Edward (Wessex) of Wessex (1016 - 1057)

Born 1016 in England [uncertain]

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1057 at about age 41 in London, Middlesex, England [uncertain]

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Edward (Wessex) of Wessex is a member of the House of Wessex.

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Biography

Edward was the son of Edmund Ironside and his wife, said to have been named Ældgyth/Ealdgyth. His parents married in 1015,^[1] and his father died on 30 November 1016, so he would have been born in either 1016 or posthumously after his father's death. Given the shortness of time between his parents' marriage and Edmund Ironside's death, he and his brother Edmund may have been twins.^[2]

After his father's death, Edward and his brother went to Hungary, where they found safe refuge.^[3] The circumstances and timing are obscure. According to a 1057 entry in the D text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Cnut banished Edward to Hungary to betray (presumably meaning with the intention that he should be killed).^[4] Orderic Vitalis states that Edward and his brother were sent to Denmark to be killed, but that the Danish king sent them on to Hungary.^[2] John of Worcester, in the Chronicle formerly attributed to Florence of Worcester, says that they were sent to the Swedish king to be done to death, and were instead transferred to Hungary.^[1][5] According to Adam of Bremen, the two brothers were banished to Russia.^[2]

Charles Cawley speculates that Edmund and his brother did not reach Hungary until 1046, though without a reliable source.^[2]

Edward married Agatha, whose precise family origins are unclear. She may have been a member of the Hungarian royal family or else a close relative of a Holy Roman Emperor.^[1] (See her profile, and her entry in the Henry Project,^[6] for more discussion.) Edward and Agatha had three children:

• Edgar Ætheling^[1][2][7]
• St Margaret of Scotland who married Malcolm Canmore^[1][2][7]
• Christina^[1][2][7]

Edward spent almost all his life in exile and he is often known as Edward the Exile. There is no reliable information about his life outside England. In 1057 he finally came to England, possibly invited in the hope that he might prove a successor to Edward the Confessor:^[8] but he died on 19 April 1057, without having met Edward the Confessor.^[1] He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London.^[1][8]

Research Notes

Edward the Exile and his wife Agatha have previously been shown on WikiTree as parents of Aethlreda, whose profile is unsourced. There is no good source for their having a child of this name and she has been detached. It is not at all clear who Athlreda's profile is meant to represent, and her existence is uncertain.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by M K Lawson for 'Edward Ætheling [called Edward the Exile]', print and online 2004
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6} Charles Cawley. EDWARD ([1016/17-London 19 Apr 1057], entry (under his father Edmund Ironside) in "Medieval Lands" database (accessed 17 May 2021)
3. ↑ Frank Stenton. Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 397
4. ↑ Michael Swanton (translator and editor). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, revised edition, Phoenix Press, 2000, pp. 187-188
5. ↑ Joseph Stevenson (trans. and ed.). The Church Historians of England, Vol. II, part I, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, Seeleys, 1853, p. 269, Internet Archive
6. ↑ The Henry Project, entry for Agatha wife of Eadweard the Exile
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2} The Henry Project, entry for Eadweard "the Exile"
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Michael Swanton (translator and editor). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, revised edition, Phoenix Press, 2000, pp. 187-188

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by M K Lawson for 'Edward Ætheling [called Edward the Exile]', print and online 2004
• Fest, Sándor. The Sons of Eadmund Ironside, Anglo-Saxon King at the Court of Saint Stephen, Hungarian Electronic Periodical Archive, undated
• Cawley, Charles. EDWARD ([1016/17-London 19 Apr 1057], entry (under his father Edmund Ironside) in "Medieval Lands" database (accessed 19 May 2021)
• The Henry Project, entry for Eadweard "the Exile"
• Wikipedia: Edward the Exile