5 - Edgar's Path to the Throne

Summary

ONE of the more puzzling questions associated with Edgar's reign concerns his path to the throne between 23 November 955 when his uncle, King Eadred, died and 1 October 959 when his elder brother, King Eadwig, passed away, leaving Edgar in control of all of England then held by the West Saxons. The problem arises because there is strong evidence that Edgar first assumed power, as ASC BC report, in Mercia in 957: how are we to interpret this stepped ascent to rule especially in light of the laconic and often contradictory contemporary written sources as well as the even more bewildering evidence of charters and coins? The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility that the discrepancies in the historical record and, indeed, much of the assumed drama surrounding Edgar's succession may be explained by considering an older practice, opposed, I shall argue, by the Church but apparently still politically viable even in the mid-tenth century, joint kingship.

Modern scholarly opinion, anticipating my argument, has gradually been turning away from positing a sharp political break in 957 to assuming a more gradual shift in power between Eadwig and Edgar. Sir Frank Stenton expresses the older view when he begins his discussion of these events with the remark that ‘it was probably through mere irresponsibility that within two years of his accession Eadwig lost the greater part of his kingdom’.