_Wife of Edward the Outlaw._--Can any of your correspondents inform me
who was the wife of Edward the Outlaw, and consequently mother of
Margaret of Scotland, and ancestress of the kings of England?
The account adopted by most historians is that Canute, in 1017, sent the
two sons of Edmund Ironside to the king of Denmark, whence they were
transferred to Solomon, king of Hungary, who gave his sister to the
eldest; and, on his death without issue, married the second Edward to
Agatha, daughter of the Emperor Henry II. (or, in some accounts, Henry
III., or even, in Grafton's _Chronicles_, called Henry IV.), and sister
to his own queen.
That Edward the Outlaw returned to England in 1057, having had five
children, of whom three survived: Edgar; Margaret, who in 1067 married
King Malcolm of Scotland, and another daughter.
Now this account is manifestly incorrect. The Emperor Henry II. died
childless: when on his death-bed he restored his wife to her parents,
declaring that both he and she had kept their vows of chastity.
Solomon did not ascend the throne of Hungary until 1063, in which year
he had also married Sophia, daughter of the Emperor Henry III.; but this
monarch (who was born in October, 1017, married his first wife in 1036,
who died, leaving one child, in 1038 and his second wife in November
1043) could not be the grandfather of the five children of Edward the
Outlaw, born prior to 1057.
The _Saxon Chronicle_ says, that Edward married Agatha the emperor's
cousin.