King Edward The Martyr
962 – 978 · Generation V · King of the English (r. 975–978) · House of Wessex
Edward the Martyr (962–978). King of the English (r. 975–978). Murdered at Corfe as a teenager; venerated as a saint within a generation. His accession was itself a contest between two child half-brothers and their rival family alliances. Edward's cause was carried by Archbishop Dunstan and Ealdorman Æthelwine, Æthelred's by his mother Ælfthryth; the dispute was settled quickly, Æthelred receiving the lands customary for a king's eldest son. The short reign was consumed by reaction against his father's favouring of the monasteries, as nobles moved — mostly through legal action, sometimes by force — to recover surrendered estates, though the factions never came to open war. Killed on his stepmother's estate, he was buried hastily at Wareham; a year later his body was carried in solemn procession to reburial at Shaftesbury Abbey, and nearly all writers after the Norman Conquest named Ælfthryth as instigator. Yet the living Edward had terrorised even his own household with beatings and abuse, and historians find nothing in him to merit a saint's cult.
One of 21 people of House of Wessex (until 1093) in this archive. Alfred’s line: kings of Wessex who became the first kings of all England.
Line of descent: King Alfred the Great → King Edward The Elder → King Edmund → King Edgar → King Edward The Martyr.
Parents
- King Edgar (943 – 975)
- Æthelflæd Eneda (945 – 960)
Siblings
- King Aethelred II The Unready (966 – 1016) (half)
Life
- 962 — Born
- 975 — 13 year old Edward succeeds to the throne
- 978 — Died
- 978 — Edward the Martyr murdered at Corfe Castle