Elfrida

Encyclopedia : E : EL : ELF : Elfrida

Elfrida (c.945-1000, also Alfrida, Ælfthryth or Elfthryth) was the second wife and Queen consort of King Edgar of England (reigned 959-975).

Contents

1 Early Life and First Marriage
2 As Queen Consort
3 Children of Elfrida

3.1 By Ethelwold
3.2 By Edgar

4 References
5 External links

Early Life and First Marriage

She was born at Lydford, the daughter of Earl Ordgar, Alderman of Devon and Wulfrith Redburch. Elfrida was married c. 962-963 to Ethelwold, Alderman of the East Angles.

Ethelwold was later killed after being struck by a spear while hunting with King Edgar. Rumors at the time alleged that Edgar had deliberately slain Ethelwold in order to marry Elfrida.

As Queen Consort

Following her marriage to Edgar in 965, Elfrida bore a son, Ethelred (Ethelred the Unready), in 968. She was crowned queen alongside her husband at Bath Abbey on May 11, 973, making her the second English queen to actually be crowned with the title (the first having been Ethelwulf's second wife Judith). King Edgar died in 975.

Elfrida was alleged to have been a party to the murder of her step-son Edward the Martyr at her residence in Corfe Castle on March 18, 978. This was to place her son Ethelred on the throne as King. Elfrida believed her son's claim to the throne was superior to her step-son's because both Ethelred's parents had been crowned and consecrated. Henry of Huntingdon relates:

"[Edward] was treasonably slain by his own family... it is reported that his stepmother, that is the mother of King Ethelred, stabbed him with a dagger while she was in the act of offering him a cup to drink."

That Elfrida had her henchmen commit the murder for her is a more likely scenario. In 1970 an examination was performed on remains believed to be Edward's, which had been unearthed in 1931 in the ruins of Shaftesbury Abbey. The examination suggested that the young man had been stabbed in the back while riding his horse and had been dragged along the ground by the animal with his foot caught in a stirrup.

Following the murder, in 979 Elfrida founded the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary and St. Melor (near Amesbury, England). In 986 she became a nun and founded the Benedictine Monastery at Wherwell, Hampshire. She died on November 17, 1000.

Children of Elfrida

By Ethelwold

Edgar (c. 962-964)

By Edgar

Edmund (c. 965- 970)
Ethelred (Ethelred the Unready, c. 986- April 23, 1016)

References

Palgrave, Sir Francis (1876). History of the Anglo-Saxons Chapter XIII.
Lacey, Robert and Danziger, Danny (2000). The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium.

External links

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.