That Edgar is canonized at all is perhaps his greatest miracle, given his domestic relations. Granted, his reunification of the English throne was achieved without conquest, earning him the cognomen Peaceful or Peaceable, but his domestic relations were less pleasant.
You could say that Edgar loved the ladies, except that if he really loved them, he wouldn't have used his power to coerce sex from them. While other leaders like the petty kings who rowed his boat up the River Dee to his coronation might feel grateful that he left them in place to govern locally, and certainly Saint Dunstan was grateful to be recalled from exile and eventually tapped to lead the whole English church, a lot of parents and daughters throughout the countryside felt differently about his reign.
One country squire with a comely daughter was ordered to surrender her to the King's bed as he made his royal progress through the area. Night already having fallen, the squire figures he can pull a Laban, so he sends one of the serving girls instead. She served the King all night but got up early the next morning. Edgar inquired where she was going, so she explained that he had to get about her chores. Furious at the deception, the King dispossessed the tricky nobleman and gave his lands to his young bedmate.
While he was married to Aethelfaed Enida, the mother of his son Saint Edward the Martyr (a hapless boy murdered by his step-mother to clear the path of her own son Aethelred the Unready). But even during this marriage, he was out of line. He seduced a nun, Wulfthrith, from Wilton Abbey and carried her off to Kent, where she gave birth to a daughter.
Around the same time, his wife died. He offered to make his captive nun the queen, but she fled back to her abbey. He didn't pursue her, instead enlisting his foster-brother to recruit another bride for him. One account says the poor fellow was supposed to marry her as the King's proxy and send her forward. Well, the dumb bastard fell in love with a girl named Aelfthryth, married the girl himself, and then told Edgar that she wasn't good enough for a king. Too plain. Edgar invited the happy couple to dinner, met the charming young bride, and then took his brother out to the woods for a quick hunt. Sweet young Aelfthryth went from newly-wed to widow in minutes, but she didn't have to wait long before she was regaining newlywed status, this time as a queen. She outlived both the husband and stepson, helping her ten-year-old son Aethelred earn the nickname Unready.
No comments:
Post a Comment