Alfred Atheling or Aetheling was the son of Aethelred II and his second wife Emma of Normandy

Emma of Normandy

Emma , was a daughter of Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy, by his second wife Gunnora. She was Queen consort of England twice, by successive marriages: first as second wife to Æthelred the Unready of England ; and then second wife to Cnut the Great of Denmark...

. He was a brother of Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....

. King Canute

Canute the Great

Cnut the Great , also known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden. Though after the death of his heirs within a decade of his own and the Norman conquest of England in 1066, his legacy was largely lost to history, historian Norman F...

 became their stepfather when he married Aethelred's widow. He and his brother were caught in the power struggles at the start and end of Canute's reign.

After Aethelred's death in 1016, Edward and Alfred went into exile in Normandy in the court of Duke Robert of Normandy, and there is some evidence of a plot by Duke Robert to invade England on their behalf. In 1036 or 1037, following Canute's death, he came to England to visit his mother. He was arrested. His followers were sent away and some of them killed. He was then blinded, and taken to Ely

Ely, Cambridgeshire

Ely is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, 14 miles north-northeast of Cambridge and about by road from London. It is built on a Lower Greensand island, which at a maximum elevation of is the highest land in the Fens...

, where he soon died.

Harthacnut prosecuted Earl Godwin

Godwin, Earl of Wessex

Godwin of Wessex , was one of the most powerful lords in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors. Cnut made him the first Earl of Wessex...

 and Lyfing

Lyfing of Winchester

Lyfing of Winchester , also known as Livingus or Lifing, was an Anglo-Saxon prelate who served as Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of Crediton and Bishop of Cornwall.-Life:...

, Bishop of Worcester and Crediton, for the crime against his half-brother; the Bishop lost his see for a while and Godwin gave the king a warship carrying eighty fighting men as appeasement and swore that he had not wanted the prince blinded and that whatever he had done was in obedience to the then king, Harold I

Harold Harefoot

Harold Harefoot was King of England from 1037 to 1040. His cognomen "Harefoot" referred to his speed, and the skill of his huntsmanship. He was the son of Cnut the Great, king of England, Denmark, and Norway by Ælfgifu of Northampton...

. Tradition holds that like Harthacnut, Edward the Confessor considered Godwin guilty.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is cautious about what happened. The ODNB article ends ". . . efforts to sanctify him . . . failed".

External links

• Alfred Atheling at Find-A-Grave