Edgar in 964. She had two sons, Edmund, who died young, and Æthelred, whose disastrous reign earned him the epithet of "the Unready". In 966 she attested the Winchester New Minster Charter as the "legitimate wife" of the king, and her recently born elder son Edmund attested as his "legitimate son", whereas Edward was described as "begotten by the same king", but it is uncertain whether this was on the king's instruction, which would indicate that he wished to cut Edward out of the succession, or was ordered by Bishop Æthelwold, who was a friend and ally of Ælfthryth. She was consecrated as queen in 973 and thereafter attested charters as regina, the first West Saxon queen to do so on a regular basis. Her consecration was a major change in status as previous West Saxon's kings' consorts had only been described as the king's wife, whereas she also had the status of being the queen. Unlike Edgar's earlier consorts, Ælfthryth became politically influential, and Edgar appointed her father, Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon. She is described by Williams as "a force to be reckoned with", while Pauline Stafford regards her as "one of the most important tenth-century queens" and comments that "Ælfthryth, if not Eadgifu, heralded a new dawn in the history of English queens". Both women had a dominant position over other royal women, and both were most powerful as queen mothers, in Ælfthryth's case during the minority of her son Æthelred. She was later accused of being responsible for the murder of Edward the Martyr to make her own son king. King of England Administration After Edgar became king of the whole of England when Eadwig died on 1 October 959, his former tutor Æthelwold became one of the most powerful figures at court. He was probably in Edgar's personal service as an adviser from 960 until 963, when the king appointed him Bishop of Winchester. Dunstan, who became Archbishop of Canterbury at the start of Edgar's reign, was diligent in attending court, and in the historian Alan Thacker's view: "While Æthelwold's characteristic context is his monastic empire, Dunstan's is the royal court". In the early 970s the leading secular magnates were Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia (Æthelwold's brother and successor), Ælfhere of Mercia, Oslac of York and Byrhtnoth of Essex. The charters of the 960s and early 970s are similar and do not suggest political change in