Emma (985-1052), Queen of England

Emma was the daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy, and Gonnor, and in 1002 married the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred II († 1016) at the time when he was seeking an alliance with the Duke of Normandy against the Danes. Emma, who received Winchester as a dowry, gave Ethelred two sons, Alfred and Edward. When the Danish King Cnut took the English throne in 1016, he also married Queen Emma to legitimise his accession to power. The sons of Emma and Ethelred found refuge in Normandy. On the death of Cnut (1035), Harthacnut, the son of Emma and Cnut, was in Denmark. Harold I Harefoot, son of an Anglo-Saxon concubine of Cnut, became King of England and sent Emma into exile in Flanders. On the death of Harold in 1040, Harthacnut took the crown of England with the support of Emma, but he died in 1042 opening up the way for the return of Edward the Confessor, son of Emma and Ethelred. Edward, rejected by his mother who preferred her son by her marriage with Cnut, stripped the queen of all her possessions and confined her to Winchester before exiling her to Normandy where she died. As she was his great aunt, William the Conqueror used their relationship to justify his right to the English throne.

Bibliography :

- François Neveux. - La Normandie des ducs aux rois, Xe-XIIe s. - Rennes : Ouest-France, 1998.
- Michel de Boüard. - Guillaume le Conquérant. - Paris : Fayard, 1984.