Note 61 — Chapter V · Trial by Ordeal.
Reading edition
Freeman’s Norman Conq. Vol. II; Rapin, History d’ Angleterre, I., 123; Wm. of Malmesbury, Giles’ note, ann. 1043; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 258.
It seems that the charges against Queen Emma were preferred by Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury. She was accused both of consenting to the death of her son, Alfred, and of preparing poison for her son Edward, the Confessor, and also of intimacy with Alwyn, the Bishop of Winchester. The Dowager Queen, on the night preceding the trial, prayed for help, in the Abbey of St. Swithune, at Winchester and the next day she passed over the nine plow-shares unhurt. Archbishop Robert fled the kingdom and the King, who had brought about her trial, did penance for his credulity.
(The Percy Anecdotes, p. 161.)
The paternity of two children resulting from a morganitic marriage of Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, is reported to have been established by the ordeal of the red-hot iron, which the mother carried unhurt, and Curthose, then Duke of Normandy, thus convinced of the legitimacy of the boys, regularly adopted them. Roger de Wendover, Ann. 1085; Lea, “Superstition and Force,” (3 ed.) 259.