Edward the Martyr was King of the English from 8 July 975 until he was killed on 18 March 978. He was the eldest son of King Edgar. On Edgar's death, the succession to the throne was contested between Edward's supporters and those of his younger half-brother, the future King Æthelred the Unready. As they were both children, it is unlikely that they played an active role in the dispute, which was probably between rival family alliances. Edward's principal supporters were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, while Æthelred was backed by his mother, Queen Ælfthryth and her friend Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester. The dispute was quickly settled. Edward was chosen as king and Æthelred received the lands traditionally allocated to the king's eldest son in compensation.
Edward in an early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England, British Library, Royal MS 14 B 6
The post-Conquest Corfe Castle
Church of St Edward King and Martyr, Goathurst, Somerset
Church of St Edward King and Martyr, Cambridge
Edgar was King of the English from 959 until his death. He became king of all England on his brother's death. He was the younger son of King Edmund I and his first wife Ælfgifu. A detailed account of Edgar's reign is not possible, because only a few events were recorded by chroniclers and monastic writers were more interested in recording the activities of the leaders of the church.
Edgar in the early fourteenth-century Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England
Edgar in the second tier of the Royal Window in the mid-fifteenth century chapel of All Souls College, Oxford. The stained glass is original apart from Edgar's head, which was replaced with one made by Clayton and Bell in the 1870s.
Coin of Edgar, pre-reform, Bust Crowned, moneyer Levinc, East Anglia
Frontispiece of the Winchester New Minster Charter of 966, the only illuminated charter and the only manuscript written entirely in gold to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. Edgar is flanked by the Virgin Mary and St Peter, and he is offering the charter to Christ, who sits enthroned above, surrounded by four winged angels.
