Edmund I of England

“ In April 1279 he was again appointed joint lieutenant of the realm. When Edward went to Gascony in May 1286, Edmund was made guardian and lieutenant of England. On this occasion his functions were more important, as the chancellor accompanied Edward; but the three years of the king's absence were uneventful. In 1297 Edmund became councillor to the young Prince of Wales. He died on 1 Oct. 1300, having married Margaret, daughter of Richard de Clare, eighth earl of Clare and seventh earl of Gloucester [q. v.] He left no issue, and the earldom became extinct. ”

“ Meanwhile Edmund will soon have all Wessex at his back, and Canute will find his match for once."
The words of the gallant speaker found their echo in many a breast, and it was decided that Edmund should be advised to hurry into Wessex, and leave London to defend itself.
A deputation from the council at once waited upon Edmund, and in the name of the city, and, as they took the liberty of adding, of every true man in England, they proferred him his father's crown. Like the citizens of a certain modern capital, they constituted themselves the representatives of the nation. ”

“ Born and brought up in England, and never leaving it save for short and infrequent visits to the continent, he was proud of his English ancestors and devoted to English saints, more especially to royal saints such as Edward the Confessor and Edmund of East Anglia. Yet he showed less sympathy with English ways than many of his foreign-born predecessors. Educated under alien influences, delighting in the art, the refinement, the devotion, and the absolutist principles of foreigners, he seldom trusted a man of English birth. ”

“ He lived fast, and his friends lived fast, though they appeared to live very happily and merrily.
[53] But young men given to festive suppers and to wine are not apt to make a long history; and the history of Edmund the Magnificent, the first boy king, was a short one.
Edmund was succeeded in the year 946 by Edred, his brother, a well-meaning youth, who was the second of the six boy kings of England.
Dunstan had become abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, the church where he performed the miracle when he was sick of the fever. ”

“ Edmund, a scholar who had taught theology and arts with great distinction at Paris and Oxford, was still more famous for his mystical devotion, for his asceticism and holiness of life. He was however an old man, inexperienced in affairs, and, with all his gracious gifts, somewhat wanting in the tenacity and vigour which leadership involved. Yet in sending so eminent a saint to Canterbury, Rome conferred on England a service second only to that which she had rendered when she secured the archbishopric for Stephen Langton. ”

“ Yet, even at this awful crisis, Edmund's lion heart did not wholly fail him, as he left the field where lay all the flower of the Anglo-Saxon race: the brave and faithful Ulfketyl, Earl Ethelweard, Earl Godwin, Elfric the ealdorman, and well nigh all the great men of England, all sleeping in death. He rode to the south till he reached the vale of the Thames, which he pursued until he reached the neighbourhood of Gloucester--Alfgar and Hermann still by his side. ”

“ Well, Elfwyn tells us that when all were present--bishops, ealdormen, thanes, and the noblest of the people--Canute solemnly proposed that they should accept him as their king, giving them to understand that, by a tacit understanding with Edmund, it had been agreed that the kingdom should not be permanently divided, but that the survivor should inherit and govern the whole realm.
The wise men replied that, since Edmund's children were too young to govern, they could not desire a better monarch than Canute; they committed the little ones to his care, and acknowledged him as king of all England. ”

“ While Edmund was preparing to pursue, and utterly destroy the last remains of these plunderers, he was prevented by the crafty and abandoned Edric, who had again insinuated himself into his good graces; for he had come over to Edmund, at the instigation of Canute, that he might betray his designs. Had the king only persevered, this would have been the last day for the Danes; but misled by the insinuations of a traitor, who affirmed that the enemy would make no farther attempt, he brought swift destruction upon himself, and the whole of England. ”

“ The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial. They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,—as a benefit, not as a grievance,—as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude. They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our Constitution. ”

“ He died shortly after his return to England, within a year of his marriage, leaving a son, who succeeded to his father’s title of Earl of Richmond, and eventually became King Henry VII. Edmund’s next brother, Jasper of Hatfield, so called from the place of his birth, was raised at the same time to the rank of Earl of Pembroke. He was with his father at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross; but escaped, and later, at the accession of Henry VII, he was created Duke of Bedford in the place of George Nevill, elder brother of the famous “Kingmaker,” whose titles and lands were confirmed in his favour. ”

“ His realm was in such profound peace that he could safely leave it. Accordingly in May, 1286, he took ship for France. With him went his wife Eleanor of Castile, his chancellor Bishop Burnell, and a large number of his nobles. He entrusted the regency to his cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the son and successor of Earl Richard; and England saw him no more until August, 1289. Edward first made his way to Amiens, where he met the new King of France, Philip the Fair. The two kings went together to Paris, where Edward spent two months. ”

“ EDMUND, or Eadmund (c. 980-1016) , called Ironside, king of the English, was the son of Æthelred II. by his first wife Ælfgifu. When Canute invaded England in 1015, Edmund sought to resist him, but, paralysed by the treachery and desertion of the ealdorman Edric, he could do nothing, and Wessex submitted to the Danish king. ”

“ The old earl died in 1053, but was succeeded in power by his son Harold, who for thirteen years maintained an unbroken mastery over the king, and ruled England almost with the power of a regent. There seems little doubt that he aspired to be Edward’s successor: there was no direct heir to the crown, and the nearest of kin was ah infant, Edgar, the great-nephew of the reigning sovereign and grandson of Edmund Ironside. England’s experience of minors on the throne had been unhappy—Edwy and Æthelred the Redeless were warnings rather than examples. ”

“ Edmund, the second sonne to King Harold, went with his brother into Ireland, returned with him into England, and was at the slaughter and overthrow of Edmoth and his power in Somersetshire, at the spoyles committed in Cornwall and Devonshire, at the conflict with the Cornish Earle Beorn, passed, repassed with him in all his voyages, invasions, and warres, by sea and by land, in England and Ireland ”

“ Edmund was only eighteen years of age when in A.D. 941 he succeeded to the crown of his natural brother, whose activity and vigour had secured to England for several years before his death a profound repose. The Welsh paid their tribute with the utmost regularity; the Danes, who had so frequently experienced his prowess, desired no better than to remain at peace; and the unfortunate Anlaff, who, after the defeat of his hopes, had once more retired to Ireland during the reign of his conqueror, never renewed his attempts. ”

“ On the old autograph albums of the world is still written in the dark corners of empires, "the king can do no wrong." But where education is not repressed, and where that Christianity which is built on love and charity is taught, there can be but one King who does no wrong.
Ethelred was succeeded by Edmund, called "the Ironside." He fought bravely, and drove the Danes, under Canute, back to their own shores. But they got restless in Denmark, where there was very little going on, and returned to England in large numbers. ”

“ When the latter appeared with a sufficient mandate on behalf of the King of England, the French Barons did not receive him, but in the Royal Court adjudged Gascony, and all the lands of the King of England, forfeited for contempt. The lord Edmund himself, then, in hope of peace, carried on divers negotiations with the King of France; so that it was commonly said that our King would marry the sister of the King of France, and by that means a settlement be arrived at. ”

“ Gradually the area of war moved northwards, and Canute entered York, placing his own earl, Eric the Dane, over the Northumbrians. (We find that the Danish title of earl now begins to supplant that of alderman, which had been used by the English for the military governor of a shire.) Edmund thereupon gave up the useless struggle, and joined his father in London. He had not long been there when the king died, in 1016, at the early age of forty-eight, having done all that a false and incapable man could, during the reign, to bring the nation to ruin. ”

“ King Edward declining into years, as he had no children himself, and saw the sons of Godwin growing in power, despatched messengers to the king of Hungary, to send over Edward, the son of his brother Edmund, with all his family: intending, as he declared, that either he, or his sons, should succeed to the hereditary kingdom of England, and that his own want of issue should be supplied by that of his kindred. Edward came in consequence, but died almost immediately at St. Paul's [34] in London: he was neither valiant, nor a man of abilities. ”

“ Three prominent nobles seem to have assumed the position of governors; the Archbishop of York, as head of the clergy, Edmund of Cornwall, the King’s brother, as representative of the royalty, and Gilbert of Gloucester, as chief of the baronage. Under them the government pursued its old course. Hearing that things were going well in England, Edward did not hurry home. He returned by Sicily and Rome, where he induced the Pope to visit upon the young De Montforts the murder of Henry D’Almeyne, whom they had killed at Viterbo. ”

“ He expressed great displeasure on hearing in 1263 that Urban IV was likely to annul the grant of the Sicilian kingdom, and on 29 July the pope wrote to him and his father pointing out that the conditions of the grant had not been fulfilled, and declaring that the matter was at an end. During his virtual captivity Henry sent on behalf of himself and his son an explicit renunciation of all claim to the kingdom. Edmund appears to have been in Paris during the civil war, and was engaged in 1264 in assisting his mother to raise an army for the invasion of England. ”

“ After defeating the English at Thetford, they took Edmund, the Saxon King of East Anglia, prisoner, and, upon his refusal to accept the pagan religion, put him to death. For his constancy he was honoured with the title of Saint Edmund. East Anglia was thus completely in possession of the Danes, and Guthrum took to himself the title of king. East Anglia became henceforward for some time the principal point of Danish settlement in England. From thence the invaders passed into Wessex, under the command of Bagsecg and Halfdene. ”

“ In the spring of 1513, when his brother Edmund was put to death in England, he assumed the title of Duke of Suffolk, and became an avowed claimant of the crown of England. Though his pretensions were not formidable, discharged soldiers of the garrison of Tournay (then in English hands) threatened to join him (Cal. Henry VIII, vol. ii. Nos. 325–6) . It was reported, too, in Spain that he had been given the command of a French fleet. Later in the year he led a company of six thousand men against the English at the siege of Thérouanne. ”

“ The struggle in France was not going ill, and seldom has any orphan had so zealous and capable a guardian by his cradle as John of Bedford, the little king's eldest uncle. He had, moreover, no domestic intrigues to fear; Edmund, Earl of March, the legitimate heir of Richard II., was the most unenterprising and loyal of men, and never gave any trouble. ”

“ From this time the prospects of Edmund and England brightened. Day after day fresh reinforcements came into his camp, until he followed Canute, who had retreated into Wiltshire. There, a few days later, a second battle was fought at Sceorstan {xvi}, wherein much bravery was shown on both sides. On Monday the two armies fought all day without any advantage on either side. On the Tuesday the English were rapidly getting the better, when the traitor Edric, severing the head of a fallen Englishman named Osmaer, held it up, shouting:
"Flee, English! flee, English! Edmund is dead." ”

“ Things had not gone well in England during Edward's absence. Edmund of Cornwall had shown vigour in putting down the revolt of Rhys, but he was not strong enough to control either the greater barons or the officers of the crown. Grave troubles were already brewing in Scotland. A fierce quarrel between the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford broke out with regard to the boundaries of Glamorgan and Brecon, and the private war between the two marchers proved more formidable to the peace of the realm than the revolt of the Welsh prince. ”