 |
 |
Carolyn, It's now recognized that Edw the Conf did not have a continent marriage. Pauline Stafford (I think in *Queens, Concubines & Dowagers* but possibly in another of her works) says, undoubtedly correctly, that Edward's widow Edith "staked her political survival on the creation of Edward's sanctity" and invented the legend of their chaste marriage in the *Vita Regis Edward* which was composed under Edith's direction during the year or so after Edward died. It was her way of excusing her failure to produce a child. Cf similar invention after the fact of the chaste marriage of Emp Henry II and Cunegunde, both canonized as a result. In both cases--Edw/Edith and Henry II/Cunegunde, documentary evidence exists to prove that the couple cohabited and, for Henry/Cunegunde, proof that they hoped for a child (explicitly stated in preamble to a charter they issued jointly shortly after marriage). Edith's charters early in her marriage clearly proclaim her Edward's "gebedda" or bedfellow. This of course does not rule out the possibility that vows of chastity were taken at some point DURING the marriages, once the possibility of issue had vanished, but any such possibility would be quite remote. In particular there is consistent evidence that after 1052 Edward and Edith were for all practical purposes estranged and had very little to do with each other because their relationship had failed, but not because of any spiritual inclinations. Sorry... but that's the way it WAS. Cheers, JCP %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%