The Icelandic Canadian - 01.02.2007, Blaðsíða 44

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #4
Book Reviews
Queen Emma and the Vikings
by Harriet O’Brien
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 250 pp
Reviewed by Helen Sigurdson
Queen Emma and the Vikings is the
dramatic story of Emma, one of England’s
most remarkable and least known queens.
She was the wife of two English kings and
the mother and stepmother of four more.
Queen Emma (988-1052) lived during
the end of the “Dark Ages” (so called
because we know so little about this peri-
od). It was a time of great unrest in
Europe. At the heart of the conflict were
the constant battles among the Anglo-
Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans for
the control of England.
Emma, a young Norman princess, the
half-Danish daughter of Duke Richard I of
Normandy, was sent to England to marry
Aethelred the Unready, the Anglo-Saxon
King of England, in an act of peaceweaving.
She was a pawn used to unite the two king-
doms against the powerful Vikings. She
bore her husband three children, one of
whom became the English king, Edward
the Confessor, and another was a daughter,
Godgifu, who we now know as “Lady
Godiva” of the nude horse ride legend.
After Aethelred’s death, Emma mar-
ried Cnut, the nineteen-year-old Dane who
had become the king of England, Denmark
and Norway. Cnut, a strong leader and a
devout Christian, is best remembered
today as King Canute who taught his
courtiers the limits of monarchical power
by his inability to stop the tides of the sea.
Cnut died in 1035 at the early age of 38
and Emma becomes very wealthy, amass-
ing treasures of gold and valuable Church
relics. She becomes an influential patron of
the Church.
She was quick to attempt to see that
one of her sons would accede to the
throne.This period became a difficult time
for the Queen as her sons and stepsons bat-
tled for the throne and she fought to pro-
tect her vast amounts of wealth. Emma
eventually maintains her wealth and two
of her sons and two of her stepsons become
kings of England.
Emma didn’t live to see the Norman
Conquest of England in 1066, led by her
great-nephew William the Conqueror, but
she played a large part in laying the foun-
dation for it.
Anyone with an interest in English and
Viking history during the 10th and 11th
centuries will be caught up by the vivid
descriptions of the customs of the day.