Edgar Ætheling
Former King of EnglandWikipedia
31
MENTIONS
12
EPISODES
9
PODCASTS
Search complete. 31 mentions across 12 episodes found for "Edgar Ætheling".
Oct 15, 2026
Matt LewisGUEST
Um, and a, and an interesting reappearance here as well for, for an old friend, um, in 1097 we see King Edgar of Scotland campaigning in Lothian in Scotland with William's support.
Matt LewisGUEST
And the person that William sends to lead the English army to back Edgar is Edgar Atheling.
Rebecca LarsonHOST
Oh.
Matt LewisGUEST
You remember him causing trouble left, right, and center in rebellion all over the shop.
Matt LewisGUEST
I know.
Matt LewisGUEST
What a life.
Matt LewisGUEST
What a life Edgar Atheling lived.
Rebecca LarsonHOST
How did he survive? This is the whole thing, that that guy should not have survived as long as he did, and now here he is-
Charlie HigsonHOST
I hope you enjoy it.
Charlie HigsonHOST
[upbeat music] Egbert, Aethelwulf, Æthelbald, Æthelbert, Æthelred, Alfred the Great, Æthelflæd, Edward the Elder, Aethelstan, Edward the Magnificent, Eadred, Eadwig, Edgar the Peaceful, Edward the Martyr, Æthelred the Unready, Edmund Ironside, Canute, Harold Harefoot, that's Harold I, Harthacnut, Edward the Confessor, Harold II, that's Harold Godwinson, and finally Edgar Atheling.
Charlie HigsonHOST
So hello and welcome to this introduction to series two of Willy Willy Harry Stee.
Charlie HigsonHOST
And obviously we don't start with the Willy Willy Harry Stee rhyme because that was the British monarchs from William the Conqueror up to Charles III, and we're going back in time to the Saxon period.
Charlie HigsonHOST
Ned the Confessor was made a saint.
Charlie HigsonHOST
Bill the Norman jumped in a boat.
Charlie HigsonHOST
Then Harold took it in the eye, and Edgar Atheling was passed by.
Charlie HigsonHOST
And I thought it was pretty inadequate, to tell you the truth, and it, it still needs quite a bit of work.
William DalrympleHOST
So into this picture comes another fly in the ointment, which is refugees from the Anglo-Saxon royal house coming north to Scotland.
William DalrympleHOST
Edgar the Ætheling, uh, who we, uh, mentioned last time, and I, uh, wrongly said he died in Hungary.
William DalrympleHOST
He dies, as you suggested, in the West Country, so interesting character to dwell on there.
William DalrympleHOST
Uh, the last male heir of the House of Wessex and his mother and sisters, um, including, um, Margaret, who became St Margaret.
Scott WebberHOST
So it's, you know, we've got three big, powerful people that are claiming the throne.
Scott WebberHOST
We also have Edgar Atheling.
Scott WebberHOST
So Edgar Atheling is also probably...
Scott WebberHOST
Well, he probably has the strongest blood claim to the English throne because he's the great nephew of Edward the Confessor.
Scott WebberHOST
So he's not as powerful in terms of power, might, control as the other three, but he still has a claim.
10 MINS LATER
Scott WebberHOST
ConquerorRight.
Scott WebberHOST
So just to summarize, two of the big contenders, Harold Hardrada and Harold Godwinson, they're now dead.
Scott WebberHOST
This leaves the road clear for William the Conqueror, but we have Edgar Atheling, and the pa- the council, the lords proclaim him King of England.
Uncle IanHOST
Either way, there is absolutely no doubt that King Harold of England went down fighting, and once he was killed, the Anglo-Saxons didn't have a lot more to fight for.
Uncle IanHOST
The only other possible leader of the Anglo-Saxon army with any right to claim the throne was a young boy called Edgar.
Uncle IanHOST
We sometimes refer to him as Edgar the Ætheling.
Uncle IanHOST
Ætheling basically means king in waiting, but he was far too young and was certainly never gonna be able to lead an army.
Uncle IanHOST
He subsequently paid homage to William and accepted William's lordship over him and over England.
Roy PorterGUEST
Um, but there are other people in the picture who don't appear in this section of the tapestry.
Roy PorterGUEST
There's Edward's great nephew, Edgar, who it seems Edward had been promoting as a potential heir to the throne.
Roy PorterGUEST
Uh, across the North Sea, um, unbeknownst to anybody really, and this was a big surprise, there was, uh, Harold Sigurdsson.
Amy MatthewsHOST
Mm.
18 MINS LATER
Rebecca TysonGUEST
Um, Harold himself, as we've already discussed, is possibly not, um, not got universal backing from the English nobility.
Amy MatthewsHOST
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca TysonGUEST
There's Edgar Atheling who is in the mix.
Rebecca TysonGUEST
So Harold needs to really deal with William wherever he is.
Marc MorrisGUEST
Uh, eventually having harried most of the Home Counties, the leaders in London, including, for those with long memories, the man who would be king, the teenager who would be king-
William DalrympleHOST
Edgar Atheling
Marc MorrisGUEST
...
Marc MorrisGUEST
Edgar Atheling, yeah, he, he's been made king.
Marc MorrisGUEST
The English in London have said, "He's our new guy."
Anita AnandHOST
How do they do that? Do they have a ceremony? Do they have a coronation? What do they do?
Anita AnandHOST
Right.
Marc MorrisGUEST
So, but they've elected him king, and even William's main cheerleader, William of Poitiers, says, "In their, in their, in their stupidity," or something, "they had made another man king." So this is acknowledged even by the Normans.
Matt LewisGUEST
One of the striking things throughout all of this story is that William is quite impressed by Hereward.
Matt LewisGUEST
In the same way that we saw him, you know, not being particularly keen to, to be nasty to Edgar Ætheling, when Edgar is constantly rebelling, for some reason, William, despite his reputation for being ruthless, forgives this man.
Matt LewisGUEST
And throughout the tellings of Hereward's story, we constantly get...
Matt LewisGUEST
You know, people go back to William and, and tell him what's gone horribly wrong, and William's like, "That's really cool."
Matt LewisGUEST
That, that you look at what, the ruthless things that he definitely does, the Harrying of the North and all of that kind of thing.
Rebecca LarsonHOST
Mm.
Matt LewisGUEST
And then you look at his reaction to people like Edgar Ætheling and Hereward, and it's really hard to, to reconcile those things.
Matt LewisGUEST
It's like he can respect an individual, but if it's a, just a group of people, he, he's willing to be ruthless-
Marc MorrisGUEST
What's, there's a line in Shakespeare like, you know, "And all the, not all the water in the rude sea," or something, "can wash away the, the, the, the oil from an anointed king." So, um, yeah.
Marc MorrisGUEST
That, that to me is inherently suspicious and suggests to me that, you know, there were plenty of people saying, "Well, what about, what about the king's great nephew?" You know, "What about young Edgar Ætheling here? Surely he has the best blood claim." And people are like, "Shoom, shoom, shoom," you know.
Marc MorrisGUEST
"Don't upset Harold."
William DalrympleHOST
Okay, so d- don't upset Harold.
Tom KearnsHOST
Or so he thought.
Tom KearnsHOST
Instead, Edgar Atheling, the son of Edmund Ironside, was proclaimed king by the Witaniamot, and several powerful nobles flocked to his banner to resist William.
Tom KearnsHOST
These included Earls Edwin and Morcar, Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Aeldred, the Archbishop of York.
Tom KearnsHOST
William therefore rushed to secure London from where he could ensure his control.
Tom KearnsHOST
In response, they set fire to the surrounding houses and commenced to loot the city.
Tom KearnsHOST
This is a detail that was omitted from Norman accounts of the coronation.
Tom KearnsHOST
King William attempted to conciliate the remaining English nobility by confirming Morcar and Edwin in their lands, as well as by granting some lands to Edgar Atheling.
Tom KearnsHOST
William remained in England until March 1067, when he returned to Normandy on a celebratory visit with his English hostages in tow, including Stigand, Morcar, Edwin, Edgar Atheling, and others.
2 more episodes mention Edgar Ætheling.
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