Early English Queens, 650850 by Stefany Wragg;

Author:Stefany Wragg; [Wragg;, Stefany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367335762
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Cynethryth and Wigmund, Ælfflæd and Wigstan

The branch of the Mercian royal family under Coenwulf did not continue long in the male line. After Coenwulf’s death, his brother Ceolwulf reigned, but was deposed by Beornwulf after two short years. In 827, Wiglaf came to the throne of Mercia. Once again, the connections of his wife appear to have been crucial to securing support for his claim.

Wiglaf’s own background is difficult to place. Richard North’s work dating Beowulf to the ninth century suggests that Wiglaf’s family may have originated in the area around Breedon and Repton.67 No pedigree survives for Wiglaf, but texts relating to his son Wigmund and grandson Wigstan do suggest royal connections in their genealogies – but probably via the maternal line. Cynethryth’s name, the same of that as the queen of Offa, likely indicates a connection with that family. If so, she descended from a powerful family who may have acted as kingmakers both in the past and in her lifetime.

As such, Cynethryth’s ancestry was, if anything, more valuable as a legitimising factor in the succession than that of her husband. Like the queens of Coenwulf and Offa before her, she too features in the documentary record of charters. She attests two surviving charters of Wiglaf, both of which survive in ninth-century copies.68 In these two charters, the first dated to 831 and the second dated to 836, although she is not the first signatory, she is among the highest: in the earlier, in favour of Wulfred of Canterbury, she witnesses following Wiglaf, the king, and Wulfred, the archbishop and recipient of the land; in the latter, she is second only to her husband. Whilst this position is not unusual for a queen, it reconfirms her high status as wife of the king, and mother of the presumptive heir.

The heir occupies a much lower position in the charter witnesses than his mother the queen. In the same charter of 831, Wigmund witnesses: Ego Wigmund filius regis consensi et subscripsi (‘I, Wigmund, son of the king, consent and subscribe’). He witnesses behind the king, the archbishop of Canterbury, the queen, and several men identified as dux in the witness list, perhaps pegging his status as heir to the throne as being of less importance than the men currently in power in the region. Cynethryth’s signature before the leading men of the kingdom reinforces the importance of her position as a wife, advisor and mother to any possible heirs.

Cynethryth must be regarded as at least partially successful as a mother in notably difficult circumstances. In 829, early in his reign, Wiglaf was expelled from the Mercian throne by Ecgberht of Wessex; historical records differ on whether or not Wiglaf’s restoration later in 830 was one of the Mercian king accepting his overlordship as a tributary king, or, as in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, merely a restoration in his own right, with a period of increased cooperation between the former enemies of Mercia and Wessex.69 Wigmund’s survival added to the stability of

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