Note 344 — Chapter IV · THE EALDORMAN OR DUKE.

This would follow from their original nobility, which made them of equal birth with the king: but there is a case which seems to show that the rank itself of ealdorman sufficed to give this privilege. Eádríc ealdorman of Mercia, who is said to have been of low extraction, married a sister of Cnut; and Eádweard the Confessor had a daughter of earl Godwine to wife. The other case was common: “And Æðelflǽd æt Domerhamme, Ælfgáres dohtor ealdormannes, wæs ðá his cwen,” i. e. Eádmund’s. Chron. Sax. an. 946. “Eádgár cyning genam Ælfðrýðe him tó cwene; heó wæs Ordgáres dohtor ealdormannes.” Chron. Sax. 965. The Anglosaxon kings were in fact very rarely married to foreign princesses, though several of their beautiful daughters found husbands on the continent.