We Hardly Knew Ye...

Queen Elizabeth II of England recently passed a milestone, becoming the longest-reigning monarch of England. I am not certain of the "longest reign" candidates from other countries, but there is well-documented evidence of those who reigned the shortest.

Of course we know about Harold Godwinson, whose nine months and nine days was cut short by William the Conqueror in 1066. Sad for him, but his reign—albeit filled with warfare—was more leisurely than some. With Harold's death, technically he was succeeded by Edgar II, but after one month and 25 days, he relinquished his claim to William.

Empress Matilda was a claimant for the English throne during the Anarchy (discussed here, here, here, and here). She reigned less than nine months in 1141.

King Edmund Ironside (died 1016) ruled Wessex in England for seven months. and seven days King Lulach of the Scots  "beat" him in 1057 by reigning five days fewer, while the Scottish Duncan II lasted less than six months. King Hildebrand of the Lombards was just under seven months, in 744. Dafydd ap Gruffyd lasted for six months and 11 days.

Alexios IV Angelus, who ran afoul of the European 4th Crusaders who helped him to his throne, managed five months and 26 days. But his father, Isaac II Angelus, lasted less than five months. Their usurper, Alexios V Doukas, lasted even less: two months and a week.

Charles II of Hungary was murdered after one month and 24 days, in 1386.

Svein Forkbeard usurped the throne from Æthelred II, but held it only one month and nine days; it went back to Æthelred on Svein's death in 1014.

Then there was the Year of the Four Emperors (in Rome), but that was in the first century CE, and a little too early for a blog with "medieval" in its name. (But, for the record, they were just post-Nero: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian.)

If you didn't know how short your reign was, would it matter? King John I of France and Navarre reigned five days. He was the heir of Louis X; John died on 20 November 1316, aged five days!

But... what if John I actually didn't die after five days? I will have a story for you tomorrow about that.

The Battle of Assandun

Edmund Ironside meets King Canute (Matthew Paris)

Fifty years before the Norman Invasion changed the culture of Britain, the island (or parts of it) changed hands, from the English to the Danes. The Battle of Assandun, on 18 October 1016, was the last phase of the Danes' attempt to re-take Britain.

It was a signifiant enough event that accounts made it into several chronicles. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle goes into great detail:

A.D. 1016.  This year came King Knute with a marine force of one hundred and sixty ships, and Alderman Edric with him, over the Thames into Mercia at Cricklade; whence they proceeded to Warwickshire, during the middle of the winter, and plundered therein, and burned, and slew all they met.

Edmund Ironside was king; his son, Edmund Ætheling, tried to gather an army, but not everyone answered the call.

Then began Edmund the etheling to gather an army, which, when it was collected, could avail him nothing, unless the king were there and they had the assistance of the citizens of London.  The expedition therefore was frustrated, and each man betook himself home.

Eventually an army was assembled, but ultimately Cnut won. Edmund Ironside was forced to sign a treaty agreeing that Cnut would control all of England except Wessex, and that whichever died first would cede all his territory to the other, the survivor's son becoming the heir to all England.

Mere weeks after signing the treaty, Edmund Ironside died on 30 November 1016. Cnut became king of all England, which he ruled for the following 20 years.

Gisela of Hungary

Window at Cathedral of St. Michael
in Veszprém, Hungary, where Gisela is buried

Gisela (985 - 1065) was mentioned as the wife of King (later Saint) Stephen I, founder of Hungary. She was an important person in the christianization of Hungary and, as the daughter of Duke Henry II  of Bavaria, she was a link to Western Europe, becoming a part of which was one of Stephen's political goals.

She also had an interesting connection to England. When Edmund Ironside was defeated by King Cnut, his sons were sent abroad for safety and wound up in Hungary under the protection of Gisela. One of the sons died young, but the other, Edward Ætheling, was considered a rightful heir to the throne of England. (Known in England as Edward the Exile, he was recalled to England by the childless Edward the Confessor, who hoped to have in him a clear successor; within days of his arrival in 1057, he was dead, possibly killed by the powerful Godwins, who wanted their Harold to take the throne.)

When Stephen died in 1038, Gisela was forced to leave Hungary in the civil strife that followed. She became the abbess of a convent in Passau, in southern Bavaria in Germany. She lived there until her death in 1065.

She was buried in St. Michael's in Veszprém, Hungary, and venerated as a saint. An attempt at canonization failed in the 1700s, but she was labeled Beatus, Blessed Gisela. 

The King That Almost Was

I mentioned here that, after the Battle of Hastings, another claimant to the throne of England had to flee to Scotland in the face of William of Normandy's success. There, Edward's sister Margaret married King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, and Edward gave up the dream of his line ruling England.

There was, however, a chance for the throne to pass back to his family, after all.

William of Normandy divided his rule by giving Normandy to his eldest son, Robert Curthose, and England to a younger son, William Rufus. When William Rufus was killed in a hunting accident in 1100, the youngest son, Henry, became Henry I of England. In 1105, prompted by his older brother Robert's poor performance, Henry invaded Normandy, succeeding in claiming Normandy for his own within a year.

Henry was not just a good soldier; he was a decent politician. He chose to placate his Anglo-Saxon subjects by marrying a "local" girl, Matilda of Scotland. (There was a small snag, in that she was believed to be a nun, but that was settled eventually.) Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and St. Margaret of Scotland, and therefore the granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, a previous Anglo-Saxon king. Marrying her and having heirs would put a combined Norman-Saxon king on the throne. That king was William Adelin ("Adelin" was a form of Ætheling, the Anglo-Saxon word for "prince" or "noble"). He was born in 1103, and while in his teens was called rex designatus [King designate].

Then came the night of 25 November, when William Adelin and his brothers made some bad decisions while in command of the White Ship on their way back to England from Normandy. Henry lost all his sons in the disaster. Henry's attempt to place his daughter on the throne led to a period called The Anarchy, after which the throne was taken by the very un-Saxon (and reportedly unpleasant) Stephen of Blois.

1066: The Other New King

Edgar and his sister, St. Margaret, landing at
Wearmouth after their ship was blown off course

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when the forces of William the Conqueror (mentioned many times; see one of them here) defeated the English and killed King Harold Godwinson. The link in the previous sentence for the Battle of Hastings tells more of the story than is generally known, namely that Harold's army had been on the march and fighting for weeks prior to Hastings. Also not generally known is that someone was proclaimed King of England the day after the Battle of Hastings, and it was not William of Normandy.

Edward the Confessor supposedly saw the impending trouble with succession to the throne of England and saw a way out: he had a nephew who was the legitimate heir: Edward (1016-1057), called "the Exile, who had fled to Hungary after being ousted from England after the defeat of his father (Edmund II "Ironside," c.989-1016) by King Cnut. Edward the Confessor had called Edward the Exile back to England to make him his heir. Sadly, the Exile died very soon after his arrival back in England in 1057. History does not record a reason, but it is possible that he was eliminated by the Godwinsons, who were very powerful and wanted to see Harold succeed to the throne.

Edward the Exile had left children behind on the continent, however. Edgar the Ætheling (c.1051-c.1126) was only a teen in 1066, but his youth was no bar to the succession. The witenagemot, the council of wise men that approved the succession in Anglo-Saxon England, met in London and chose Edgar as king the day after Harold fell at Hastings, and sent for him to return to England and lead the opposition to William of Normandy.

The men who chose him, however, chose not to defend their choice and resist William as his forces approached; instead, they negotiated with William for a peaceful turnover of the kingdom. In December, the aristocracy of England met with William at Berkhamstead to submit themselves to his rule and hand over Edgar. William took Edgar and some other English leaders into custody in order to ensure future cooperation.

In 1068, Edgar fled captivity with his mother and two sisters (Margaret and Cristina) to return to Hungary, but their ship was blown off course and landed in the north of England, where they were taken in by Malcolm* III Canmore, king of Scotland. Malcolm married Edward's sister Margaret (who later became Saint Margaret). Edgar had an "on again, off again" relationship with William and an adventure-filled life. He was still alive in 1125 according to William of Malmesbury, so his date of death assumed to be c.1026.

*Malcolm was the model for the character in Shakespeare's MacBeth.