Conquest, i. 64, 135, 245; Green's Conquest of England, p. 268–81; Robertson's Historical Essays, 168, 181, 197.]
EDMUND or EADMUND, called Ironside (981?–1016), king, the third son, probably, of Æthelred the Unready, by his first wife, Ælfgifu, daughter either of an ealdorman named Æthelberht (Flor. Wig. i. 275), or of Thored, earl of the Northumbrians (Ailred, col. 362), is said by the St. Albans compiler to have been born in 981 (Chron. Maj. sub ann.); but this date is certainly too early, as Æthelred was then not more than thirteen. Æthelstan, who seems to have been Æthelred's eldest son, probably died in 1016, and Ecgberht, who came next, about 1005 (Norman Conquest, i. 686, 700). In 1015 Eadmund desired to marry Ealdgyth, the widow of the Danish earl Sigeferth, who, along with his fellow earl Morkere, had that year been slain at Oxford by Eadric Streona [see under Edric]. Æthelred, who had seized on the possessions of the earls, and had sent Ealdgyth to Malmesbury, was not willing that his son should make this marriage. Nevertheless Eadmund took Ealdgyth from Malmesbury, married her, and then went to the Five (or Seven) Boroughs of the Danish confederacy, where the murdered earls had ruled, and received the submission of the people. It seems highly probable that this marriage, and the establishment of his power in the Danish district, deeply offended his brother-in-law Eadric, the Mercian earl (Green); for, when Cnut invaded the country shortly afterwards, and Eadmund raised an army to meet him and joined forces with Eadric, a bitter quarrel broke out between them, and the earl, after having, it is said, endeavoured to slay him, went over to the side of Cnut. After this desertion Eadmund was unable to defend Mercia in the beginning of 1016, for his levies declared that they would not fight unless he was joined by the king, who had lately been sick, and by the Londoners. He tried to raise another force, declaring that all who disobeyed his summons should suffer the full penalty, and sent to his father desiring him to come and help him. Æthelred came, did no good, and went back to London. Eadmund then retired into Northumbria, joined Earl Uhtred, and with his help harried Staffordshire and other parts of eastern Mercia which had submitted to Cnut. Uhtred was compelled to draw off his forces and hasten back to his own earldom, for Cnut was marching on York, and Eadmund joined his father in London about Easter. While Cnut was threatening to lay siege to the city Æthelred died on 23 April, and the Londoners, together with such of the ‘witan’ as were there, with one consent chose Eadmund as king, and there is no reason to doubt the assertion of Ralph of Diceto (i. 169, ii. 237) that he was crowned in London by Lyfing, archbishop of Canterbury. Cnut was, however, chosen king at Southampton by the witan generally (Flor. Wig. i. 173), and at the time of his election Eadmund's kingdom was bounded by the walls of London. His elder brother, Æthelstan, who does not appear to have been put forward as a candidate for the crown, and his step-mother, the Norman Emma, seem to have been with him in the city.
Before the siege of London was actually formed Eadmund and Æthelstan appear to have left the city, and it is probable that Æthelstan was slain about this time in a skirmish with a Danish leader named Thurgut (Earl Thurcytel?), for when Thietmar (vii. 28, Pertz, iii. 848) says that Eadmund was thus slain, and that the war was carried on by Æthelstan, he evidently confuses the two brothers together. Meanwhile Eadmund, ‘who was yclept Ironside for his bravery’ (A.-S. Chron. sub ann. 1057), rode through the western shires, received their submission, and raised an army from them. His troops are said to have been British or Welsh (‘Britanni,’ Thietmar), and it is suggested that they came from the ‘shires of the old Wealhcyn’ (Norman Conquest, i. 701); in the twelfth century it was believed that they were natives of Wales, for Gaimar (l. 4222) says that Eadmund's wife was the sister of a Welsh king, and that this gained him the help of her countrymen, and though Ealdgyth had an English name, it does not follow that she was an Englishwoman any more than Ælfgifu, as the English called Emma, the Norman wife of Æthelred. When Cnut heard that Eadmund had received the submission of the west, he left the siege of London and marched after him. Eadmund gave him battle at Pen (Selwood) in Somerset, and defeated his army. This victory enabled him to raise another and larger force, and shortly after midsummer he again met Cnut's army at Sherston, in Wiltshire. He was now at the head of troops raised from Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Wiltshire, while Cnut had in his army levies from Hampshire and other parts of Wiltshire (Flor. Wig.), so that Eadmund had now extended his kingdom so far east as to take in some parts of Wiltshire. The fight began on a Monday, and Eadmund, who had placed his best warriors in the front line, stood with them and fought hand to hand with the enemy. When evening came the two armies, wearied with battle, drew off a little from one another. The next day they
