Emma of Normandy

Emma (c. 985–March 6, 1052 in Winchester, Hampshire), called Ælfgifu, was daughter of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, by his second wife Gunnora. She was Queen consort of the Kingdom of England twice, by successive marriages: initially as the second wife to Ethelred the Unready of England (1002-1016); and then to Canute the Great of Denmark (1017-1035). Two of her sons, one by each husband, and two stepsons, also by each husband, were to be kings of England, as was her great-nephew, William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy.

Life

Upon the Danish invasion of England in 1013, Emma's sons by Ethelred - Edward the Confessor and Alfred Atheling - went to Normandy as exiles, where they were to remain. Canute, the King of England, after the deaths of Ethelred and his son, and Emma's stepson, Edmund II Ironside, married her himself. He was to pledge that Harthacanute, Emma's son by him, should be the heir to his Danish sovereignty, which meant, through this wedding, the Normans were kept at arms length, contentedly quiet and quietly content. Ethelred's marriage to Emma was an English strategy to avert the aggression of dangerous Normandy, and the Danish strategy was much the same. With a Normandy in feudal subordination to the kings of France, who kept it as their dukedom, England was the Norman dukes' main target, after baronic feuds and rampaging pillages through Brittany had run their course. English kings could not afford to underestimate the Norman threat. Harthacanute, named after the first head of Canute's royal house, was certainly intended to rule as the Danish ruler of England, along with most of Scandinavia, which, if he had succeeded, may have made for a very different history. It is thought though, due not least to the extolling of her encomium, that Canute was fond of Emma. In this, an affectionate marriage and the ability to keep the threat from over the channel at bay, was seen as a happy coincidence. Unfortunately, events did not go as well as they might.

After Canute's death, Edward and Alfred returned to England out of exile in 1036, in an expedition to see their mother and under their half-brother Harthacanute's protection. This was seen as a move against Harold Harefoot, Canute's son by Aelfgifu of Northampton, who now put himself forward as Harold I with the support of many of the English noblity. In contempt of Harthacanute, and at war with his enemies in Scandinavia, the younger Alfred was captured, blinded, and shortly after died from his wounds. The elder, Edward, escaped to Normandy. Emma herself was soon to leave for Bruges and the court of the Count of Flanders. It was at this court that the Encomium Emmae was written.

Twice the Queen of the English kingdom, Emma of Normandy sits here in receipt of the Encomium Emmae, with her sons Harthacanute and Edward the Confessor in the frame.

The death of Harold I in 1040 and the accession of the more conciliatory Harthacanute, who had lost his Norwegian and Swedish lands, although he had made his Danish realm secure, meant Edward was officially made welcome in England the next year. Harthacanute told the Norman court that Edward should be made king if he himself had no sons. Edward was subsequently King of England on the death of Harthacanute, who, like Harold I, met his end in the throes of a fit. Emma was also to return to England, yet was cast aside, as she supported Magnus the Noble, not Edward, her son - she is not thought to have had any love for her children from her first marriage. Emma of Normandy might well have seen herself as one coming second to the first wife, in two marriages. In England, with respect to Ethelred's first wife Aelfgifu, who possibly died in childbirth, or from complications during labour^[1], she, was known as Aelfgifu^[1], a mere replacement. With her marriage to Canute, set in the shade of his 'handfast' wife, Aelfgifu of Northampton, she, at the time was known as Aelfgifu of Normandy. Each of her marriages, then, in some way left her as a second Aelfgifu, which she was clearly inclined to abandon, preferring her other name, Emma. Despite her being a second wife her noble marriages, created a strong connection between England and Normandy, which was to find its culmination under her great-nephew William the Conqueror, and 1066.

Family tree

+Said to have been a great-granddaughter of Canute's grandfather Harald Bluetooth, but this was probably a fiction intended to give her a royal bloodline.

Bibliography

• Pauline Stafford. [Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in Eleventh-century England] 2001 Blackwell's
• Isabella Strachan. [Emma: The Twice-crowned Queen of England in the Viking Age] 2005 Peter Owen
• Harriet O'Brien. [Queen Emma and the Vikings] 2005 Bloomsbury U.S.A.
• Helen Hollick. The Hollow Crown. (August 2004) William Heinemann, Random House. ISBN 0-434-00491-X; Arrow paperback ISBN 0-09-927234-2. This is a historical novel about Queen Emma of Normandy, explaining why she was so indifferent to the children of her first marriage.
• Noah Gordon. [The Physician] 1986 Macmillan ISBN 067147748X . Novel set in the early 11th century.

References