The Lady Emma, Pearl of Normandy.
When Ethelred, the Saxon King of England, fled from his realm and left it to the victorious Danes, he sought refuge at the court of Richard, the fourth duke of Normandy. There he met and married the Lady Emma, sister of Duke Richard. This lady was famed for her beauty and known throughout the realm as the Pearl of Normandy.
Edward of England, known in England as Edward the Confessor, was the son of Ethelred and Lady Emma; and it was upon this relationship that William, at the time of Edward’s death, laid claim to the crown. Whatever may be said of this claim, it was at least more tangible than that of Harold, son of Earl Godwin.
The days have gone by when the rights of blood relationship were claims for which contending realms might squander fortunes and armies: but he who estimates the ages past by the standards of today, would better roll up and read no more the enigmatic scrolls of history. Rivers of blood have freely flowed in order that some royal rascal, slightly richer in royal rascality than a rival claimant, might win a throne. Yet we who cannot understand the code of the Samurai, as worked out logically today; we to whom the principles of Bushido, when carried to the last full measure of devotion, are fascinatingly unreal; we to whom jun-shi, hari-kiri, seppuku are words ominous, indeed, but unintelligible even when translated into deed in the white light of today[A]—how shall we be able to understand or estimate aright the mysteries of the mighty past!
So upon this faint claim of relationship, William, the seventh duke of Normandy, nephew of Lady Emma, Queen of England, founded his right to the English throne: and for better or worse, right or wrong, faint claim or no claim—he won.