Note Bb. p. . The Election of Eadward the Martyr

The Chronicles do not, either in prose or in verse, say anything about the disputed election which is said to have followed the death of Eadgar, though three of them notice in verse that the crown passed to a minor. Eadgar dies,

“And feng his bearn syððan
Tó cynerice,
Cild únweaxen.
Eorla ealdor;
Þam wæs Eadweard nama.”

Either there is here a play on the words “ealdor” and “cild únweaxen,” or else the passage is a sign how utterly the word “ealdor” had lost its primitive sense.

Florence describes the disputed election very clearly;

“De rege eligendo magna inter regni primores oborta est dissensio; quidam namque regis filium Edwardum, quidam vero fratrem illius elegerunt Ægelredum. Quam ob caussam archipræsules Dunstanus et Oswaldus, cum coepiscopis, abbatibus, ducibusque quam plurimis, in unum convenerunt, et Eadwardum, ut pater suus præceperat, elegerunt; electum consecraverunt et in regem unxerunt.”

William of Malmesbury (ii. 161) makes Eadward be supported by Dunstan and certain Bishops in opposition to the Lady Ælfthryth and a party of the nobles; “contra voluntatem quorumdam, ut aiunt, optimatum et novercæ, quæ vixdum septem annorum puerulum Egelredum filium provehere conabatur, ut ipsa potius sub ejus nomine imperitaret.”

Osbern, the biographer of Dunstan (Anglia Sacra, ii. 113), speaks of Eadward as the heir, but says that some of the chief nobles objected to his election (“in cujus electione dum quidam principes palatini adquiescere nollent”) because of their fears from his supposed character (“existimantes juvenem regem inhumanum futurum, consilia sapientum non curaturum, sed pro libidine omnia acturum”). Eadmer, in his Life of Dunstan (Ang. Sac. ii. 220), makes them dread his severe justice (“quia morum illius severitatem, qua in suorum excessus acriter sævire consueverat, suspectam habebat”). They also object that he was not the son of a crowned King and his Lady (“quia matrem ejus, licet legaliter nuptam, in regnum tamen non magis quam patrem ejus dum eum genuit sacratam fuisse sciebant”). Waitz (iii. 65) remarks, when Pope Stephen anointed the sons of Pippin along with their father, “dass dies geschehen sei, um den vor der Wahl gebornen Söhnen das volle Erbrecht zu geben und die Möglichkeit zu entfernen, dass man etwa später gebornen Söhnen einen Vorrang beilege.” In both these accounts the matter is brought to an issue by the vigorous action of Dunstan.

One would like to know how far there is any truth in these statements of the objections brought against Eadward. One would have thought that there could not have been much to fear from either the virtues or the vices of a boy of his years. But the objection brought against him on the ground of his not being of kingly birth is much more likely to be a piece of genuine tradition. The difficulty about it is that, as Lappenberg remarks, it was an objection which told just as much against Æthelred as against Eadward. For the meaning can hardly be other than that Eadward was born before his father’s coronation at Bath in 974, which Æthelred was also. Otherwise the objection would really be a good one, and it was used long after on behalf of Henry the First against his elder brothers. (Cf. Herod. vii. 2–3.) Perhaps all that was meant was to deny that Eadward had any preference over his half-brother, so that the two boys might be candidates on equal terms.

I may add that the Bath coronation of Eadgar is to me one of the most puzzling things in our history. I should have taken it to be, according to one story, a mere taking again of the crown after the penance for the matter of Wulfthryth; only the Chronicles, which have hitherto freely called Eadgar King, in recording the coronation pointedly call him Ætheling.