The scandalous life of Eadburh

Once upon a time, the kings of Wessex didn’t have queens. Not because they were celibate monks or allergic to marriage but because of one woman who messed things up so badly, future royal wives were stripped of their titles and influence for generations. That woman was Eadburh, wife of King Beorhtric of Wessex, and according to medieval gossip, she was the very definition of a royal nightmare.

If we are to believe Asser, the biographer of King Alfred who was writing in the late ninth century, Eadburh was a bad, bad girl. She was a murderer! She was promiscuous! She became a naughty nun! She turned down Charlemagne! Worst of all, she wielded too much power. She ended her life begging on the streets of Italy. A stark warning for all royal women, lest they too forget their place.

The queen who played with poison

Eadburh wasn’t just any royal wife; she was the daughter of the formidable King Offa of Mercia (famous for his massive dyke - yes, that’s dyke) and Queen Cynethryth, who was no stranger to controversy herself. Legend has it that Cynethryth personally arranged the assassination of an East Anglian king, so perhaps Eadburh was simply carrying on the family tradition when she decided to rid herself of political nuisances… with a little help from poison.

According to Asser, Eadburh had an insatiable hunger for power. In 798, she married King Beorhtric of Wessex and acquired ‘power over almost the whole kingdom’. There is little doubt this was a political alliance - Beorhtric gained a powerful ally while Offa gained a cooperative neighbour - and it’s thought that Eadburh was often acting in her father’s interests. She isolated Beorhtric from any advisors he grew close to, whispering spiteful gossip into his ear. When persuasion failed, she turned to poison.

Predictably, it all went horribly wrong. Eadburh couldn’t persuade Beorhtric to ditch his latest favourite, so she resorted to poisoning the young man’s drink. Unfortunately, Beorhtric also took a swig so both men ended up dead. With Beorhtric dead and no heirs to inherit his throne, a power vacuum emerged. This was filled by Ecgbert, a rival Saxon ruler who had been exiled overseas by Offa and Beorhtric. Eadburh was out in the cold; by this point her father had died and her family no longer ruled in Mercia, so she couldn’t even return home.

With Beorhtric dead and no heirs to protect her, Eadburh fled Wessex, stuffing her pockets with as much treasure as she could carry. Where did she go? Straight to the court of the mighty Charlemagne, King of the Franks. And here’s where the story gets even spicier.

Charlemagne - allegedly - was so taken with Eadburh that he decided to test her. He asked whether she’d prefer to marry him or his son. Eadburh chose the younger man. Big mistake. Charlemagne’s response? “Had you chosen me, you would have had both of us. But since you chose him, you shall have neither.”

Ouch.

Instead of marrying a king, Eadburh was packed off to a convent, where, naturally, she couldn’t resist one last scandal. She was caught sleeping with a Saxon man and was promptly booted out. Her once-glittering royal life ended in disgrace, begging on the streets of Italy. A spectacular fall from grace if ever there was one.

Did any of that actually happen?

Well… probably not.

While the story is wildly entertaining, there’s a good chance it was politically motivated propaganda. When Ecgbert seized the throne after Beorhtric’s death, his family displaced the previous ruling family so they needed a bit of PR to justify their position. Their descendants - most notably Alfred the Great (famous for his baking disasters, among other things) - had a vested interest in making their enemies look bad. Monarchy in Anglo Saxon England was a precarious concept, especially as primogeniture wasn’t a hard and fast rule.

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It speaks volumes that much of what we know about Eadburh comes from Asser, who was a monk and member of Alfred’s court. Painting Eadburh as a wicked, scheming poisoner made it easier to justify why Ecgbert deserved the throne. Her behaviour was a useful way of discrediting both Beorhtric and Offa. They had teamed up to drive Ecgbert out of the country - a union which had been cemented by Eadburh. Implying that his grandfather had done the kingdom a favour reinforced Alfred’s position, especially as it’s likely Ecgbert was the real reason for Beorhtric’s demise.

And guess who told this story to Asser? Alfred himself. Suspicious, right?

Who was the real Eadburh?

We do know that Eadburh existed - she appears in historical records and she did marry Beorhtric. She was important enough to be named in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a rare achievement for a woman. The Chronicle even confirms that their union was a political alliance. Beorhtric and Eadburh never had children yet, surprisingly, Beorhtric never tried to cast her aside - we’ll never know whether that’s because he genuinely loved her or because his alliance with Offa was more valuable. It appears that Eadburh did wield authority of her own - her name and title is present on several charters. And yes, Beorhtric and one of his ealdormen did die at the same time. But was Eadburh really a murderous femme fatale? Or just an ambitious woman in an era that preferred its queens silent and submissive?

Eadburh’s move to the Continent after Beorhtric’s death is also entirely feasible. Royal women did move around and at least one primary source suggests that Eadburh was an abbess in an Italian convent. It was common for widowed medieval queens to retire to a convent so maybe this was our Eadburh? If so, she most likely remained there and wasn’t chucked out for screwing around. Sorry, scandal fans.

The legacy of Eadburh

Was Eadburh really the poison-dispensing, power-hungry villain history paints her as? Or was she simply a scapegoat, her story twisted to suit the political needs of the men who came after? Regardless of what’s true and what’s Saxon smear-campaigning, one thing is certain - after Eadburh’s “downfall”, the kings of Wessex stopped granting their wives the title of ‘queen.’ Instead, they were simply ‘wives’ - stripped of royal authority and influence. A convenient way to make sure no woman ever again wielded the kind of power that Eadburh supposedly did.

It’s rare to see the royal women of Wessex mentioned in the sources but there are a handful of notable exceptions. Judith, the Frankish princess who married into Wessex, was crowned ‘regina’ before even arriving in England - probably because her father, Charles the Bald, wasn’t about to let his daughter be treated as just another wife. And Alfred’s sister-in-law Wulfthryth also carried the queenly title, proving that exceptions could be made. Asser briefly talks about Alfred’s wife, Ealswith, but doesn’t even mention her name. For the most part, West Saxon queens faded into the background - at least, officially.

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Asser makes a point of saying that he disagrees with this tradition and it’s likely he was using the story of Eadburh to justify it. It neatly blames one person - rather than the social norms of Wessex - while also throwing shade at Ecgbert’s rivals, making it a very convenient explanation indeed. As for whether or not the West Saxons really didn’t have queens, it’s hard to know for certain. What we can say with some degree of certainty, however, is that Eadburh’s life probably wasn’t really that scandalous after all.