Edgar of England

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Edgar of England

Edgar I the Peaceful or the Peaceable (c. 7 August 943–8 July 975) was a king of England

England

Edmund I of England

Edmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-Doer, the Just or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan of England....
. His cognomen

Cognomen

The cognomen was originally a middle name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary ....
, "The Peaceable", was not necessarily a comment on the deeds of his life, for he was a strong leader, shown by his seizure of the Northumbrian and Mercian kingdoms from his older brother, Edwy, in 958. A conclave of nobles held Edgar to be king north of the Thames, and Edgar aspired to succeed to the English throne.

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Edgar I the Peaceful or the Peaceable (c. 7 August 943–8 July 975) was a king of England

England

Edmund I of England

Cognomen

Dunstan

Dunstan was an abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, a bishop of Worcester, a bishop of London, and an archbishop of Canterbury who was later canonization as a saint....
(eventually canonised

Canonization

Canonization is the act by which a particular Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint and is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints....
as St. Dunstan) from exile to have him made Bishop of Worcester

Bishop of Worcester

The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England.The diocese covers the county of Worcestershire, the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, and parts of the City of Wolverhampton....
(and subsequently Bishop of London

Bishop of London

The Bishop of London is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km? of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey....
and Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury, the Episcopal see that churches must be in communion with in order to be a part of the Anglican Communion....
). The allegation Dunstan at first refused to crown Edgar because of disapproval for his way of life is a discreet reference in popular histories to Edgar's abduction of Wulfthryth, a nun at Wilton, who bore him a daughter Eadgyth

Edith of Wilton

Saint Edith of Wilton was born at Kemsing, Kent in 961.She was the illegitimate daughter of King Edgar of England. Her mother was Wulfthryth, a nun of noble birth, whom Edgar forcibly carried off from her monastery at Wilton....
. Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign.

Though Edgar was not a particularly peaceable man, his reign was a peaceful one. The Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading tribes in the south and east of Great Britain starting from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, lasting until the Norman conquest of England of 1066....
kingdom of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a state in North-West Europe. The Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and a number of smaller outlying islands?what is today the legal unit of England and Wales....
was at its height. Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of Edgar's reign, England was sufficiently unified that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships.

The Monastic Reform Movement that restored the Benedictine Rule to England's undisciplined monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Aethelwold, and Oswald

Oswald of Worcester

Saint Oswald of Worcester was Archbishop of York from 972 to his death in 992. He was of Danish ancestry, but brought up by his uncle, Oda the Severe who sent him to France to the abbey of Fleury Abbey to become a monk....
. (Historians continue to debate the extent and significance of this movement.)

Edgar was crowned at Bath, but not 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
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English language chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The annals were created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great....
, 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

Chester

Chester is the county town of Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, Wales, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider local government district of the Chester , which had a population of 118,210 according to the United Kingdom Census 2001....
. Six kings in Britain, including the kings of Scotland

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
and of Strathclyde

Strathclyde

Strathclyde is one of nine former Local government in Scotland Regions and districts of Scotland of Scotland created by the Local Government Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc Act 1994....
, 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

River Dee, Wales

The River Dee is a river. It travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between them.The river source in Snowdonia, Wales, flows north via Chester, England, and discharges to the sea into an estuary between Wales and the Wirral Peninsula ....
. Such embellishments may not be factual, but the main outlines of the "submission at Chester" appear true. (See History of Chester

History of Chester

The history of Chester extends back nearly two millennia, covering all periods of British history in between then and the present day. The city status in the United Kingdom of Chester was founded as a fort, known as Deva, by the Roman Empire in AD 79....
.)

Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, and was buried at Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury Abbey, founded in the seventh century, was a rich and powerful monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. It became associated with the legends of the Holy Grail and King Arthur in the tenth century....
. He left two sons, the eldest named Edward, the son of his first wife Ethelfleda (not to be confused with Ethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians

Ethelfleda

Ethelfleda , also spelled Ethelfled, was the eldest daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex and his wife Ealhswith. She was born around AD 872....
), and Ethelred, the youngest, the child of his second wife Ælfthryth. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward

Edward the Martyr

Edward the Martyr or Eadweard II was king of England from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar of England, but not his father's acknowledged heir apparent....
. Edgar's illegitimate daughter Eadgyth

Edith of Wilton

Saint Edith of Wilton was born at Kemsing, Kent in 961.She was the illegitimate daughter of King Edgar of England. Her mother was Wulfthryth, a nun of noble birth, whom Edgar forcibly carried off from her monastery at Wilton....
became a nun at Wilton and was eventually canonised as St. Edith.

From Edgar’s death to the Norman Conquest there was not a single succession to the throne that was not contested. Some see Edgar’s death as the beginning of the end of Anglo-Saxon England, followed as it was by three successful 11th-century conquests — two Danish and one Norman.

Genealogy

For a more complete genealogy including ancestors and descendants, see House of Wessex family tree

House of Wessex family tree

The following chart is a family tree of the kings of the House of Wessex, a dynasty whose members were Kings of Wessex, and then, from Athelstan onwards, King of England....
.

1. Biography Edgar, King of the English, 959-975: New Interpretations (Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies) (Hardcover) by Donald Scragg # Hardcover: 296 pages

Publisher: The Boydell Press (21 Aug 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1843833999
ISBN-13: 978-1843833994
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.5 x 3 cm

External links

laws of King Edgar, a fragment