Valhalla Gets Wrong About King Edmund
By Ava Barnes
Though the real-life Edmund was certainly young at the time of his ascendency by modern standards, genuine chronicles of history indicate that "Vikings: Valhalla" is forgetting a few things for narrative convenience.
Sweyn Forkbeard (Soren Pilmark) calls Edmund a "boy king" in Season 1, Episode 7 ("Choices"), but records actually indicate that Edmund was born around the same time as Sweyn's son, King Canute the Great (Bradley Freegard). Of course, records of such detail are spotty for so long ago, but the best estimates of researchers place Edmund's birth year somewhere around 990 (via BritRoyals). Similarly, King Canute's birth year is typically placed anywhere between 985 and 995, meaning it's entirely possible that Canute was actually the younger of the two (via English History)!
By the end of 1015, only a few months before he took the throne, Edmund was already married to Ealdgyth and the father to one child, Edmund Ætheling. A second child, Edward, is estimated to have been born at some point in 1016, although it is unknown if this occurred before or after Edmund's death in November of the same year. After Edmund died, Canute became King of all of England, including Wessex, and moved to banish Edmund's surviving family members, including his only two descendants (via History... The Interesting Bits).
