Eadburh

For other people of the same name, see Edburga.

Eadburh (Old English: Ēadburh), also spelled Eadburg, (fl. 789-802) was the daughter of King Offa of Mercia and Queen Cynethryth. Married to King Beorhtric of Wessex, Asser's Life of Alfred the Great tells how she accidentally killed her husband by poison. She fled to Francia, where she is said to have been offered the chance of marrying Charlemagne, but ruined the opportunity. Instead she was appointed as the abbess of a convent. Here she is said to have fornicated with an English exile. As a result she was eventually expelled from the monastery and ended her days begging in the streets of Pavia.

Queen

Eadburh was the daughter of Offa and Cynethryth. She married Beorhtric, king of Wessex from 787 to 802, in 789. Offa was then the most powerful king in England, and Beorhtric gained his support as a result of the marriage. According to Asser, Eadburh became all powerful, and often demanded the executions or exile of her enemies. She was also alleged to have assassinated those men whom she couldn't compel Beorhtric to kill through poisoning their food or drink. In 802, according to the Asser, Eadburh attempted to poison a young favourite of the king but succeeded in killing both of them. The young man may have been called Worr, as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the death of both men shortly before the succession of Egbert, the grandfather of Alfred the Great, as king of Wessex.

Exile

Eadburg subsequently fled to Francia and took refuge at the court of Charlemagne, where her husband's successor, Egbert of Wessex, had taken refuge after being exiled by Beorhtric. There Asser relates that Charlemagne was smitten by the former queen. He brought in one of his sons and asked her which she preferred, him or his son, as a husband. She answered that, given the son's youth, she preferred the son. Charlemagne replied famously: "Had you chosen me, you would have had both of us. But, since you chose him, you shall have neither." He instead offered her a position as an abbess of a convent which she accepted.

Abbess

Soon, though, she was caught in a sexual affair with another Saxon man, and after being duly convicted was expelled, on the direct orders of Charlemagne, penniless, into the streets. In her last years she lived as a beggar on the streets of Pavia.

Aftermath

Two possibly authentic charters of 801 show Eadburh as regina (queen), a title which was rarely used for king's wives in Wessex in the ninth century. According to Asser this was because of the shame Eadburh had brought on the position. However, Offa and Beorhtric had driven Egbert into exile in the 780s, and the blackening of her name may also have been partly due to a desire to discredit Beorhtric.

References

• "Eadburg 5 (Female) Daughter of Offa 7; wife of King Beorhtric 1 of Wessex". Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England. http://www.pase.ac.uk/jsp/DisplayPerson.jsp?personKey=256. Retrieved 2007-11-13. 
• Asser, Life of King in Alfred in Keynes, Simon & Lapidge, Michael (eds & trans), Alfred the Great. Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. London: Penguin, 1983. ISBN 0-14-044409-4
• Keynes, Simon & Lapidge, Michael (eds & trans), Alfred the Great. Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. London: Penguin, 1983. ISBN 0-14-044409-4
• Kirby, D.P., The Earliest English Kings. London: Unwin Hyman, 1991. ISBN 0-04-445691-3
• Nelson, Janet (2004). "Eadburh (Eadburga) (fl. 789–802), queen of the West Saxons, consort of King Beorhtric". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101008380/. Retrieved 2007-10-03. 
• Shippey, Tom (Summer 2001). "Wicked Queens and Cousin Strategies in Beowulf and Elsewhere". The Heroic Age, Volume 5. http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/5/Shippey1.html. Retrieved 2007-10-21. 
• Stafford, Pauline, "Succession and inheritance: a gendered perspective on Alfred's family history" in Gender, Family and the Legitimation of Power: England from the Ninth to the early Twelfth Century. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. ISBN 0-86078-994-2
• Story, Joanna, Carolingian Connections: Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Francia, c. 750–870. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. ISBN 0-7546-0124-1

Preceded by ?

Queen Consort of Wessex 789–802

Succeeded by Redburga