Æthelflæd Eneda

945 – 960 · Generation IV

Æthelflæd Eneda was the first wife of Edgar, King of England, and probably the mother of his eldest son, Edward the Martyr. Her byname is usually translated as the duck, and one chronicle calls her Æthelflæd the Fair. She is attested in Eadmer’s Life of St Dunstan, which names her father as Ordmær, an ealdorman of the East Angles, and says Edgar took her as his lawful wife in the years 957 to 959, when he ruled only the Mercians, and that she died a few years afterwards. The historian Cyril Hart has suggested that her father was the Ordmær who exchanged land at Hatfield with Æthelstan Half-King, Edgar’s foster-father, which may be how the couple met.

Edgar became king of all England in 959, when he was sixteen, and their son Edward was born about 962. She granted Lingfield and Sanderstead to the New Minster at Winchester, whose list of benefactors names her as Edgar’s wife. Edgar soon had a relationship with Wulfthryth and married Ælfthryth in 964, so Æthelflæd had probably died by then.

Her standing mattered after she was gone. Ælfthryth questioned whether the marriage had been lawful, to strengthen the claims of her own sons, Edmund and Æthelred, and the quarrel fed the factional struggle that ended in Edward’s murder in 978. A later story made his mother a nun Edgar had seduced, but historians reject it and generally accept her as Edgar’s wife.

Partners

• Married King Edgar (943 – 975) in 957 — one child together

Children

• King Edward The Martyr (962 – 978)

Life

• 945 — Born
• 957 — Married Edgar the Peaceful
• 960 — Died

Sources

1. Æthelflæd Eneda · Wikipedia
2. Edward the Martyr · Wikipedia
3. Edgar, King of England · Wikipedia