Edgar the Peaceful

Edgar
A contemporary portrayal of King Edgar in the New Minster Charter.
King of the English
Reign	1 October 959 – 8 July 975
Predecessor	Eadwig
Successor	Edward
Born	943/944
Died	8 July 975 (aged 31/32) Winchester, Hampshire
Burial	Glastonbury Abbey
Spouse	Æthelflæd Wulfthryth Ælfthryth
Issue	Edward, King of England Eadgyth Edmund Æthelred, King of England
House	Wessex
Father	Edmund, King of England
Mother	Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury
Religion	Roman Catholic

Edgar I (Old English: Ēadgār; c. 943 – 8 July 975), known as Edgar the Peaceful or the Peaceable, was King of England from 959 to 975. He was the younger son of King Edmund I and his Queen, Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury.

Edgar was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of King Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, the son of Edmund and Edgar's older brother.

Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became King of England upon Eadwig's death in October 959, aged just 16

One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly peaceable man, his reign was peaceful. The Kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of Eadred. Blackstone mentions that King Edgar standardised measure throughout the realm. According to George Molyneaux, Edgar's reign, "far more than the reigns of either Alfred or Æthelstan, was probably the most pivotal phase in the development of the institutional structures that were fundamental to royal rule in the eleventh-century kingdom".