The Tragic Fate of Alfred Aetheling, son of Emma of Normandy

Whilst researching my new book, Trailblazing Medieval Women, I had the opportunity to revisit the life of one Anglo-Saxon prince, Alfred Aetheling. The son of Emma of Normandy by her first husband, King Aethelred the Unread, Alfred Aetheling and his tragic fate are worthy of exploration.

The Early Life of Alfred Aetheling

Born around 1012, Alfred was the youngest of Aethelred’s 8 sons. Aethelread’s large brood of sons from his first marriage to Ælfgifu of York meant that Alfred and his oldest full brother, Edward, would not expect to become kings. Nevertheless, they were expected to play a particularly significant role in Anglo-Saxon politics. Alfred was too young to remember fleeing England along with his family for his mother’s homeland, Normandy, in 1013 as the Vikings laid siege to London. Nor would he remember the family’s return to England the following year as his father regained his lost throne.

Alfred may have had a vague memory of his father, perhaps not the impotent and weak king he is often considered by more modern historians. Aethelred was handed a bad hand, and his inability to deal with the Vikings was not through his own making, but rather dictated by circumstance. Cut down by illness in 1016 at the age of 48, Aethelred’s youngest surviving children would see their fate decided by his wife, Emma.

Aethelred had buried most of the sons from his first marriage; only Edmund, nicknamed Ironside, survived. The newly crowned Anglo-Saxon king, Edmund, was also a newlywed with two twin sons, Edward and Edmund. The chances of Alfred’s older brother, Edward, succeeding their older brother, should the worst happen, were increasing. To protect the potential heirs to the throne, Emma fled with her sons to Normandy and away from the Viking marauders who were circling her stepson’s throne.

A Second Exile

Ironside died in November 1016, his children went into exile, and the Danish king, the Viking, Cnut, seized the English crown. But conquest was not enough to secure his new status; he needed validation and legitimacy if he was to be a successful king of England. Alfred’s mother, Emma, presented the solution to Cnut, and he recalled her from Normandy to be his bride. We can only speculate if Edward and Alfred were discussed as the marriage negotiations were conducted, presumably Emma had assurances of their safety, and perhaps, as per an arrangement, she left her boys in Normandy and began a new life and a new reign with Cnut.

Alfred perhaps felt some resentment towards his mother. Abandoned at the court of Normandy while she embarked on a new beginning, maybe considering she favoured her son by Cnut, Harthacnut. Alfred and Edward enjoyed a comfortable upbringing in the exciting Norman court, the court of their uncle, but maternal affection was something they lacked and presumably craved.

There is no evidence that Emma visited her older sons during her time as the wife of Cnut. Cnut may have considered Alfred and Edward to be a threat to his kingship; they were the only surviving sons of the last Anglo-Saxon king, and their presence on English soil may have acted as a rallying call for any subjects disgruntled by Cnut’s reign. The boys may have begun to plan an invasion of England with their uncle before he died in 1026.¹

A Deadly Trap

The first evidence of contact between Emma and her sons did not occur until after Cnut’s death in 1035. Emma looked not to her sons in Normandy to succeed her husband, but to her youngest son, Harthacnut. It was his claim she upheld when Cnut’s son from his first marriage, Harold Harefoot, seized the throne of England. This was undoubtedly another smack in the mouth to Alfred and Edward as they learned of the fast-moving events from the court of Normandy. They may have expected an invitation from their mother or the English nobles, but this request did not come.

A letter did arrive inviting the brothers to the new Anglo-Norman court in the following year. Assuming the letter came from their mother, in 1036, Edward and Alfred set sail from Normandy bound for their homeland, a land they had not visited since the death of their father 20 years earlier. The brothers travelled separately, and as Edward journeyed to his mother in Winchester, Alfred landed at Dover.

Alfred soon discovered the letter was not from his mother. The author was, in fact, Harold Harefoot, who had used the letter to lure the brothers from Normandy under false pretences. Harold considered Alfred and his brother a threat to his throne, and their mother’s treatment of him had done little to soften his animosity towards these rivals. With her sons on English soil, Harold intended to exact revenge on Emma and utterly destroy this already broken family.

As Alfred made his way to Winchester to meet Emma and Edward, he was entertained by Earl Godwin, the sometime ally of Emma. Aldfred tried to continue on his journey, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us:

‘But then Godwine prevented him, and placed him in captivity,

Dispersing his followers besides, slaying some in various ways;

Some of them were sold for money, others cruelly murdered, some of them were put in chains, and some of them were blinded, some were mutilated, and some were scalped.

No more horrible deed was done in this land

After the Danes came, and made peace with us here…

Threatened with every kind of injury, the prince still ived,

Until the decision was taken to convey him

To the city of Ely, in his chains as he was.

As soon as he arrived, his eyes were put out on board ship,

And thus sightless he was brought to the monks.

And there he remained as long as he lived.

Thereafter he was buried, as well as became his rank’.²

And so Alfred met the same fate as many of his followers, blinded and eventually dying from his wounds. It was a cruel and brutal end.

The Significance of Blinding

By the eleventh century, blinding a political opponent wasa centruies old method to deal with one’s political opponent. In the Byzantine culture, potential candidates for the throne were in danger of being blinded as a way to prevent them from acquiring the throne. A blind person was unable to ascend to the throne, and so blinding a man was a way of excluding him from the succession without committing the ultimate sin of murder. Blind men were rendered militarily useless; unable to lead armies into battle, they were physically unsuitable for kingship.

This method of punishment was prevalent in Anglo-Saxon England, but here it was also used as a punishment for treason. Harold’s orders may have been motivated by a desire to exclude a potential claimant for the throne or considered his arrival in England treasonous.

Whatever the reason for Alfred’s death and the manner of it, the results were catastrophic for Emma’s family. Edward departed from Normandy, devastated at the loss of the brother he had been raised alongside on foreign soil. The murder of Alfred may explain the strained relationship between Emma and Edward as the years wore on.

Alfred’s death was not forgotten. When his half-brother, Harthacnut, succeeded Harold in 1040,

‘He had the body of the dead Harold disinterred and cast into the marsh’.³

Presumably, then, Harthancut felt more affection for Alfred, the half-brother who was raised in Normandy, than for his paternal half-brother. It had taken him 4 years, but Harthacnut avenged Alfred’s death. One must wonder whether Harthacnut discarded his rival’s body in such an appalling way because of a sense of brotherly affection, or was it Emma of Normandy, their grieving mother, who quietly suggested this as a fitting resting place for the man who had butchered her son.

1. F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971), pp. 408 – 409. ↩︎
2. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Garmonsway, G.N. (ed and trans.), (J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1972), pp. 158 – 160. ↩︎
3. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Garmonsway, G.N. (ed and trans.), (J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1972), p. 162. ↩︎