Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #997505 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Booklist
Queen Emma, the only woman to have been married to two kings of England and to have borne two more, stood at the crossroads of history, caught between the triad of cultures that defined England in the eleventh century. Danish by descent and sister of the duke of Normandy, she initially married Saxon king Ethelred, momentarily uniting the Viking, Norman, and Saxon factions that vied for power in early medieval England. After the death of Ethelred the Unready in 1016, Emma married Canute, the newly crowned king of England. Hardened by two unhappy marriages, an increasingly political Emma made her influence felt in domestic, religious, and political spheres. As a wife, mother, and queen, Emma subtly exerted her authority according to the societal norms of her day. This solidly researched biography provides a window on the often-neglected Viking era in England. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

The first full biography of Queen Emma
Emma The Twice-Crowned Queen: England In The Viking Age is the first full biography of Queen Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor and Hardecanute. The half-Danish sister of the Duke of Normandy and a descendant of Vikings, she would be Queen to two kings, Ethelred the Unready (who needed to ally with the Normans against Viking raiders) and later, the Danish Canute. She was a noteworthy political figure of her day, and her writings indicate she was a Danish nationalist who wished to see England join with Viking Denmark. Yet her great-nephew William the Conqueror would be the one to drastically alter the future of England. Drawing from primary sources, the work of scholars, contemporary writings and more, Emma The Twice-Crowned Queen is at once both scholarly and readily accessible. A must-have for British history and biography reference shelves.

Not quite there....
I never really got a good idea of what Emma was like or what she thought.
That may be because of the lack of documentation to be had for her. Her character was flat and never came alive as I expected. Seems like the story was more about the men in her lives than her life.