
Originally Posted by
snapper
So having some time at home among my library and time to look things up online I have been delving into this whole English in Kyiv business. As most know Edward the Exile - the son of Edmund Ironside (who fought Cnut but died before victory was achieved leaving two young sons meaning Cnut became King) - along with his elder Brother (Edmund) was sent to Sweden where Cnut's half brother was King (Olof Skötkonung). Probably the idea was for Olaf to kill them but something went wrong or Olaf had his own ideas and having relatives (his daughter Ingigerd being Queen) in Kyiv he sent the boys there - or they got there somehow. Edward later went to Hungary in 1046 with Ingigerd's daughter (Anastasia of Kiev) who married a then exiled claimant to Hungarian throne who later became Andrew l of Hungary. Edwards Wife Agatha's descent is disputed and cannot be proved but may have been a sister of Anastasia's - another daughter of Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev and his Wife Ingigerd of Sweden (another daughter was that Anna of Kyiv who married Henry l of France). So whoever Agatha was three children were born Edgar 'the Aethling', Margaret (later Saint Margaret of Scotland) and Cristina. The Elder son Edmund Aetheling also married a Hungarian but died soon after, thus when Edward the Confessor was seeking to end the succession problem in the 1050s only Edward and his children returned, Edward the Exile being named heir but dying soon after his return. After Hastings Edwards son Edgar was still young and though briefly proclaimed King when others submitted to William his cause was lost. This is a pretty well known history - at least for me.
What I did not realise was the later story. So I looked up last night this book by Jonathan Shepard called "The English and Byzantium: A Study of their Role in the Byzantine Army in the Later Eleventh Century... a kind of paper rather than a book first published in 1973. It seems that many Saxon English did escape east - primarily to Denmark being the most likely the invade England - which they did in 1069 and 1075 led by sons of the Danish King (Swein). In particular some of Harold Godwins(ons) children escaped - two sons and a daughter apparently. The sons are recorded as raiding England and Ireland 1068. The daughter, Gytha of Wessex, in 1074 - when King Swein is dying - was betrothed to Vladimir II Monomakh... Prince of Kyiv. Their son - Volodmir's eldest son - inherited and became Mstislav I Vladimirovich the Great, or in Norse Harold II of England. This checks out on every source I can access apart from going to the Unis in Kyiv and asking for the records there - which I will do but not now. Strange things... but it gets stranger. Mstislav I married two times, through his second Wife came Euphrosyne of Kiev who married King Géza II of Hungary and via her Mstislav I, the grandson of Harold (of Hastings) became an ancestor of Edward lll.
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