Edgar Ætheling or Edgar II (c. 1052 – 1125 or after) was the last male member of the royal house of Cerdic of Wessex. He was elected King of England by the Witan in 1066 but never crowned. After exile and war against the Normans, Edgar migrated to Norman Apulia (modern-day Italy) and possibly partook in the First Crusade (or, at least, made pilgrimage to Jerusalem following its conquest). In later life, Edgar was entangled in Norman dynastic struggles before retiring to a quiet life in the countryside.
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👉 Edgar Ætheling in the context of Margaret of Wessex
Saint Margaret of Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Naomh Maighréad; Scots: Saunt Marget, c. 1045 – 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was Queen of Alba from 1070 to 1093 as the wife of King Malcolm III. Margaret was sometimes called "The Pearl of Scotland". She was a member of the House of Wessex and was born in the Kingdom of Hungary to the expatriate English prince Edward the Exile. She and her family returned to England in 1057. Following the death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, her brother Edgar Ætheling was elected King of England but never crowned. After the family fled north, Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland by the end of 1070.
Margaret was a pious Christian, and among many charitable works she established a ferry across the Firth of Forth in Scotland for pilgrims travelling to St Andrews in Fife, which gave the towns of South Queensferry and North Queensferry their names. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland, or four, if Edmund of Scotland (who ruled with his uncle, Donald III) is counted, and of Matilda of Scotland, queen consort of England. According to the Vita S. Margaritae (Scotorum) Reginae (Life of St Margaret, Queen (of the Scots)), attributed to Turgot of Durham, Margaret died at Edinburgh Castle in 1093, days after receiving the news of her husband and son's deaths in battle.
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Edgar Ætheling in the context of Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor (c. 1003 – 5 January 1066) was King of the English from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the last reigning monarch of the House of Wessex.
Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeeded Cnut the Great's son – and his own half-brother – Harthacnut. He restored the rule of the House of Wessex after the period of Danish rule since Cnut conquered England in 1016. When Edward died in 1066, he was succeeded by his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson, who was defeated and killed in the same year at the Battle of Hastings by the Normans under William the Conqueror. Edward's young great-nephew Edgar Ætheling of the House of Wessex was proclaimed king after the Battle of Hastings, but was never crowned and was peacefully deposed after about eight weeks.
Edgar Ætheling in the context of Cristina (daughter of Edward the Exile)
Cristina, daughter of Edward the Exile and Agatha, was the sister of Edgar Ætheling and Saint Margaret of Scotland, born in the 1040s. Cristina's nieces Edith and Mary were sent to Romsey Abbey, near Southampton, in 1086 when she was abbess.