Episode 26

Available for over a year

The Anglo Saxons are somewhat out of fashion, yet the half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one. This major series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty key individuals. Pauline Stafford assesses Queen Emma's life which was nothing short of eventful. Her life was a roller coaster of Anglo-saxon politics. She was a young Norman woman in 1002 when she crossed the English Channel from Northern France to marry the English King, Aethelred. She's often remembered as the woman who made the fateful link between England and Normandy; her marriage being the first step towards the Conquest of 1066 and the end of Anglo-Saxon England. After the defeat of Aethelred by the Danish conqueror, Cnut, she then became Cnut's wife. Few other Anglo-Saxon royal wives can match her importance during Cnut's reign. Producer: Sarah Taylor Billing Ends.