Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/367

 Winton. ii. 17, 22;, col. 934 sq.; Norman Conquest, i. 544). The author of the ‘Encomium Emmæ,’ who wrote for the queen's gratification, and who accordingly ignores her earlier marriage altogether, and speaks of the æthelings as if they were her sons by Cnut, says that Harold, in order to get them into his power, wrote a letter to them in their mother's name, complaining that she was deprived of power, and requesting that one of them would come over secretly and give her advice (''Enc. Emmæ'', iii. 3). That her favourite son Harthacnut was nominally king in Wessex, that Godwine had been in favour of his candidature, and that she was acting as regent for him, are not facts that make it unlikely that Emma should have been anxious for the success of the æthelings. Her power was rapidly passing away, for people became impatient of Harthacnut's prolonged absence; she saw the cause of her enemy Harold daily gaining ground; Earl Godwine was probably already inclined to go over to his side, and, whether the story of the forged letter is true or not, the letter as we have it probably states no more than the truth as regards the decay of her authority (for a different view see Norman Conquest, i. 553). In the course of the next year Wessex accepted Harold as king, and forsook Harthacnut, and before the winter Emma was banished ‘without any mercy,’ words which may perhaps imply that no time was allowed her to collect her goods (''A.-S. Chron., Worcester). She sought shelter at the court of Baldwin V, count of Flanders, the son of one of her nieces, a daughter of Richard the Good, and the husband of Adela, who had been betrothed to her nephew Richard III. He received her hospitably, and maintained her at Bruges (ib.; Enc. Emmæ'', iii. 7). She is said to have sent messengers to her son Eadward asking him to help her, but according to the story Eadward, though he visited her, declared that he could do nothing for her. After he had returned to Normandy she is said to have applied to Harthacnut, who certainly in 1039 prepared to assert his claim to the English throne, sailed with a few ships to Flanders, and remained with her during the winter (''Enc. Emmæ'', iii. 8 sq.). In June 1040, after the death of Harold, she returned to England with Harthacnut, and appears to have held a position of considerable influence during his short reign (''Hist. Rames''. p. 151). One of the earliest acts of Eadward after he became king was to despoil her of her wealth. In November 1043 he rode from Gloucester, where he seems to have been holding some council, in company with Earls Godwine, Leofric, and Siward, appeared suddenly at Winchester, and seized all her treasure, ‘because she had done less for him than he would both before he became king and also since’ (''A.-S. Chron., Worcester). Whatever the exact cause may have been for this act, it seems to prove that the relations between her and Eadward were not such as would make it probable that she had applied to him for help before she sent to Harthacnut. As the seizure of her goods was approved by the three great earls, it is not unlikely that, faithful to her old feelings in favour of the Danish line, she had countenanced the partisans of Sweyn of Denmark (Norman Conquest'', ii. 58–62). Enough was left her for her maintenance, and she was ordered to live quietly at Winchester, where the old palace was in the Conqueror's reign still called her house (ib. iv. 59 n.) After her disgrace she took no active part in public affairs, though, as in 1044 she witnessed two of her son's charters with reference to the church of Winchester (''Codex. Dipl''. 774, 775), some reconciliation probably took place between them. The legend that she was accused of unchastity, and cleared herself by the ordeal of hot iron, has no foundation of fact (it appears in ''Ann. Winton''. ii. 21, and, col. 941, and is fully examined in Norman Conquest, ii. 368 sq.). She died on 6 March 1052, and was buried by her husband Cnut in the Old Minster at Winchester (1051, ''A.-S. Chron''., Abingdon, 1052, Worcester).

[Anglo-Saxon Chron.; Florence of Worcester (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Encomium Emmæ, Pertz; William of Jumièges, Duchesne; Henry of Huntingdon, Mon. Hist. Brit.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Hist. Ramesiensis (Rolls Ser.); Ann. Winton., Ann. Monastici (Rolls Ser.); Brompton, Twysden; Freeman's Norman Conquest, vols. i. ii.]  EMMET, CHRISTOPHER TEMPLE (1761–1788), barrister, eldest son of Robert Emmet, M.D., and elder brother of Thomas Addis and Robert Emmet [qq.v.], was born at Cork in 1761. He entered the university of Dublin in 1775, and obtained a scholarship there in 1778. He was called to the bar in Ireland in 1781, and in that year he married Anne Western Temple, daughter of Robert Temple, an American loyalist who had settled in Ireland. Emmet attained eminence as an advocate; he possessed a highly poetical imagination, remarkably retentive memory, and a vast amount of acquired knowledge of law, divinity, and literature. Under the chancellorship of Lord Lifford, Emmet was advanced to the rank of king's counsel in 1787. His death occurred in February 1788, while he was on circuit in