Edwin (died 933) was the younger son of King

Edward the Elder Edward the Elder (870s?17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousi ...

and

Ælfflæd Ælfflæd is a name of Anglo-Saxon England meaning Ælf (Elf) and flæd (beauty). It may refer to: * Saint Ælfflæd of Whitby (654–714) * Ælfflæd of Mercia, daughter of Offa, wife of King Æthelred I of Northumbria * Ælfflæd, wife of Edwa ...

, his second wife. He

drowned Drowning is a type of Asphyxia, suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Submersion injury refers to both drowning and near-miss incidents. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where othe ...

at sea in circumstances which are unclear. Edward the Elder died in 924, leaving five sons by three marriages. Of these,

Edmund Edmund is a masculine given name in the English language. The name is derived from the Old English elements ''ēad'', meaning "prosperity" or "riches", and ''mund'', meaning "protector". Persons named Edmund include: People Kings and nobles *Ed ...

and

Eadred Eadred (also Edred, – 23 November 955) was King of the English from 26 May 946 until his death in 955. He was the younger son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu of Kent, Eadgifu, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His elder b ...

were infants and thus excluded from the succession. Edward's careful work of expansion was undone when the

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

ns chose Edward's oldest son

Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ; ; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first wife, Ecgwynn. Modern histori ...

– probably raised in Mercia at the court of Edward's sister

Æthelflæd Æthelflæd ( – 12 June 918) ruled as Lady of the Mercians in the English Midlands from 911 until her death in 918. She was the eldest child of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his wife Ealhswith. Æthelflæd ...

– to be their king while the West Saxons picked

Ælfweard Ælfweard is the name of: *Ælfweard of Wessex Ælfweard (; – ) was the second son of Edward the Elder, the eldest born to his second wife Ælfflæd. Kingship and death The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' simply states that Ælfweard die ...

, elder son of Edward's second wife Ælfflæd, who was perhaps Edward's own choice as successor. Ælfweard's "sudden and convenient"Thacker, ''Dynastic monasteries'', pp. 254–255. death followed 16 days after that of his father, but Æthelstan appears not to have been recognised as king by the West Saxons until a year after his father's death, suggesting that there was considerable resistance to him and perhaps also support for Edwin. The contemporary evidence for Edwin's life is very limited. At some point during the reign of his half-brother Æthelstan, Edwin witnessed a charter
S 1417
at

New Minster, Winchester The New Minster in Winchester was a royal Benedictine abbey founded in in Winchester in the England, English county of Hampshire. Alfred the Great had intended to build the monastery, but only got around to buying the land. His son, Edward the ...

, granting lands to one Alfred, a

thegn In later Anglo-Saxon England, a thegn or thane (Latin minister) was an aristocrat who ranked at the third level in lay society, below the king and ealdormen. He had to be a substantial landowner. Thanage refers to the tenure by which lands were ...

(''minister'') of King Æthelstan. Edwin witnesses the charter immediately after his half-brother and is described as

ætheling Ætheling (; also spelt aetheling, atheling or etheling) was an Old English term (''æþeling'') used in Anglo-Saxon England to designate princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible for the kingship. The term is an Old English and Old Saxon ...

(''clito''). The ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

'' states that Edwin drowned at sea in 933. The

Francia The Kingdom of the Franks (), also known as the Frankish Kingdom, or just Francia, was the largest History of the Roman Empire, post-Roman barbarian kingdom in Western Europe. It was ruled by the Franks, Frankish Merovingian dynasty, Merovingi ...

n ''

Annales Bertiniani ''Annales Bertiniani'' (''Annals of Saint Bertin'') are late Carolingian, Frankish annals that were found in the Abbey of Saint Bertin, Saint-Omer, France, after which they are named. Their account is taken to cover the period 830-82, thus con ...

'' compiled by Folcuin provide more detail: Later writers such as

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury (; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a gifted historical scholar and a ...

and

Simeon of Durham __NOTOC__ Symeon (or Simeon) of Durham (fl. c.1090 to c. 1128 ) was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory. Biography Symeon was a Benedictine monk at Durham Cathedral at the end of the eleventh century. He may have been one of 23 mon ...

rewrote Edwin's death. Sir

Frank Stenton Sir Frank Merry Stenton FBA (17 May 1880 – 15 September 1967) was an English historian of Anglo-Saxon England, a professor of history at the University of Reading (1926–1946), president of the Royal Historical Society (1937–1945), Readi ...

saw their reports as suggesting that "a rebellion against Athelstan may have been organised within the royal house itself". Simeon's version baldly states that "King Æthelstan commanded that his brother Edwin be drowned at sea". William's account is much longer and associates Edwin's death with an earlier plot to blind Æthelstan and replace him with Edwin. In this version, Æthelstan is convinced by jealous courtiers to have Edwin sent to sea in a leaky boat, without oars, without food, and without water. Despairing, Edwin throws himself into the sea and drowns. The ''Annales Bertiniani'' say that the monks of Saint Bertin were granted a monastery at

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

by "King Æthelstan" in 944 – in fact by King Edmund, Æthelstan having died in 939 – in gratitude for their care of Edwin's remains.Whitelock, ''English Historical Documents'', p. 346.

Notes

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Edwin Anglo-Saxon royalty 933 deaths 10th-century English people Deaths by drowning Year of birth unknown House of Wessex Sons of kings English princes