Edward Martyr (c962 - 978). Edward the Martyr was King of England from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar the Peaceful but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leadership of England was contested, with some supporting Edward's claim to be king and others supporting his younger half-brother Athelred the Unready, recognized as a legitimate son of Edgar. Edward was chosen as king and was crowned by his main clerical supporters, the archbishops Dunstan of Canterbury and Oswald of Worcester. The great nobles of the kingdom, ealdormen Alfhere and Athelwine, quarrelled, and civil war almost broke out. In the so-called anti-monastic reaction, the nobles took advantage of Edward's weakness to dispossess the Benedictine reformed monasteries of lands and other properties that King Edgar had granted to them. Edward's short reign was brought to an end by his murder at Corfe Castle in 978 in circumstances that are not altogether clear. His body was reburied with great ceremony at Shaftesbury Abbey early in 979. In 1001 Edward's remains were moved to a more prominent place in the abbey, probably with the blessing of his half-brother King Athelred. Edward was already reckoned a saint by this time. A number of lives of Edward were written in the centuries following his death in which he was portrayed as a martyr, generally seen as a victim of the Queen Dowager Alfthryth, mother of Athelred. He is today recognized as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion. Edward's date of birth is unknown, but he was the eldest of Edgar's three children. He was probably in his teens when he succeeded his father, who died at age 32 in 975. Edward was known to be King Edgar's son, but he was not the son of Queen Alfthryth, the third wife of Edgar. This much and no more is known from contemporary charters. Later sources of questionable reliability address the identity of Edward's mother. The earliest such source is a life of Dunstan by Osbern of Canterbury, probably written in the 1080s. Osbern writes that Edward's mother was a nun at Wilton Abbey whom the king seduced. When Eadmer wrote a life of Dunstan some decades later, he included an account of Edward's parentage obtained from Nicholas of Worcester. This denied that Edward was the son of a liaison between Edgar and a nun, presenting him as the son of Athelflad, daughter of Ordmar, ealdorman of the East Anglians, whom Edgar had married in the years when he ruled Mercia. Additional accounts are offered by Goscelin in his life of Edgar's daughter Saint Edith of Wilton and in the histories of John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury. Together these various accounts suggest that Edward's mother was probably a noblewoman named Athelflad, surnamed Candida or Eneda, the White or White Duck. A charter of 966 describes Alfthryth, whom Edgar had married in 964, as the king's lawful wife, and their eldest son Edmund as the legitimate son of the king. Edward is noted as the king's son. Bishop Athelwold of Winchester was a supporter of Alfthryth and Athelred, but Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to have supported Edward, and a genealogy created at his Glastonbury Abbey circa 969 gives Edward precedence over Edmund and Athelred. Alfthryth was the widow of Athelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia and perhaps Edgar's third wife. Cyril Hart argues that the contradictions regarding the identity of Edward's mother, and the fact that Edmund appears to have been regarded as the legitimate heir until his death in 971, suggest that Edward was probably illegitimate. However, Barbara Yorke thinks that Athelflad was Edgar's wife, but Alfthryth was a consecrated queen when she gave birth to her sons, who were therefore considered more legitimate than Edward. Athelwold denied that Edward was legitimate, but Yorke considers this opportunist special pleading. Edmund's full brother Athelred may have inherited his position as heir. On a charter to the New Minster at Winchester, the names of Alfthryth and her son Athelred appear ahead of Edward's name. When Edgar died on 8 July 975, Athelred was probably nine and Edward only a few years older. Edgar had been a strong ruler who had forced monastic reforms on a probably unwilling church and nobility, aided by the leading clerics of the day, Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury; Oswald of Worcester, Archbishop of York; and Bishop Athelwold of Winchester. By endowing the reformed Benedictine monasteries with the lands required for their support, he had dispossessed many lesser nobles, and had rewritten leases and loans of land to the benefit of the monasteries.