Queen Emma

Queen Emma

Emma of Normandy, c 1052, Daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy and his second wife Gunnora, twice Queen by her successive marriages to Æthelred II and Cnut, spending part of her life in exile under the protection of Count Baldwin of Flanders.

In an attempt to pacify Normandy king Æthelred of England married Emma in 1002. Viking raids on England were often based in Normandy in the late 10th century and this marriage was intended to unite against the Viking threat. In 1013, when the Danes under king Sweyn Forkbeard invaded and conquered England Emma and her children fled to Normandy where Æthelred soon joined them, able only to return after Sweyn’s death in 1014. After Æthelred’s death in 1016, Emma’s sons Edward the Confessor and Alfred Aetheling were heirs second after all the sons from his first wife Ælfgifu of York beginning with the oldest surviving son Edmund Ironside.

Cnut, son of Sweyn Forkbeard, invaded England in 1015 and after Æthelred’s death Emma married Cnut which is believed to have saved her son’s lives as they were spared from Cnut’s efforts to eliminate all claimants. Emma became queen of England and later Denmark and Norway, her sons Edward and Alfred from her marriage to Æthelred were sent to live in Normandy under the tutelage of her brother.
Emma and Cnut’s son, Harthacnut succeeded to the throne of Denmark and five years later he and his half-brother Edward the Confessor shared the throne of England. Although their reign was short, lasting only two years before Harthacnut’s demise in 1042, Emma helped promote their interests. Playing a role in this coordinated reign as the common tie in 1042 the Encomium of Queen Emma was commissioned, an exaggerated biography written in response to the politically delicate situation that suggested Emma had a significant role, even being an equal role in this co-leadership of the English kingdom. ​

During Edward’s reign the earl of Kent accused Emma of an intimate familiarity with her relation the bishop of Winchester. To prove her innocence Emma submitted to the ordeal by fire by walking barefoot and unhurt over the nine red-hot ploughshares plainly dressed, feet and legs bare to the knee at the cathedral church at Winchester. The king struck with the miracle fell on his knees before his mother and implored her pardon. Emma ‘was the richest woman in England’ holding extensive lands in the East Midlands and Wessex with authority not simply tied to landholdings but wielded significant sway over the ecclesiastical offices of England remaining in the public eye and continuing to participate actively in politics including witnessing charters until her death in 1052. Her marriage to king Æthelred of England was significant as it later gave her brother Richard’s grandson William the Conqueror the basis for his claim to the throne of England. ​