Family of Aethelbald and Judith +

Husband:	Aethelbald (834-860)
Wife:	Judith + (844-870)
Marriage	0858

Husband: Aethelbald

Wife: Judith +

Name:	Judith +
Sex:	Female
Father:	Charles II + (823-877)
Mother:	Ermentrude + (830-869)
Birth	0844
Occupation		Countess of Flanders
Title	frm 0856 to 0860 (age 11-16)	Queen Consort of Wessex
Title	frm 0861 to 0870 (age 16-26)	Countess of Flanders
Death	0870 (age 25-26)

Note on Marriage

his father's widow

Note on Husband: Aethelbald

King Æthelbald of Wessex or Ethelbald (Old English Æþelbald) (means roughly 'Noble Bold') was King of Wessex from 856 to 860. He was the second of the five children of King Æthelwulf of Wessex and Osburga.[1]

 

In 850, he received the rank of Ealdorman[citation needed]. In 855 he became regent of Wessex while his father, Æthelwulf, visited Rome, his elder brother Æthelstan having died in around 851. His brother Æthelbert was left in charge of Kent.

 

Æthelwulf returned a year later, having taken as his second wife, the Carolingian King Charles the Bald's thirteen-year-old daughter Judith.[2] According to Asser, during Æthelwulf's absence there may have been a plot hatched to prevent the king's return either by Æthelbald, or by Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne and Eanwulf, Ealdorman of Somerset, or by all three. It is probable that Æthelbald was involved in such a plot due to hearing about his father's marriage to Judith.[citation needed] The marriage to a Frankish princess who had her own royal lineage could have produced heirs more throne-worthy than Æthelbald's.

 

To avoid a civil war, Æthelwulf allowed Æthelbald to continue to rule Wessex itself while he retained Kent and the other eastern parts of the kingdom.[2] The absence of any coins in Æthelbald's name during this period suggests the coinage continued to be in Æthelwulf's name until his death. After Æthelwulf's death, Æthelbald became sole king of the West Saxons, with his younger brother becoming king of Kent.

 

He was crowned at Kingston upon Thames and later made himself unpopular with the church by marrying Judith, his father's young widow. The relationship was deemed incestuous and in direct contravention of church law. Her outraged father, Charles the Bald, intervened and forced his daughter into a nunnery[citation needed]. She later eloped with Baldwin, Count of Flanders, making her the ancestress of another Queen of England, Matilda of Flanders, the consort of England's first Norman King, William the Conqueror.

 

Despite all this, Æthelbald was a popular king[citation needed]. He died at Sherborne in Dorset on 20 December 860, aged around 26 or 27,[1] after a four-year reign. He was greatly mourned by his people, although Bishop Asser describes him as being 'headstrong and arbitrary'. However, Asser's opinion demonstrates bias because of Æthelbald's uncanonical marriage.[citation

Note on Wife: Judith +

Judith of Flanders (or Judith of France) (October 844 – 870) was the first daughter of the Frankish King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald and his wife Ermentrude of Orléans. Through her marriage to two Kings of Wessex, Judith was twice a Queen, and through her third marriage to Baldwin, she became the first Countess of Flanders. She was ancestress of the later Counts of Flanders, and was the stepmother and later the sister-in-law of King Alfred the Great.

 

When Judith was about 12 years old, her father gave her in marriage to Ethelwulf, King of Wessex on October 1, 856 at Verberie sur Oise, France. Ethelwulf had been on pilgrimage to Rome, and had stopped at the Court of Judith's father, Charles the Bald on his journey back to Wessex. Soon after the two returned to England, Ethelwulf's eldest surviving son, Ethelbald, had devised a conspiracy with the Ealdorman of Somerset and the Bishop of Sherborne to oppose Æthelwulf's resumption of the kingship. In response to this crisis, Æthelwulf yielded western Wessex to his son while he himself retained central and eastern Wessex. Æthelwulf's restoration included a special concession on behalf of Saxon queens: the West Saxons previously did not allow the queen to sit next to the king. In fact they were not referred to as a queen, but merely the "wife of the king." This restriction was lifted for Queen Judith, because her father insisted she would be crowned.[1]

 

When Ethelwulf died on the 13th of January 858, he was succeeded by his son, Ethelbald. In the same year Ethelbald earned the censure of the Church by marrying Judith, his widowed teenage stepmother. The relationship was deemed incestuous and in direct contravention of church law. The marriage was eventually annulled in 860 on the grounds of consanguinity, the same year that Ethelbald died.

 

Through her marriages to two Kings of Wessex, Judith was twice Queen of Wessex and was both the stepmother and later sister-in-law of Alfred the Great. Interestingly, Judith's son by her third marriage, Baldwin II of Flanders would go on to marry Alfred's daughter, Ælfthryth (also known as Elfrida). By her third marriage, Judith was also the ancestress of another Queen of England, Matilda of Flanders, the consort of England's first Norman King, William the Conqueror. Thus Judith is not only an ancestress of the Counts of Flanders, but through Matilda, she is also direct ancestress of the Monarchs of England and later Great Britain and the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms.

 

[edit] Elopement with Baldwin of FlandersFollowing the death of her second husband, Judith sold her properties in Wessex and returned to France. According to the Chronicle of St. Bertin, her father sent her to the Monastery at Senlis, where she would remain "under his protection and royal episcopal guardianship, with all the honour due to a queen, until such time as, if she could not remain chaste, she might marry in the way the apostle said, that is suitably and legally."[2] Presumably, Charles may have intended to arrange another marriage for his daughter. However, around Christmas 861, Judith eloped with Baldwin, later Count of Flanders. The two were likely married at the monastery of Senlis at this time. The record of the incident in the Annals depict Judith not as the passive victim of bride theft but as an active agent, eloping at the instigation of Baldwin and apparently with her brother Louis the Stammerer's consent.[3]

 

Unsurprisingly, Judith's father was furious and ordered his bishops to excommunicate the couple. They later fled to the court of Judith's cousin Lothair II of Lotharingia for protection, before going to Pope Nicholas I to plead their case. The Pope took diplomatic action and asked Judith's father to accept the union as legally binding and welcome the young couple into his circle - which ultimately he did. The couple then returned to France and were officially married at Auxerre in 863.

 

Baldwin was given the land directly south of the Scheldt, i.e.: the Country of Flanders (albeit an area of smaller size than the county which existed in the High Middle Ages) to ward off Viking attacks. Although it is disputed among historians as to whether King Charles did this in the hope that Baldwin would be killed in the ensuing battles with the Vikings, Baldwin managed the situation remarkably well. Baldwin succeeded in quelling the Viking threat, expanded both his army and his territory quickly, and became a faithful supporter of King Charles. The March of Baldwin came to be known as the County of Flanders and would come to be one of the most powerful principalities of France. Judith herself died in 870, when she was approximately 26 years old.

 

[edit] Marriages and ChildrenJudith was first married to King Ethelwulf of Wessex, then to his heir, Ethelbald of Wessex. Her first two marriages produced no issue.

 

By her third husband, Baldwin I of Flanders, Judith's children included:

 

Charles (born after 863, died young) - ostensibly named for Judith's father, Charles the Bald

Baldwin II - (c. 864/866 - 918). Succeeded his father as Count of Flanders. Married Ælfthryth, daughter of Alfred the Great

Raoul (Rodulf) - (c. 869 - 896). Became Count of Cambrai around 888, and was killed by Herbert I of Vermandois in 896