confessor, Harold II Godwinson, House of Wessex, King of the English, William the Conqueror

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

Edward was the seventh son of Æthelred the Unready, and the first by his second wife, Emma of Normandy. Edward was born between 1003 and 1005 in Islip, Oxfordshire, and is first recorded as a ‘witness’ to two charters in 1005. He had one full brother, Alfred, and a sister, Godgifu. In charters he was always listed behind his older half-brothers, showing that he ranked beneath them.

During his childhood, England was the target of Viking raids and invasions under Sweyn Forkbeard and his son, Canute the Great.

Edward succeeded Canute the Great’s son – and his own half-brother – Harthacnut. He restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Canute conquered England in 1016.

In 1043, Godwin’s eldest son Sweyn was appointed to an earldom in the south-west midlands, and on January 23, 1045 Edward married Godwin’s daughter Edith.

Edith was the daughter of Godwin, the most powerful earl in England. Her mother Gytha was sister of Ulf, a Danish earl who was Cnut the Great’s brother-in-law. She was probably born in or before 1027. Edith was originally named Gytha, but renamed Ealdgyth (or Edith) when she married King Edward the Confessor.

When Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by his wife’s brother Harold II 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.

A Game of Thrones: The 5 Claimants to the English Throne in 1066

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Battle of Hastings, Battle of Stamford Bridge, Canute the Great of Denmark, Edgar the Ætheling, Edward the Confessor, Harald Hardrada, Harold Godwinson, King of the English, Sweyn II of Denmark, Tostig Godwinson, William the Conqueror

Yesterday I wrote of the death of Edward the Confessor, King of the English. His death sparked a battle for the English throne.

Prior to the death Edward the Confessor, King of the English on January 5, 1066, he named as his successor Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex. That is the general consensus from historians based on contemporary historical sources.

Earl Godwinson’s claim to the English Throne did raise some issues because there were five other men who believed they held the lawful right to the throne.

Today I will examine who these men were that believed that their claim to the English Throne was the superior and rightful claim.

1. Harold Godwinson (c. 1022 — October 14, 1066)

Harold Godwinson was a member of Godwin family founded by Wulfnoth Cild (died c. 1014) who was a South Saxon thane who is regarded by historians as the probable father of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and thus the grandfather of King Harold II Godwinson.

Harold became a powerful earl after the death of his father, Godwin, Earl of Wessex.

Harold was the brother Ealdgyth (Edith). Their mother Gytha was sister of Ulf, a Danish earl who was Canute the Great’s brother-in-law. This gave Harold’s family, already a prominent Anglo-Saxon family, more prominence because of their ties to Canute the Great who was King of Denmark, Norway as well as King of the English.

On January 23, 1045 Edith married Edward the Confessor. Unlike most wives of the Saxon Kings of the English in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Edith was crowned queen. The marriage produced no children. Later ecclesiastical writers claimed that this was either because Edward took a vow of celibacy, or because he refused to consummate the marriage because of his antipathy to Edith’s family, the Godwins. However, the claim of apathy towards the Godwins is dismissed by modern historians.

Since Harold was the leading noble in England the alleged claim is that the childless Edward gave the kingdom to Harold on his deathbed. Harold was crowned king on January 6, 1066. Harold is also known as Harold II of England.

In September of that year he successfully fought off an attack by one rival claimant to the throne, Harald III Hardrada, King of Norway. But less than three weeks later Harold was killed in the Battle of Hastings against another claimant to the throne: William II, Duke of Normandy, known as the Conqueror.

2. William II of Normandy (c. 1028 – September 9, 1087)

William II, Duke of Normandy, believed that Edward had promised him the English throne long before he had made his deathbed promise to Harold. Edward, who was William’s friend and distant maternal cousin, supposedly wrote to the French duke to tell him England would be his in as far back as 1051.

William the Conqueror was not a descendant of the Kings of Wessex/the English but at this point in history direct blood descent from prior Kings was not a prerequisite for kinship.

Incensed by Harold’s coronation, William gathered up a fleet of around 700 ships and, with the backing of Pope Alexander II, set sail for England — once the winds were favourable. After arriving at the Sussex coast in September 1066, William and his men had their confrontation with King Harold II on October 14.

After winning the Battle of Hastings, William practiced a scorched earth policy as he made his way to London and was crowned King of the English on Christmas Day.

3. Edgar the Ætheling of Wessex (c. 1052 – 1125 or after)

Edgar the Ætheling or Edgar II was the last male member of the Royal House of Cerdic of Wessex, and the great-nephew of King Edward the Confessor. Edgar had spent the early years of his life in exile in Hungary and was not considered politically strong enough to maintain unity within the country.

Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later.

King Malcolm III of Scotland married Edgar’s sister Margaret of Wessex, and agreed to support Edgar in his attempt to reclaim the English throne. When the rebellion broke out in Northumbria at the beginning of 1069, it greatly failed and Edgar returned to England with other rebels who had fled to Scotland.

Following this disaster, he was persuaded by Malcolm to make peace with William and return to England as his subject, abandoning any ambition of regaining his ancestral throne.

Edgar lived to see the death at sea in November 1120 of William Adeling (Ætheling), 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.

4. Harald III Hardrada, King of Norway (c. 1015 – 25 September 25, 1066)

Harald III of Norway and given the epithet Hardrada, roughly translated as “stern counsel” or “hard ruler, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066.

Additionally, he unsuccessfully claimed both the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. Before becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kyivan Rus’ and of the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire.

Harald had renounced his claim to Denmark in 1064 and Tostig Godwinson, former Earl of Northumbria, and the brother of English king Harold II Godwinson, pledged his allegiance to Harald and invited him to claim the English throne.

Magnus I of Norway wanted to reunite Canute the Great’s entire North Sea Empire by also becoming King of the English. An agreement was supposedly made between Magnus and Hardicanute, the Danish King of the English, to give the English crown to Magnus. However, Hardicanute only ruled England briefly between 1040 and 1042 and when Harthacnut died, the English nobles had chosen as their king Æthelred the Unready’s son, Edward the Confessor. However, that did not stop Harald from believing that as the successor to Magnus I, that the English crown should be his upon the death of Edward the Confessor.

Harald Hardrada went and invaded Northern England with 10,000 troops and 300 longships in September 1066. He raided the coast and defeated English regional forces of Northumbria and Mercia in the Battle of Fulford near York on September 20, 1066.

Although initially successful, Harald was defeated and killed in a surprise attack by Harold Godwinson’s forces in the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066, which wiped out almost his entire army. Modern historians have often considered Harald’s death, which brought an end to his invasion, as the end of the Viking Age.

5. Sweyn II Estridsson, King of Denmark (c. 1019 – April 28, 1076)

Sweyn II Estridsson was King of Denmark from 1047 until his death in 1076. He was the son of Ulf Thorgilsson and Estrid Svendsdatter, and the grandson of King Sweyn I Forkbeard through his mother’s line. He was married three times, and fathered 20 children or more out of wedlock, including the five future kings Harald III Hen, Canute IV the Saint, Oluf I Hunger, Eric I Evergood, and Niels.

Sweyn II, King of Denmark, was Harold Godwinson’s cousin but believed that he may too have a claim on the English throne because of his own connections to Hardicanute, who was his uncle. It was not until William the Conqueror was king, however, that he seriously turned his attentions to England.

In 1069 Sweyn II was part of the force with Edgar the Ætheling who tried invade the north of England to defeat William but, after capturing York, Sweyn reached a deal with the English king to abandon Edgar.

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.

December 1, 1135: Death of Henry I, King of the English

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Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, Edith of Scotland, Empress Matilda, Geoffrey Plantaganet, Henry Beauclerc, Henry I of England, King of the English, Matilda of Scotland, Robert Curthose, William Adelin, William Clito, William the Conqueror

Henry I (c. 1068 – 1 December 1135), also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of the English from 1100 to his death in 1135. He was the fourth son of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders. Henry was probably born in England in 1068, in either the summer or the last weeks of the year, possibly in the town of Selby in Yorkshire. Henry was educated in Latin and the liberal arts.

On William the Conqueror’s death in 1087, Henry’s elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, but Henry was left landless. He purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but his brothers deposed him in 1091. He gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William against Robert.

Present at the place where his brother King William II died in a hunting accident in 1100, Henry seized the English throne, promising at his coronation to correct many of William’s less popular policies. This gave Henry a claim of suzerainty over Wales and Scotland, and acquired the Duchy of Normandy, a complex entity with troubled borders.

Soon after coming to the throne Henry sought the hand of Edith of Scotland for marriage.

Born in 1080, in Dunfermline, Scotland, Edith was the daughter of King Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret of Wessex. Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess born in the Kingdom of Hungary to the expatriate English Prince Edward the Exile and Agatha of unknown parentage.

Edith was therefore a descendant of both the Scottish and the Anglo-Saxon royal families, great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and descended from Alfred the Great.

Edith was educated at a convent in southern England, where her aunt Christina was abbess, and forced her to wear a veil. In 1093, Edith was engaged to an English nobleman until her father and her brother Edward were killed in the Battle of Alnwick (1093).

After proving she had not taken religious vows, Edith and Henry were married on November 11, 1100 at Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury. At he end of the ceremony, Edith was crowned and took the reginal name of “Matilda”, a hallowed Norman name.

Henry and Matilda and they had two surviving children, William Adelin and Matilda, who first became the wife of Heinrich V, Holy Roman Emperor and her second husband was Geoffrey Plantaganet, Count of Anjou. King Henry I also had many illegitimate children by his many mistresses.

The borders between England and Scotland were still uncertain during Henry’s reign, with Anglo-Norman influence pushing northwards through Cumbria, but his relationship with King David I of Scotland was generally good, partially due to Henry’s marriage to his sister.

Robert Curthose, who invaded in 1101, disputed Henry’s control of England; this military campaign ended in a negotiated settlement that confirmed Henry as king. The peace was short-lived, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray.

Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life. Henry’s control of Normandy was challenged by Louis VI, King of the Franks, Baldwin VII of Flanders and Fulk V of Anjou, who promoted the rival claims of Robert’s son, William Clito, and supported a major rebellion in the Duchy between 1116 and 1119. Following Henry’s victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120.

Considered by contemporaries to be a harsh but effective ruler, Henry skillfully manipulated the barons in England and Normandy. In England, he drew on the existing Anglo-Saxon system of justice, local government and taxation, but also strengthened it with additional institutions, including the royal exchequer and itinerant justices.

Normandy was also governed through a growing system of justices and an exchequer. Many of the officials who ran Henry’s system were “new men” of obscure backgrounds, rather than from families of high status, who rose through the ranks as administrators.

Henry encouraged ecclesiastical reform, but became embroiled in a serious dispute in 1101 with Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, which was resolved through a compromise solution in 1105. He supported the Cluniac order and played a major role in the selection of the senior clergy in England and Normandy.

Henry’s son William drowned in the White Ship disaster of 1120, throwing the royal succession into doubt. Henry took a second wife, Adeliza of Louvain, in the hope of having another son, but their marriage was childless. In response to this, he declared his daughter Matilda his heir and married her to Geoffrey of Anjou.

The relationship between Henry and the couple became strained, and fighting broke out along the border with Anjou. Henry died on December 1, 1135 after a week of illness. Despite his plans for Matilda, the king was succeeded by his nephew Stephen of Blois, resulting in a period of civil war known as the Anarchy.

Titles of British Monarchs: Part I.

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Alfred the Great, Æthelstan, John Lackland, King Henry VIII, King James VI of England and Scotland, King of England, King of the English, Kingdom of Great Britain, Lord of Ireland, Royal Titles

This is a list of titles of Kings and Queens of the Kingdoms of Wessex, Anglo-Saxons and England prior to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain many small kingdoms arose. The Kingdom we will address is the Kingdom of Wessex, also known as the Kingdom of the West Saxons. Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in 927.

The Anglo-Saxons believed that Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, but this may be a legend.

Cerdic is described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a leader of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, being the founder and first King of Saxon Wessex, reigning from 519 to 534 AD. Subsequent Kings of Wessex were each claimed by the Chronicle to descend in some manner from Cerdic.

Arms of the Kingdom of England

His origin, ethnicity, and even his very existence have been extensively disputed. However, though claimed as the founder of Wessex by later West Saxon kings, he would have been known to contemporaries as king of the Gewissae, a folk or tribal group. The first king of the Gewissae to call himself ‘King of the West Saxons’, was Caedwalla, in a charter of 686.

The two main sources for the history of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, which sometimes conflict. Wessex became a Christian kingdom after Cenwalh was baptised and was expanded under his rule.

We see the first major title change with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Afred is the only English King with the epitaph “The Great.”

Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Saxons from about 886, and while he was not the first king to claim to rule all of the English, his rule represents the start of the first unbroken line of kings to rule the whole of England, the House of Wessex. He was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder.

Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin Æthelwold, who had a strong claim to the throne as the son of Alfred’s elder brother and predecessor, Æthelred.

Æthelstan (c. 894 – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern historians regard him as the first King of England and one of the “greatest Anglo-Saxon kings”. He never married and had no children. He was succeeded by his half-brother, Edmund I.

The standard title for all English monarchs from Æthelstan until the time of King John was Rex Anglorum (“King of the English”). In addition, many of the pre-Norman kings assumed extra titles, as follows:

Æthelstan: Rex totius Britanniae (“King of the Whole of Britain”)

Edmund the Magnificent: Rex Britanniæ (“King of Britain”) and Rex Anglorum cæterarumque gentium gobernator et rector (“King of the English and of other peoples governor and director”)

Eadred: Regis qui regimina regnorum Angulsaxna, Norþhymbra, Paganorum, Brettonumque (“Reigning over the governments of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons, Northumbrians, Pagans, and British”)

Eadwig the Fair: Rex nutu Dei Angulsæxna et Northanhumbrorum imperator paganorum gubernator Breotonumque propugnator (“King by the will of God, Emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and Northumbrians, governor of the pagans, commander of the British”)

Edgar the Peaceful: Totius Albionis finitimorumque regum basileus (“King of all Albion and its neighbouring realms”)

Cnut the Great: Rex Anglorum totiusque Brittannice orbis gubernator et rector (“King of the English and of all the British sphere governor and ruler”) and Brytannie totius Anglorum monarchus (“Monarch of all the English of Britain”)

In the Norman period Rex Anglorum remained standard, with occasional use of Rex Anglie (“King of England”). The Empress Matilda styled herself Domina Anglorum (“Lady of the English”).

From the time of King John onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of Rex or Regina Anglie.(“King of England”).

John Lackland, King of England and Lord of Ireland

John Lackland, son of King Henry II had been given the Lordship of Ireland. Following the deaths of John’s older brothers he became King of England in 1199, and so the Lordship of Ireland, instead of being a separate country ruled by a junior Norman prince, came under the direct rule of the Angevin crown.

English monarchs continued to use the title “Lord of Ireland” to refer to their position of conquered lands on the island of Ireland. The title was changed by the Crown of Ireland Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 1542 when, on Henry VIII’s demand, he was granted a new title, King of Ireland, with the state renamed the Kingdom of Ireland.

Henry VIII changed his title because the Lordship of Ireland had been granted to the Norman monarchy by the Papacy; Henry had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church and worried that his title could be withdrawn by the Holy See. Henry VIII also wanted Ireland to become a full kingdom to encourage a greater sense of loyalty amongst his Irish subjects, some of whom took part in his policy of surrender and regrant.

In 1603 with the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, who left no heirs, the English throne was inherited by James VI, King of Scots. In England he is known as James I of England while in Scotland he is regarded as James VI of Scotland. I like to combine both regal numbers and refer to him as King James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland.

In 1604 King James I-VI adopted the title (now usually rendered in English rather than Latin) King of Great Britain. The English and Scottish parliaments, however, did not recognise this title until the Acts of Union of 1707 under Queen Anne (who was Queen of Great Britain rather than king).

Until the Acts of Union of 1707 the official title of the monarch was King/Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Edgar Ætheling, Uncrowded King of the English

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Edgar the Ætheling, King of the English, King of the Franks, Malcolm III of Scotland, Norman Conquest, Philip I of France, Robert Curthose, William II of England, William II of Normandy, William Rufus, William the Conqueror

1066 – Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later.

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

Edgar was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, where his father Edward the Exile, son of King 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 Cnut the Great in 1016.

Edgar II the Ætheling, King of the English

His grandfather Edmund, great-grandfather Æthelred II 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.

Edgar 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 House of Wessex 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 Duke 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 King Harold II’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.

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.

There are some historians that regard Edgar the Ætheling as a legitimate King of the English as Edgar II whose reign lasted for two short months making his reign the shortest reign in British history. Generally the reign of William the Conqueror is marked as starting on Christmas Day 1066 and not on October 14, the day of the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold II Godwinson.

William kept Edgar in his custody and took him, along with other English leaders, to his court in Normandy in 1067, before returning with them to England. Edgar may have been involved in the abortive rebellion of the Earls Edwin and Morcar in 1068, or he may have been attempting to return to Hungary with his family and been blown off course; in any case, in that year he arrived with his mother and sisters at the court of King Malcolm III of Scotland. Malcolm married Edgar’s sister Margaret, and agreed to support Edgar in his attempt to reclaim the English throne. When the rebellion that resulted in the Harrying of the North broke out in Northumbria at the beginning of 1069, Edgar returned to England with other rebels who had fled to Scotland, to become the leader, or at least the figurehead, of the revolt.

Late in the year of 1069, William fought his way into Northumbria and occupied York, buying off the Danes and devastating the surrounding country. Early in 1070, he moved against Edgar and other English leaders who had taken refuge with their remaining followers in a marshy region, perhaps Holderness or the Isle of Ely, and put them to flight. Edgar then returned to Scotland.

Edgar remained there until 1072, when William invaded Scotland and forced King Malcolm to submit to his overlordship. The terms of the agreement between them included the expulsion of Edgar. He therefore took up residence in Flanders, whose count, Robert the Frisian, was hostile to the Normans. However, he was able to return to Scotland in 1074.

Shortly after his arrival there, he received an offer from Philippe I, King of the Franks (France), who was also at odds with William, of a castle and lands near the borders of Normandy from where he would be able to raid his enemies’ homeland. He embarked with his followers for France, but a storm wrecked their ships on the English coast. Many of Edgar’s men were hunted down by the Normans, but he managed to escape with the remainder to Scotland by land. Following this disaster, he was persuaded by Malcolm to make peace with William and return to England as his subject, abandoning any ambition of regaining his ancestral throne.

After King William’s death in 1087, Edgar supported William’s eldest son Robert Curthose for the Englishthrone, who succeeded him as Duke of Normandy, against his second son, William Rufus, who received the throne of England as William II. Edgar was one of Robert’s three principal advisors at this time. The war waged by Robert and his allies to overthrow William ended in defeat in 1091. As part of the resulting settlement between the brothers, Edgar was deprived of lands which he had been granted by Robert.

Back in Europe, Edgar again took the side of Robert Curthose in the internal struggles of the Norman dynasty, this time against Robert’s youngest brother, who was now Henry I, King of England. He was taken prisoner in the final defeat at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106, which resulted in Robert being imprisoned for the rest of his life. Edgar was more fortunate: having been taken back to England, he was pardoned and released by King Henry.

Edgar’s niece Edith (renamed Matilda), daughter of Malcolm III and Margaret, had married Henry in 1100. 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 (Ætheling), the son of his niece Edith and heir to Henry I. 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.

According to a 1291 Huntingdon Priory Chronicle, Edgar had one child, Margaret Lovel, who was the wife of firstly Ralph Lovel II, of Castle Cary and secondly of Robert de Londres, both of whom had estates in southern Scotland.

There are two references to an “Edgar Adeling” found in the Magnus Rotulus Pipae Northumberland (Pipe rolls) for the years 1158 and 1167. Historian Edward Freeman, writing in The History of the Norman Conquest of England, says that this was the same Edgar (aged over 100), a son of his, or some other person known by the title Ætheling.

Edgar of Wessex becomes King of the English

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Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, Bishop of Worcester, Eadred of England, Eadwig of England, Edgar of England, Edgar of Wesex, Edmund I of England, Glastonbury Abbey, King of England, King of the English, St. Dustan

Edgar (c. 943 – July 8, 975) known as Edgar the Peaceful or Edgar the Peaceable, was King of the English from 959 until his death. He was the younger son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury, and came to the throne as a teenager, following the death of his older brother Eadwig. As king, Edgar further consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors, with his reign being noted for its relative stability. His most trusted advisor was Dunstan, whom he recalled from exile and made Archbishop of Canterbury. The pinnacle of Edgar’s reign was his coronation at Bath in 973, which was organised by Dunstan and forms the basis for the current coronation ceremony. After his death he was succeeded by his son Edward, although the succession was disputed.

Early years and accession

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar’s uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, Edmund’s eldest son.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became King of the English upon Eadwig’s death on October 1, 959, aged about 19.

Government

One of Edgar’s first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester and Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury. Dunstan remained Edgar’s advisor throughout his reign. Edgar’s reign was peaceful.

The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. William Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm.

According to George Molyneaux, Edgar’s reign, “far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom”. Indeed, an early eleventh century king Cnut the Great states in a letter to his subjects that ”it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar’s laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford”.

Benedictine reform

A coin of Edgar, struck in Winchcombe in Gloucestershire (c. 973-975).
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England’s monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald (historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement).

Dead Man’s Plack

In 963, Edgar allegedly killed Earl Æthelwald, his rival in love, near present-day Longparish, Hampshire. The event was commemorated by the Dead Man’s Plack, erected in 1825. In 1875, Edward Augustus Freeman debunked the story as a “tissue of romance” in his book, Historic Essays; however, his arguments were rebutted by naturalist William Henry Hudson in his 1920 book Dead Man’s Plack and an Old Thorn.

Coronation at Bath

Edgar was crowned at Bath and along with his wife Ælfthryth was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a Queen in England itself. Edgar’s coronation did not happen until 973, in an imperial ceremony planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign (a move that must have taken a great deal of preliminary diplomacy). This service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony.

The symbolic coronation was an important step; other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king’s liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar’s state barge on the River Dee. Such embellishments may not be factual, and what actually happened is unclear.

Marriages and children

Edgar is known to have had 3 relationships that produced children. His first wife (or consort) was Æthelflæd Eneda (the ‘white duck’), daughter of Ealdorman Ordmaer, who acquired land in Devon. They married sometime before he became king, about 957. Together they had one son:

Edward the Martyr (born c. 962 – died 978)

Wulfthryth of Wilton, who was educated at Wilton Abbey became his second consort. It is disputed whether they married, but Barbara Yorke argues that they did. Edgar removed Wulfthryth from Wilton Abbey, some sources say abducted, in 962 and returned her to Wilton Abbey by 964, she then took vows and became Abbess. Edgar and Wulfthryth had one daughter, who is said to have returned with her mother to the abbey:

Edith of Wilton also known as Saint Edith.

About 964/965 Edgar married again, his third relationship, to Ælfthryth, widow of Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia, Edgar’s adopted brother. Ælfthryth was the daughter of Ealdorman Ordgar and his wife, a member of the royal family of Wessex. Legend has it that Edgar heard of Ælfthryth’s great beauty and sent Æthelwald to arrange marriage for him (Edgar) but Æthelwald instead married her himself. In retaliation Æthelwald was killed ‘in a hunting accident’ and Edgar married her as he had wanted. It is not known if this is true or simply romantic fiction. Edgar and Ælfthryth had two sons:

Edmund Atheling (born c. 966 – died c.970)

Æthelred the Unready (born c. 968 – d. 23 April 1016)

After the death of Edward the Martyr in 978, Æthelred was not yet old enough to rule on his own and Ælfthryth acted as regent.

Death

Edgar died on July 8, 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He was buried at Glastonbury Abbey. He left two sons, his successor Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd, daughter of ealdorman Ordmaer, and Æthelred, the younger, the child of his wife Ælfthryth. Edgar also had a possibly illegitimate daughter by Wulfthryth, who later became abbess of Wilton. She was joined there by her daughter, Edith of Wilton, who lived there as a nun until her death. Both women were later regarded as saints.

William I the Conqueror as King of the English and his death on September 8, 1087.

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Doomsday Book, Duke Alan of Brittany, King of the English, Robert of Normandy, William I the Conqueror, William Rufus

At Christmas 1085, William ordered the compilation of a survey of the landholdings held by himself and by his vassals throughout his kingdom, organised by counties. It resulted in a work now known as the Domesday Book. The listing for each county gives the holdings of each landholder, grouped by owners. The listings describe the holding, who owned the land before the Conquest, its value, what the tax assessment was, and usually the number of peasants, ploughs, and any other resources the holding had. Towns were listed separately.

All the English counties south of the River Tees and River Ribble are included, and the whole work seems to have been mostly completed by August 1, 1086, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that William received the results and that all the chief magnates swore the Salisbury Oath, a renewal of their oaths of allegiance. William’s exact motivation in ordering the survey is unclear, but it probably had several purposes, such as making a record of feudal obligations and justifying increased taxation.

Death and aftermath

William left England towards the end of 1086. Following his arrival back on the continent he married his daughter Constance to Duke Alan of Brittany, in furtherance of his policy of seeking allies against the French kings. William’s son Robert, still allied with the French king, appears to have been active in stirring up trouble, enough so that William led an expedition against the French Vexin in July 1087. While seizing Mantes, William either fell ill or was injured by the pommel of his saddle. He was taken to the priory of Saint Gervase at Rouen, where he died on September 9, 1087. Knowledge of the events preceding his death is confused because there are two different accounts.

Orderic Vitalis preserves a lengthy account, complete with speeches made by many of the principals, but this is likely more of an account of how a king should die than of what actually happened. The other, the De obitu Willelmi, or On the Death of William, has been shown to be a copy of two 9th-century accounts with names changed.William’s grave before the high altar in the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, Caen.

William left Normandy to Robert, and the custody of England was given to William’s second surviving son, also called William, on the assumption that he would become king. The youngest son, Henry, received money. After entrusting England to his second son, the elder William sent the younger William back to England on 7 or 8 September, bearing a letter to Lanfranc ordering the archbishop to aid the new king. Other bequests included gifts to the Church and money to be distributed to the poor. William also ordered that all of his prisoners be released, including his half-brother Odo.

Disorder followed William’s death; everyone who had been at his deathbed left the body at Rouen and hurried off to attend to their own affairs. Eventually, the clergy of Rouen arranged to have the body sent to Caen, where William had desired to be buried in his foundation of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes. The funeral, attended by the bishops and abbots of Normandy as well as his son Henry, was disturbed by the assertion of a citizen of Caen who alleged that his family had been illegally despoiled of the land on which the church was built. After hurried consultations, the allegation was shown to be true, and the man was compensated. A further indignity occurred when the corpse was lowered into the tomb. The corpse was too large for the space, and when attendants forced the body into the tomb it burst, spreading a disgusting odour throughout the church.

William’s grave is currently marked by a marble slab with a Latin inscription dating from the early 19th century. The tomb has been disturbed several times since 1087, the first time in 1522 when the grave was opened on orders from the papacy. The intact body was restored to the tomb at that time, but in 1562, during the French Wars of Religion, the grave was reopened and the bones scattered and lost, with the exception of one thigh bone. This lone relic was reburied in 1642 with a new marker, which was replaced 100 years later with a more elaborate monument. This tomb was again destroyed during the French Revolution but was eventually replaced with the current ledger stone

William I the Conqueror as King of the English. Part V.

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Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of the Normans, King of England, King of the English, Language, Norman Invasion, William the Conqueror, Writ

Language

One of the most obvious effects of the conquest was the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old French with limited Nordic influences, as the language of the ruling classes in England, displacing Old English. Norman French words entered the English language, and a further sign of the shift was the usage of names common in France instead of Anglo-Saxon names. Male names such as William, Robert, and Richard soon became common; female names changed more slowly.

The Norman invasion had little impact on placenames, which had changed significantly after earlier Scandinavian invasions. It is not known precisely how much English the Norman invaders learned, nor how much the knowledge of Norman French spread among the lower classes, but the demands of trade and basic communication probably meant that at least some of the Normans and native English were bilingual. Nevertheless, William the Conqueror never developed a working knowledge of English and for centuries afterwards English was not well understood by the nobility.

Immigration and intermarriage

An estimated 8000 Normans and other continentals settled in England as a result of the conquest, although exact figures cannot be established. Some of these new residents intermarried with the native English, but the extent of this practice in the years immediately after Hastings is unclear. Several marriages are attested between Norman men and English women during the years before 1100, but such marriages were uncommon. Most Normans continued to contract marriages with other Normans or other continental families rather than with the English. Within a century of the invasion, intermarriage between the native English and the Norman immigrants had become common. By the early 1160s, Ailred of Rievaulx was writing that intermarriage was common in all levels of society.

Historiography

Debate over the conquest started almost immediately. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, when discussing the death of William the Conqueror, denounced him and the conquest in verse, but the king’s obituary notice from William of Poitiers, a Frenchman, was full of praise. Historians since then have argued over the facts of the matter and how to interpret them, with little agreement. The theory or myth of the “Norman yoke” arose in the 17th century, the idea that Anglo-Saxon society had been freer and more equal than the society that emerged after the conquest. This theory owes more to the period in which it was developed than to historical facts, but it continues to be used to the present day in both political and popular thought.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, historians have focused less on the rightness or wrongness of the conquest itself, instead concentrating on the effects of the invasion. Some, such as Richard Southern, have seen the conquest as a critical turning point in history. Southern stated that “no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the 20th century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced after 1066”. Other historians, such as H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, believe that the transformation was less radical.

In more general terms, Singman has called the conquest “the last echo of the national migrations that characterized the early Middle Ages”. The debate over the impact of the conquest depends on how change after 1066 is measured. If Anglo-Saxon England was already evolving before the invasion, with the introduction of feudalism, castles or other changes in society, then the conquest, while important, did not represent radical reform. But the change was dramatic if measured by the elimination of the English nobility or the loss of Old English as a literary language. Nationalistic arguments have been made on both sides of the debate, with the Normans cast as either the persecutors of the English or the rescuers of the country from a decadent Anglo-Saxon nobility.