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Elfrida The First Crown Queen Of England Summary

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Elizabeth Norton’s book, “Elfrida: The First Crowned Queen of England,” describes in fine detail the life of Elfrida, an Anglo-Saxon queen during the late tenth century. Anglo-Saxon queens are often rarely spoken of in detail within the English history books. According to Asser, the biographer of Alfred the Great, Saxon England did not have any influential female monarchs. But that would change in 973 when a noblewoman named Elfrida was crowned beside her husband, King Edgar the peaceful. During her reign as queen, Elfrida would become Anglo-Saxon England’s most powerful and infamous female ruler. Norton starts her work was the description of the future queen’s early life and her first marriage. Elfrida was the only daughter of Ordgar, an Anglo-Saxon thegn, and was born in the mid tenth century in Devon. News of her beauty swept through Devon then through the rest Anglo-Saxon England, the rumors that would eventually reach the ears of the Edgar, the current King of England. The king would send his friend Ethelwold, the oldest son of Athelstan who was the Ealdorman of East Anglia, to confirm if these rumors were indeed true. Ethelwold would travel to Devon where he would meet with Elfrida and her father. It was …show more content…

Details of the incident vary between medieval sources which Norton quotes in the book then makes the argument that, when based on contemporary evidence, Elfrida at worst “…might have had some inkling that the gathering men meant the king harm (Norton 148)” then suggests that this theory too is uncertain. After the murder of Edward, Elfrida would rule as regent until her son came of age. Not long after ascending to the throne, his reign was plagued with the invasion of Danish Vikings, losing his throne to Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard; it would only in 1014 when Sweyn died. Events such as this earned him the name Ethelred the

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