Edgar, King of England, 959-975: King Lear sub-plot.
King Edgar "The Peaceable" was also a strong leader, as shown by his seizure of the Northumbrian and Mercian kingdoms from his older brother, Eadwig, in 958. Edgar consolidated the political unity of England achieved by his predecessors. Upon Eadwig's death in 959, Edgar recalled Dunstan (later St. Dunstan) from exile to be Bishop of Worcester (finally Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan was Edgar's adviser throughout his reign. The reform that restored the Benedictine Rule to England's monasteries peaked in the era of Dunstan and Oswald. Edgar was crowned at Bath, but not until 973 in a ceremony planned as the culmination of his reign. This service, devised by Dunstan, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation-ceremony (see next image for coronation picture). At Chester later, other kings in Britain, including those of Albany (Scotland) and Strathclyde, pledged their allegiance to Edgar. Chroniclers claim eight kings plied the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee at this "submission at Chester." Edgar died in 975 at Winchester, and was buried at Glastonbury Abbey. He left two sons, the elder, Edward (probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd), and Æthelred (by his wife Ælfthryth). He was succeeded by Edward. Edgar also had a daughter, also possibly illegitimate, by Wulfryth, who became abbess of Wilton, where daughter, Edith of Wilton, was a nun. Both women were regarded as saints.
Shakespeare enriches his 'King Lear' by adding a second plot co-ordinating its events with a later culture than Ancient Britain: Anglo-Saxon England, which under Edgar achieved a unity and tolerance by Christian guidance that Lear's over-severe pagan justice could not preserve. As king, Edgar is intimately associated with three saints, despite a misspent youth (like Prince Hal's), reflected in his illegitimate children (and confessed to by Edgar in "King Lear", III.iv.84-99). That this layer of later culture is significant is confirmed by the play's addition of other Saxon names: Oswald and Edmund (one Edmund was King of East Anglia, venerated as a saint after his killing by Vikings in 869). Shakespeare's recogniton of the latter is confirmed buy the fact that his own (younger!) actor-brother was called Edmund after this saint, and was buried solemnly 9presumably by his elder brother William} in Southwark, near the Globe in 1607.
That the play's Edgar justifies this royal analogue has already been recognized. Abraham Stohl has written: "What most distinguishes the Folio from the Quarto version of King Lear is Edgar's acceptance of the crown in the later play." For if, in speaking the final words of the Folio, "Edgar is a plausible king, it is a status won out of the text. . , so that he emerges from his own trials not only experienced, but seeming stoic and heroic-acting, that is, like a king. The Folio's Edgar does not make for a comic ending - he hardly redeems the expansive tragedy of the play - but by acceding to the throne he does provide a measure of hope, moving away from the utter despair of the Quarto." ('Edgar and Kingship in Three "King Lears"' in SRASP, W.Virginia, 22,1999). For further discussion see the essay appended to this site's single-play bibliography of King Lear.
Photo: PHGCOM at the British Museum.Picture and data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License (Wikipedia)
