EDMUND I., King of the Anglo-Saxons, was the son of King I Edward the Elder, by his third wife Edgiva. According to the common was born io 923, or about two years before his father's death, but we are inclined to believe that his birth was some , years earlier: he is said to have fought at the battle of Brunauburh in 931, when, If 923 be the correct data of his birth, he could have been only eleven yearn old ; and was twice married, and by one of his wives had two children, yet his death took place in 946.
Edmund succeeded his half-brother Athelatane on the 27th of October 041. Immediately after his accession the Danish people of Northumbria roao in revolt under the same Anlaf or Glace who had been defeated by Athelstaue in the great battle of Brunanburli, and forced to flee to Ireland. After the war bad lasted about a year, an accommodation was brought about by the Archbishops Ode and Wolstau, by which it was arranged that all the territory to the north of Watling-street should be given up to Anlaf. The Danish earl how ever died the next year, and Edmund, by a prompt and vigorous use of the opportunity, was successful in recovering all that he had lost. In 945 he also succeeded in reducing the hitherto independent state of Cumbria (including the modies, Cumberland and Westmoreland), which, after cruelly putting out the eyes of the two sons of the king, Doornail, he made over to Malcolm I. of Scotland, to be held by him
as the vassal of the English crown. The reign of Edmund, who was distinguished not only for his personal courage, but by his taste for elegance and splendour, on which account he received the surname of the Magnificent, was terminated on the 26th of May 916, by a blow which be received from an outlaw named Lief, who bad the audacity to present himself at the royal table as the king was celebrating the feast of St. Augustine at Pueklekirk, in Gloucestershire. Edmund, on his refusal to leave the room, rose himself to assist. in expelling him, when the intruder, with a dngger which he had concealed under his clothes, stabbed him to the heart. King Edmund I. left by his wife Elgiva two sons, Edwy and Edgar, who eventually both eat on the throne; but as they were mere children at the timo of their father's decease, they were set aside for the present, and his imme diate successor was his brother Edred.