Why Anglo-Saxon kings (sometimes) married their fathers' widows

A unique tactic guaranteed to make your jaw drop

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This post explores the practice of marriage to a stepmother, which happened on occasion in early Anglo-Saxon England across the social scale. It’s possible to view these marriages through the lens of the oppression of women, with decisions made about their futures without their consultation or consent. I suggest here, however, that we should see these women as vessels of power rather than victims of male politics (even if this is part of their story), as their marriages provided something that the men needed in order to survive, or even thrive, in their roles as political leaders.

Let’s dive in.

In Anglo-Saxon England, men married their stepmothers to make big political statements.

It’s a shocking act, even today: the parent-child relationship is sacrosanct, to be kept strictly filial. Crossing this boundary can be a crime punishable by some of the harshest legal, not to mention social, retributions.

It could be said that this is considered objectively wrong, across all space and all time.

I think this is part of the reason why, even with the remove of being a step-parent, we think about today’s topic with a tinge of disgust. There’s something about it that just doesn’t sit right.

And yet, a few individuals in early Anglo-Saxon history made huge political waves by choosing to marry their stepmothers. Perhaps because it just doesn’t sit right.

It was the shock factor they wanted.

The examples we know of are high-status individuals - kings. The restriction of writing at this time means that these are the only names that have been preserved for us (although there are some clues that the practice was more widespread than this - more on that later).

The first of these marriages mentioned in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (written c. A.D. 731) was that of Eadbald, king of Kent, who married his stepmother upon his father’s death. His father, Æthelberht, had been the first king to convert to Christianity through the Augustinian mission, sent by Pope Gregory the Great in the closing years of the sixth century A.D. (you can read more about him HERE). Æthelberht was a powerful king in eastern England at this time, described by Bede as overlord of all of Britain south of the Humber. He was a big fish for the mission to have caught, with the potential to extend the church into other kingdoms through his influence.

When he died c. A.D. 616, he was succeeded by his son Eadbald.

A coin attributed to Eadbald. Source: https://detectingfinds.co.uk/reader-finds-rare-gold-shilling-of-eadbald-of-kent

Eadbald was not a Christian.

In fact, he actively rejected his father’s faith:

After the death of Æthelberht [of Kent], when his son Eadbald had taken over the helm of state, there followed a severe setback to the tender growth of the Church. Not only had he refused to receive the faith of Christ but he was polluted with such fornications as the apostle declares to have been not so much as mentioned among the Gentiles, in that he took his father’s wife. By both of these crimes he gave the occasion to return to their own vomit those who had accepted the laws of faith … during his father’s reign either out of fear of the king or to win his favour. The apostate king, however, did not escape the scourge of divine chastisement and correction; for he was afflicted by frequent fits of madness and possessed by an unclean spirit.¹

Bede here connects Eadbald’s marriage with his paganism. It was, for him, a symbol of his complete repudiation of Christianity.

This is made even clearer in Bede’s description of the king’s later conversion, following a spiritual experience with Archbishop Laurence:

He banned all idolatrous worship, gave up his unlawful wife, accepted the Christian faith, and was baptized.²

This has caused me to think that these marriages were a deliberate statement made to cause shock. For Eadbald, I’m inclined to believe that he used his marriage as a symbol of religious defiance, refusing to accept the Christian faith of his father in the most shocking way he could think of.

Marriage to a stepmother wasn’t just restricted to royalty, though.

When Augustine arrived in Kent in A.D. 597, he was faced with a society far removed from its Christian heritage. No longer part of the Roman Empire, the people living there had adopted pagan beliefs based on those of Scandinavia and Germany. They worshipped Woden, Thunor, Frig and others at shrines, temples and ‘special places’ (such as trees, rivers and ancient barrows).³

Augustine needed advice, fast, about how to engage with such a culture, and wrote to Pope Gregory the Great upon his arrival on these shores.

Gregory’s response is preserved in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History in question-and-answer format. Question five is particularly relevant for our topic today:

Augustine’s fifth question. Within what degree may the faithful marry their kindred; and is it lawful to marry a stepmother? …

It is a grave sin to marry one’s stepmother, because it is written in the law [of the Old Testament, in the Bible]: ‘Thou shalt not uncover thy father’s nakedness.’ Now the son cannot uncover his father’s nakedness, but because it is written [in the Old Testament again], ‘The twain shall be one flesh’, he who presumes to uncover his stepmother’s nakedness who was one flesh with his father at the same time uncovers his father’s nakedness.⁴

If he was asking this question, it’s probably because it was an on-the-ground issue for him.

Now because there are many of the English race who, while they were unbelievers, are said to have contracted these unlawful marriages, when they accept the faith, they should be warned that they must abstain, because such marriages are a grave sin.⁵

We know that Æthelberht, at this time, was married to Bertha, a Frankish princess. It’s unlikely therefore that Augustine was referring to his marriage in this letter. Eadbald wasn’t yet born, so Augustine couldn’t have been discussing his marriage either.

There must have been others, therefore, beyond the royal dynasties, married to their stepmothers.

The use of women shows how indispensable they were to the men around them.

Much like women in exogamous marriages (which you can read more about HERE), I suggest here that we should see these women as vessels of power rather than victims of male politics, as their marriages provided something that the men needed in order to survive, or even thrive, in their roles as political leaders.

Eadbald could not have made this political statement, in this way, without his stepmother: she was essential to his signalling pagan belief.

Eadbald needed her. She held a power that he could not access on his own.

The issue of agency must, of course, be acknowledged here. As much as I’d love to imagine Eadbald’s wife as a sassy co-partner in his political statement-making (much like King Rædwald’s wife - read about her HERE - who I think was actually a sassy co-partner!), it is much more likely that women did not have a say in these marriages.

The point I’m making, however, is that though these women may have seemed weak and been used by men, we can flip the narrative to show that they actually provided something that the men couldn’t on their own. That they were necessary for male political advancement - otherwise, surely, the men would have achieved success without needing to conduct these marriages.

It’s just a thought - but one that I hope gives these women back a shred of dignity, of power, of control, in a tale that would otherwise have them relegated to the sidelines.

I do hope you enjoyed reading this post.

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This essay forms part of my contribution to the Sparkle on Substack Essay Club, hosted by

Claire Venus

. It’s essay 6/24.

1. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.5. tr. McClure & Collins (1969) p.79.

2. Ibid, II.6, p.81.

3. These pagan gods, and others, gave their names to several of our weekdays: Tiw for Tuesday; Woden for Wednesday; Thunor for Thursday; and Frig for Friday.

4. Bede, HE, I.27, p.44.

5. Ibid, pp.44-5.