18th March
St Edward the Martyr’s Day
Edward the Martyr. Source: Alamy Stock Photos
On this day in 979, the descriptively named Edward the Martyr was murdered. Edward was king of the relatively recently united England, but his legitimacy to succeed his father King Edgar was not uncontested. On the day of his death, Edward was enjoying a boar hunt and stopped at the manor of his step mother, Dowager Queen AElfthryth at Corfe Gate on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, who greeted him and offered the young man a refreshing cup of wine. As the king drank however, a hired assassin crept up behind him and stabbed him - literally - in the back. On feeling the blow, the surprised king instinctively spurred his horse forward to escape the attack, but the assassin had done his work. Edward tumbled dying from the horse and was dragged along the ground by a single stirrup as his steed bolted. His body was never found. AElfthryth however issued the story that Edward had been killed in a riding accident and ensured her son, Aethelred assumed the throne.
This Shakespearean story of murder most foul was not over however. The road between Corfe and Wareham in succeeding years became a place of miracles on which blind men found they could see, cripples were able to walk, and the deaf found they could hear. These phenomena were attributed to Edward and so gravediggers were sent to investigate. Edward’s body was found in a shallow roadside grave, in pristine condition and his tell-tale wound clearly visible. The former king was duly canonised and declared a martyr and his relics became a centre of pilgrimage in Shaftesbury. Although no charges were ever brought against AElfthryth, public opinion had no doubt, and the dowager queen ended her days in repentance as a nun at Wherwell in Hampshire. As for her son, he did not enjoy a happy reign - he was corrupt and weak and would be besieged by Viking invaders. He became known to history as Aethelred the Unready.