Eadburh

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For other persons of the same name, see Edburga.

Eadburg (also Eadburh) was the daughter of King Offa of Mercia and Queen Cynethryth. Married to King Beorhtric of Wessex, Asser's Life of Alfred the Great tells how she accidentally murdered her husband by poison. Exiled in Francia, she is said to have been offered the chance of marrying Charlemagne, but ruined the opportunity. Instead she was appointed as the abbess of a royal Frankish monastery in Pavia. Here she is said to have lived openly with an English exile. As a result she was eventually expelled from the monastery and ended her days begging in the streets of Pavia.

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[edit] Queen

Eadburg was the daughter of Offa and Cynethryth. She married Beorhtric in 789. According to Asser's account of the life of Alfred, Eadburh was something of an "éminence grise" behind her husband, and often demanded the executions or exile of those whom she saw as gaining too much of Beorhtric's affections. She was also alleged to have assassinated those men whom she couldn't compel Beorhtric to kill through poisoning their food or drink. In 802, according to the tales, Eadburh had sent a poisoned drink to a favourite of the king that he steadfastly refused to believe was plotting against him. Accidentally, the king ingested part of the poisoned drink, as did the favourite. Both soon died.

[edit] Exile

Eadburg subsequently fled to Francia and took refuge at the court of Charlemagne, where her husband's successor, Egbert of Wessex, had taken refuge after being exiled by Beorhtric. There Asser relates that Charlemagne was smitten by the former queen. He brought in one of his sons and asked her which she preferred, him or his son, as a husband. She answered that, given the son's youth, she preferred the son. Charlemagne replied famously: "Had you chosen me, you would have had both of us. But, since you chose him, you shall have neither." He instead offered her a position as an abbess of a convent which she accepted.

[edit] Abbess

Soon, though, she was caught in a sexual affair with another Saxon man, and after being duly convicted was expelled, on the direct orders of Charlemagne, penniless, into the streets. In her last years she lived as a beggar on the streets of Pavia.

[edit] References

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