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{16648} EDWARD
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Edward the Elder (Old English: ?adweard se Ieldra; c. 874–877[1] – 17 July 924) was an English king. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father, Alfred the Great. His court was at Winchester, previously the capital of Wessex. He captured the eastern Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes in 917 and became ruler of Mercia in 918 upon the death of Æthelflæd, his sister.
All but two of his charters give his title as "king of the Anglo-Saxons" (Anglorum Saxonum rex). He was the second king of the Anglo-Saxons as this title was created by Alfred. Edward's coinage reads "EADVVEARD REX." The chroniclers record that all England "accepted Edward as lord" in 920. But the fact that York continued to produce its own coinage suggests that Edward's authority was not accepted in Viking-ruled Northumbria. Edward's eponym "the Elder" was first used in Wulfstan's Life of St Æthelwold (tenth century) to distinguish him from the later King Edward the Martyr.
Edward had four siblings, including Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, and Ælfthryth, Countess of Flanders.
King Edward had about fourteen children from three marriages (or according to some sources, an extramarital relationship and two marriages).
Edward first married Ecgwynn around 893. Conflicting information is given about her by different sources, none of which pre-date the Conquest. Their children were
1. The future King Athelstan (c.893 – 939)
2. (perhaps, else by Ælfflæd) a daughter (named Eadgyth (St. Edith) by some chroniclers) who married Sihtric Cáech and later became a nun.
In 899, Edward married Ælfflæd, a daughter of Æthelhelm, the ealdorman of Wiltshire. Their children were
1. Eadgifu (902 – after 955), who married Charles the Simple
2. Ælfweard of Wessex (904–924), whose death occurred 16 days after Edward's. Later sources sometimes portray him as Edward's successor, at least in part of the kingdom.
3. Eadgyth (910–946), who married Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
4. Eadhild, who married Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris
5. Ælfgifu who married "a prince near the Alps", sometimes identified with Conrad of Burgundy or Boleslaus II of Bohemia
6. Eadflæd, who became a nun
7. Eadhild, who also became a nun
8. Edwin of Wessex
Edward married for a third time, about 919, to Eadgifu,[19] the daughter of Sigehelm, the ealdorman of Kent. Their children were
1. The future king Edmund (922–946)
2. The future king Eadred (died 955)
3. Saint Edburga of Winchester (died 960)
4. Eadgifu, married "Louis, Prince of Aquitaine", whose identity is disputed, as is the very existence if this daughter.
Eadgifu outlived her husband and her sons, and was alive during the reign of her grandson, King Edgar. William of Malmsbury's history De antiquitate Glastonie ecclesiae claims that Edward's second wife, Ælfflæd, was also alive after Edward's death, but this is the only known source for that claim.
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