Eadburgha c. 802

Eadburgha Queen Consort of the West Saxons.

Eadburgha was pretty nasty in a less sophisticated way than some of the other Femme Fatales. We don't know when Eadburgha was born, but she was the daughter of Offa, King of the Mercians. She married Beorhtric, King of the West Saxons, who lived in the southwestern corner of England; he became so fond of Eadburgha that she gained great power in the kingdom. If she disliked someone, she got rid of him by accusing him of disloyalty to the king; if that failed, she would deal more directly, by poisoning him. She once prepared a drink for a young man who was a favorite of her husband's, and of whom she was jealous. Her husband took a drink from his friend's cup and soon the widow Eadburgha was asked to leave the kingdom. After having been ruled over by her, the West Saxons refused to give any King's wife the title of Queen.

Eadburgha went to the court of Emperor Charlemagne, looking for new worlds to conquer. She offered Charlemagne many gifts, having had foresight to bring with her a good deal of her late husband's treasury. Charlemagne responded by saying, "Choose, Eadburgha, which you will have, me or my son, who stand beside me in this hall." She answered that she preferred the son, because he was younger. Charlemagne told her that if she would have chosen him, he would have given her his son; as it was, she would have neither. But one suspects his question may not have had a "right" answer anyway. At any rate, Charlemagne got rid of Eadburgha by making her abbess of a nunnery.

The monks who record her story do not say whether the nuns liked Eadburgha; but evidently Eadburgha did not like being a nun. She was soon discovered with a lover. Charlemagne threw her out of her nunnery, and she is reported to have ended her life begging in the streets of Pavia, attended only by one young slave.