EDGAR

born 943/944 died July 8, 975 Edgar, detail from the New Minster Charter, 966; in the British Library (Vesp. MS. A viii) king of the Mercians and Northumbrians from 957 who became king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, in 959 and is reckoned as king of all England from that year. He was efficient and tolerant of local customs, and his reign was peaceful. He was most important as a patron of the English monastic revival. The younger son of Edmund I, king of the English, Edgar was made king of the Mercians and Northumbrians in place of Eadwig, his brother, who was deposed. On Eadwig's death (Oct. 1, 959), Edgar succeeded to the West Saxon throne. His ecclesiastical policy was also that of the archbishop of Canterbury, St. Dunstan, who insisted on strict observance of the Benedictine Rule. The king supported Archbishop Oswald of York and Bishop Aethelwold of Winchester in founding abbeys. Edgar's laws were the first in England to prescribe penalties for nonpayment of tithes and Peter's pence, the annual contribution made by Roman Catholics for support of the Holy See. son of the earl of Gloucester in Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear. After being duped by his half brother Edmund, Edgar flees home, relinquishing his birthright to the earldom. Disguised as a crazed beggar, Edgar aids the bewildered and homeless Lear, illustrating the thin line between sanity and madness, chaos and sense. Edgar remains steadfast throughout the turbulent tragedy. born c. 1075 died Jan. 8, 1107, Edinburgh, Scot. king of Scots from 1097, eldest surviving son of Malcolm III Canmore and Queen Margaret (granddaughter of King Edmund II of England) and thus the first king of the Scots to unite Celtic and Anglo-Saxon blood. As vassal to King William II Rufus of England, he was placed on the Scottish throne to succeed the Celtic, anti-English Donald Bane, his uncle, who was deposed. In 1098 Edgar ceded the Hebrides to Magnus III, king of Norway, who had been raiding the islands. Edgar was a generous benefactor of the church; a contemporary historian (St. Aelred of Rievaulx) called him the equal of Edward the Confessor in personal merit. He died unmarried and was succeeded by his brother Alexander I.