Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/366

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gives no new particulars; Wallace's Antitrin. Biog. 1860, iii. 503 sq. is better (see also p. 495 sq.); Baxter's Certainty of the World of Spirits, 1691 (edition of 1834), pp. 33 sq., 83 sq.; Steele's Account of the State of the Roman Catholic Religion, 1715, pref. (see Hoadly's Works, 1773, i. 537); Whiston's Mem. of Clarke, 1741, p. 58; Whiston's Memoirs, 1753, pp. 121, 215, 318, &c.; Toulmin's Hist. View, 1814, p. 238; Secker's Letters to John Fox in Monthly Repository, 1821, p. 571; Christian Moderator, 1827, p. 69, &c. (corrected by Campbell's manuscript Sketches of the Hist. of Presbyterians in Ireland, 1803); Armstrong's Appendix to Martineau's Ordination Service, 1829, p. 70; Reid's Hist. Presb. Ch. in Ireland (Killen), 1867, ii. 476; Browne's Hist. Cong. Norf. and Suff. 1877, p. 528 sq.; The Reliquary, xvi. 75, &c. (gives extracts from various parish registers, by Justin Simpson); Picton's Extracts from Liverpool Municipal Archives, 1883–6; Hist. Mem. First Presb. Ch. Belfast, 1887, p. 108; extracts from marriage and baptismal registers of St. Michael's, Stamford, per the Rev. H. Macdougall; registers of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, per the Rev. G. Phear, D.D., Master; parish register of Lowestoft, per the rector; Irish Record Rolls, Chas. II, 2, 44, and marriage licenses, Dublin Prerogative Court, per Sir J. Bernard Burke; Emlyn's will and other family papers, kindly laid before the present writer by the late H. L. Strong, esq.; letter (7 Feb. 1843) of the Rev. Thomas Streatfeild, per G. Strong, M.D.; information from the Rev. C. W. Empson, Wellow, Hampshire, the Rev. J. G. Burton, Bewdley, Worcestershire, and Joseph Phillips, esq., Stamford.]

EMMA (d. 1052), called Ælfgifu, queen, the daughter of Richard the Fearless, duke of the Normans, by Gunnor, and legitimated by the duke's subsequent marriage with her mother (Will. of Jumièges, viii. c. 36), is said to have been accomplished and beautiful, and is called the ‘gem of the Normans’ (Henry of Huntingdon, p. 752). She was married to King Ethelred or Æthelred the Unready [q. v.] in 1002. This marriage prepared the way for the future conquest of England by the Normans, and was held to give the conqueror some right to the crown (ib. p. 751; Norman Conquest, i. 332 sq.). She arrived in England in Lent, and adopted the English name Ælfgifu, by which she is generally designated in the attestations of charters, though she is also called Emma, and sometimes by both names (Flor. Wig. i. 156; A.-S. Chron., Canterbury, sub an. 1013; Codex. Dipl. 719, 728 sq.) Winchester and other cities and jurisdictions, or rather the profits of them, were assigned her as her ‘morning gift.’ Among these was Exeter, where she appointed as her reeve a Frenchman, or Norman, named Hugh, who betrayed the city to the Danes. Her marriage with Æthelred was certainly not a happy one, and the king is said to have been unfaithful to her. She bore him two sons, Eadward, called the Confessor, and Ælfred [q. v.] When Sweyn conquered England in 1013 she took refuge with her brother, Duke Richard the Good. She was attended in her flight by Ælfsige, abbot of Peterborough, and appears to have left her sons in England, and to have been joined by them in Normandy (A.-S. Chron. sub an. 1013). After the death of Sweyn she probably returned to England with her husband, who died 23 April 1016. She is said to have defended London when it was besieged by Cnut in the May of that year [see under Canute]. In July 1017 she was married to Cnut, after having obtained his assent to her stipulation that the kingdom should descend to her son by him should she bear him one (Enc. Emmæ, ii. 16). She is said to have extended the dislike she felt towards her English husband to the sons she had by him (Gesta Regum, ii. 196); she was much attached to Cnut, and evidently wished that her English marriage should as far as possible be forgotten. Indeed her encomiast, when speaking of her marriage with Cnut, goes so far as to call her ‘virgo.’ Like her Danish husband she gave many gifts to monasteries, and especially enriched the Old Minster at Winchester. She and her little son Harthacnut, whom she bore to Cnut, were present at the translation of Archbishop Ælfheah in 1023, and she is said, on exceedingly doubtful authority, to have joined her brother Richard in mediating between her husband and Malcolm of Scotland (Rudolf Glaber, ii. 2). When Cnut died in 1035 she and Earl Godwine strove to procure the kingship for her son Harthacnut, who was then in Denmark. Harold, one of Cnut's sons by an earlier connection, opposed them, and caused all Emma's treasures at Winchester to be seized. The kingdom was divided; Harold became king north of the Thames, while Harthacnut was acknowledged in Wessex, and as he remained absent Emma and Earl Godwine ruled for him. Cnut's housecarls were faithful to his widow (A.-S. Chron., Peterborough, sub. ann. 1036). When one or both of her sons by Æthelred attempted to gain the kingdom in 1036, Emma appears to have favoured their enterprise. Ælfred was on his way to Winchester to see her when he was set upon by his enemies, and when she heard of his fate she sent Eadward, who is said to have been with her, back to Normandy (A.-S. Chron., Abingdon and Worcester; Flor. Wig. i. 196). The foolish legend that accuses her of complicity in the murder of Ælfred and of an attempt to poison Eadward is not worth discussion (Ann.