High Middle Ages · Europe · Politics
1016
Death of Edmund Ironside
November 30, 1016
England's last Anglo-Saxon warrior king, defeated but still ruling Wessex under the Alney treaty, died suddenly at just twenty-five years old. Chroniclers muttered poison. Cnut became sole ruler of England and began dispatching the remaining Saxon claimants. A Viking dynasty wore the English crown. Edmund's infant sons were smuggled abroad, eventually finding refuge at the court of Hungary far from Danish reach.