The warp and weft of history

Thank you for the article on the Bayeux Tapestry (March). Edgar Ætheling has indeed been airbrushed out of history and not just out of the tapestry. I find it especially fascinating that William the Conqueror allowed him to live, despite Edgar’s rebellions in the early years of his reign.

Edgar should have been proclaimed king on the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066.

His age was no barrier: his great grandfather, Æthelred the Unready, was a child when he came to the throne, and Edgar was a teenager, with able commanders such as Harold to lead armies into battle against invaders until Edgar was older. Edward the Confessor surely had Edgar as his choice and would never have offered the crown to

William of Normandy – nor suggested Harold took it! Fen Flack, Worcestershire