ANNIVERSARIES
18 MARCH 978
King Edward is murdered at Corfe
The teenage monarch is viciously stabbed in the back
On 18 March 978, a brutal murder was committed at Corfe in Dorset – and the victim was Edward, king of the English. “No worse deed for the English race was done than this,” the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle lamented.
The main suspect for the assassination was Edward’s stepmother, Ælfthryth, widow of his father, King Edgar. Certainly she had a motive: with Edward dead, his younger half-brother – her son, Æthelred – would inherit the English throne. It has been supposed that she invited the young king to Corfe to participate in a hunt, with murder in mind.
That March evening, as the hunters gathered, mounted and ready
