Family of Edward + and Agatha +

Husband:	Edward + (1016-1057)
Wife:	Agatha + (1018-bef1093)
Children:	Margaret + of SCOTLAND (1045-1093)
	Cristina (c. 1049- )
	Edgar the AETHELING (1051-1126)
Marriage	1035	London, Middlesex, England

Husband: Edward +

Name:	Edward +
Sex:	Male
Nickname:	The Exile
Father:	Edmund II + (989-1016)
Mother:	Ealdgyth + ALGITHA (986-1016)
Occupation	1014 (age -3--2)	Prince of England
Birth	1016	Wessex, England
Title		Prince of England
Death	1057 (age 40-41)	London, Middlesex, England

Wife: Agatha +

Child 1: Margaret + of SCOTLAND

Child 2: Cristina

Name:	Cristina
Sex:	Female
Birth	1049 (est)

Child 3: Edgar the AETHELING

Note on Husband: Edward +

Edward the Exile (1016 – Late August 1057), also called Edward Ætheling, son of King Edmund Ironside and of Ealdgyth. After the Danish conquest of England in 1016 Canute had him and his brother, Edmund, exiled to the Continent. Edward was only a few months old when he and his brother were brought to the court of Olof Skötkonung, (who was either Canute's half-brother or stepbrother), with instructions to have the children murdered. Instead, the two boys were secretly sent to Kiev, where Olof's daughter Ingigerd was the Queen. Later Edward made his way to Hungary, probably in the retinue of Ingigerd's son-in-law, András in 1046, who he supported in his successful bid for the Hungarian throne.

 

On hearing the news of his being alive, Edward the Confessor recalled him to England in 1056 and made him his heir. Edward offered the last chance of an undisputed succession within the Saxon royal house. News of Edward's existence came at time when the old Anglo-Saxon Monarchy, restored after a long period of Danish domination, was heading for catastrophe. The Confessor, personally devout but politically weak, was unable to make an effective stand against the steady advance of the powerful and ambitious sons of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. From across the Channel William, Duke of Normandy also had an eye on the succession. Edward the Exile appeared at just the right time. Approved by both king and by the Witan, the Council of the Realm, he offered a way out of the impasse, a counter both to the Godwins and to William, and one with a legitimacy that could not be readily challenged.

 

Edward, who had been in the custody of Henry III, the Holy Roman Emperor, finally came back to England at the end of August 1057. But he died within two days of his arrival. The exact cause of Edward's death remains unclear, but he had many powerful enemies, and there is a strong possibility that he was murdered, although by whom it is not known with any certainty. It is known, though, that his access to the king was blocked soon after his arrival in England for some unexplained reason, at a time when the Godwins, in the person of Harold Godwinson, were once again in the ascendant. This turn of events left the throne of England to be disputed by Earl Harold and Duke William, ultimately leading to the Norman Conquest of England.

 

Edward's wife was a woman named Agatha, whose origins are disputed. Their children were Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Cristina. Edgar was nominated as heir apparent, but was too young to count for much, and was eventually swept aside by Harold Godwinson. Edward's grandchild Edith of Scotland, also called Matilda, married King Henry I of England, continuing the Anglo-Saxon line into the post-Conquest English monarchy.

Note on Wife: Agatha +

Agatha was the wife of Edward the Exile (heir to the throne of England) and mother of Edgar Ætheling, Saint Margaret of Scotland and Cristina of England. Her antecedents are unclear, and subject to much speculation.

 

Nothing is known of her early life, and what speculation has appeared is inextricably linked to the contentious issue of Agatha's paternity, one of the unresolved questions of medieval genealogy. She came to England with her husband and children in 1057, but she was widowed shortly after her arrival. Following the Norman conquest of England, in 1067 she fled with her children to Scotland, finding refuge under her future son-in-law Malcolm III. While one modern source indicates that she spent her last years as a nun at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, dying before circa 1093,[1] Simeon of Durham [2] carries what appears to be the last reference to her in 1070.[3]

 

[edit] Origin[edit] Medieval sourcesAgatha's origin is alluded to in numerous surviving medieval sources, but the information they provide is sometimes imprecise, often contradictory, and occasionally outright impossible. The earliest surviving source, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, along with Florence of Worcester's Chronicon ex chronicis and Regalis prosapia Anglorum, Simeon of Durham and Ailred of Rievaulx describe Agatha as a kinswoman of "Emperor Henry" (thaes ceseres maga, filia germani imperatoris Henrici). In an earlier entry, the same Ailred of Rievaulx had called her daughter of emperor Henry, as do later sources of dubious credibility such as the Chronicle of Melrose Abbey, while Matthew of Paris calls her the emperor's sister (soror Henrici imperatoris Romani). Geoffrey Gaimar in Lestoire des Engles states that she was daughter of the Hungarian king and queen (Li reis sa fille), although he places the marriage at a time when Edward is thought still to have been in Kiev, while Orderic Vitalis in Historiae Ecclesiasticae is more specific, naming her father as king Solomon (filiam Salomonis Regis Hunorum), actually a contemporary of Agatha's children. William of Malmesbury in De Gestis Regis Anglorum states that Agatha's sister was a Queen of Hungary (reginae sororem) and is echoed in this by Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, while less precisely, Ailred says of Margaret that she was derived from English and Hungarian royal blood (de semine regio Anglorum et Hungariorum extitit oriunda). Finally, Roger of Howden and the anonymous Leges Edwardi Confessoris indicate that while Edward was a guest of Kievan "king Malesclodus" he married a woman of noble birth (nobili progenio), Leges adding that the mother of St. Margaret was of Rus royal blood (ex genere et sanguine regum Rugorum).[4]

 

[edit] OnomasticsOnomastic analysis has also been brought to bear on the question. The name Agatha itself is rare in western Europe at this time. Likewise, those of her children and grandchildren are drawn either from the pool of Anglo-Saxon names expected given her husband's connection to the Wessex royal family, or names not typical of western Europe, and hence speculated to derive from Agatha's eastern European ancestry. Specifically, her own name, the names of daughters Cristina and Margaret, and those of grandchildren Alexander, David I, and Mary, have been used as possible indicators of her origins.