#edward has murdered the ealdormen and is now like

[ladyfenring]

AAAAAAAAH. lol.

[birdsthatsingaftermidnight]

Monarch #6

Who: Edward(Old English: Eadweard) Also Known As: Edward the Martyr Where: England Succeeded: His father, Edgar Reigned: 8th July, 975 - 18th March, 978 Born: c.962 Died: 18th March, 978 (aged 15-16), Corfe Castle, Dorset Buried: Wareham, later Shaftesbury, later Woking (his bones were hidden during the reformation in order to prevent their desecration and were much later housed in a cutlery box at a Midland Bank vault in Woking as there was a dispute between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and Shaftesbury Abbey over where the bones should go - ultimately the Orthodox Church won and he was enshrined in a church now named St Edward the Martyr Orthodox Church in Woking in September 1984. They might not even be Edward’s bones. Whilst they are approximately of the right date they appear to be the bones of a man in his late twenties/early thirties than those of a teenager). Consorts/Children: He did not marry or have any children.

Edward Facts! Edward was the eldest son of Edgar the Peaceful, but not his father’s named heir.  On Edgar’s death the throne was contested with some supporting Edward and others his younger half-brother, Æthelred.  Obviously, Edward’s supporters (who included both Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury and Archsbishop Oswald of York) won that one, but a civil war very nearly broke out.

Contemporary sources name Edward as Edgar’s son, but all we know is that he was not the son of Edgar’s third queen, Ælfthryth.  Later sources, of questionable reliability, name Edward’s mother as Wulfthryth of Wilton, the nun abducted by Edgar as his second wife.  Another source names Edward as the son of Æthelflæd, Edgar’s first wife.  A charter of 966 names Ælfthryth as the king’s lawful wife, their eldest son Edmund (d.971) as the legitimate son of the king, and Edward as “the king’s son”[1].  Some argue this meaning that Edward was not legitimate, and others that the difference being that whilst Edward’s mother was  the wife of Edgar, it was Æthelred’s mother Ælfthryth who was anointed, consecrated queen, making her children “more” legitimate.  

It may simply be that the state of the “legitimacy” of Edgar’s son was well understood and the upheavals of Edward’s reign were caused by resentment of Edgar, a strong ruler, forcing monastic reforms on the church and nobility.  The actual fight was more likely over these reforms - and many lands were grabbed back from the monasteries - than the question of legitimacy of Edgar’s children (Archbishop Dunstan, supporting Edward, questioned the legitimacy of both Edgar’s marriage to Ælfthryth and thus of their son, Æthelred).

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Edward’s coronation was followed by a comet appearing and famine following in its wake.  There were several appointments of new ealdormen, notably in Wessex and Northumbria.  

Edward was murdered at Corfe Castle in 978.  That he was murdered is not in doubt, but the circumstances are not clear.  He was buried hurriedly in Dorset, then later reburied with greater ceremony at Shaftesbury Abbey in 979, then moved again, this time to a more prominent place in the abbey, very likely under the instructions of his successor, his half-brother Æthelred, in 1001.  Of his death, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E, The Peterborough Chronicle, said: 

"No worse deed for the English race was done than this was, since they first sought out the land of Britain. Men murdered him, but God exalted him. In life he was an earthly king; after death he is now a heavenly saint. His earthly relatives would not avenge him, but his Heavenly Father has much avenged him."

11th century sources put the blame of the murder at the feet of Edward’s stepmother, Ælfthryth.  One chronicler claimed that she killed Edward herself.  However, there are three main modern theories as to who was behind the murder: 

Edward was killed, as the early source “The Life of Oswald of Worcester” says, by men in Æthelred's service, either as the result of a personal quarrel (the Life makes Edward out to be an unstable young man who offended a lot of people) or in order to put Æthelred on the throne. 

Ælfthryth either plotted the murder or at the least let the killers go free and unpunished. 

In 978 Edward was getting close to the age whereby he could rule alone, and  Ealdorman Ælfhere of Mercia was behind the killing in order that he might preserve his power (presumably inveigling himself with the new, much younger king) and not have to worry about Edward taking land back for the monasteries that Ælfhere had grabbed back off them following King Edgar granting them to the Benedictines.[2]  In support of this is offers the idea that Ælfhere’s playing a large part in the reburial of Edward was as a penance for his part in the murder.

Edward was already being venerated as a saint at the time of his reburial in 1001.  He is today regarded as a saint by the Easter Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion.  His feast day is 18th March and the Orthodox Church further celebrates him on 3rd September and commemorates his translation into the Orthodox Church on 13th February. 

He was succeeded by his half-brother,  Æthelred II the Unready.

[1] Williams, Æthelred the Unready, p. 2; John, Reassessing Anglo-Saxon England, p. 120 [2] Higham, Death of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 12