Eadgifu of Kent (died August 25, 968) was the third wife of Edward the Elder

Edward the Elder

Edward the Elder was an English king. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father, Alfred the Great. His court was at Winchester, previously the capital of Wessex...

, King of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Eadgifu was the daughter of Sigehelm, Ealdorman of Kent (died 903). She became the mother of two sons, Edmund I of England

Edmund I of England

Edmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...

, later King Edmund I, and Eadred of England, later King Eadred, and a daughter, Saint Eadburh of Winchester

Edburga of Winchester

Saint Eadburh was the daughter of King Edward the Elder of England and his third wife, Eadgifu of Kent. There is little contemporary information for her life, but in a Winchester charter dated 939, she appears as the beneficiary of land in Hampshire granted by her brother King Athelstan.She was a...

. Eadgifu survived Edward by many years, dying in the reign of her grandson Edgar

Edgar of England

Edgar the Peaceful, or Edgar I , also called the Peaceable, was a king of England . Edgar was the younger son of Edmund I of England.-Accession:...

. As queen dowager, her position seem to have been higher than that of her daughter-in-law; In a Kentish charter datable between 942 and 944, her daughter-in-law Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury subscribes herself as the king's concubine (concubina regis), with a place assigned to her between the bishops and ealdormen. By comparison, Eadgifu subscribes higher up in the witness list as mater regis, after her sons Edmund and Eadred but before the archbishops and bishops.

See also

• House of Wessex family tree
  House of Wessex family tree
  The following chart is a family tree of the kings of the House of Wessex, a dynasty whose members were Kings of Wessex, and then, from Athelstan onwards, Kings of England....
  
  
• St. Odo, Archbishop and Confessor in The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein