page_title: Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar
section_title: Queen dowager
hierarchical_section_title: Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar / Queen dowager
caption_attribution_description: Edward the Martyr is offered a cup of mead by Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar, unaware that her attendant is about to murder him.
context_page_description: Ælfthryth was an English queen, the second or third wife of King Edgar of England. Ælfthryth was the first king's wife known to have been crowned and anointed as Queen of the Kingdom of England. Mother of King Æthelred the Unready, she was a powerful political figure. She was possibly linked to the murder of her stepson King Edward the Martyr and appeared as a stereotypical bad queen and evil stepmother in many medieval histories.
context_section_description: Edgar died in 975 leaving two young sons, Edward and Æthelred. Edward was almost an adult, and his successful claim for the throne was supported by many key figures including Archbishops Dunstan and Oswald and the brother of Ælfthryth's first husband, Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia. Supporting the unsuccessful claim of Æthelred were his mother, the Queen dowager, Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia.
  On 18 March 978, while visiting Ælfthryth at Corfe Castle, King Edward was killed by servants of the Queen, leaving the way clear for Æthelred to be installed as king. Edward was soon considered a martyr, and later medieval accounts blamed Ælfthryth for his murder. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Edward was murdered at Corfe Castle in 978. As the king developed into a cult figure, a body of literature grew up around his murder, at first implying and then accusing his step-mother, Queen Aelfthryth, of being responsible. The 12th century monastic chronicle the Liber Eliensis went so far as to accuse her of being a witch, claiming that she had murdered not only the king, but also Abbot Brihtnoth of Ely.
  Due to Æthelred's youth, Ælfthryth served as regent for her son until his coming of age in 984. By then her earlier allies Æthelwold and Ælfhere had died, and Æthelred rebelled against his old advisers, preferring a group of younger nobility. She disappears from the list of charter witnesses from around 983 to 993, when she reappears in a lower position. She remained an important figure, being responsible for the care of Æthelred's children by his first wife, Ælfgifu. Æthelred's eldest son, Æthelstan Ætheling, prayed for the soul of the grandmother "who brought me up" in his will in 1014.
  Although her reputation was damaged by the murder of her stepson, Ælfthryth was a religious woman, taking an especial interest in monastic reform when Queen. In about 986 she founded Wherwell Abbey in Hampshire as a Benedictine nunnery, and late in life she retired there. Antonia Gransden comments: "In their patronage of the monks both Cnut and Edward the Confessor were supported by their queens, Emma and Edith, who were worthy successors of Edgar's queen, Ælfthryth, as patronesses of the religious." She died at Wherwell on 17 November 999, 1000 or 1001.
caption: Edward the Martyr is offered a cup of mead by Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar, unaware that her attendant is about to murder him.
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