In my last article I wrote for the website I was at the Port of Dover waiting to board my ferry that would take me to the Belgian town of Ypres. Whilst in Belgium I filmed some content that will be going out over the next few weeks across multiple channels. However, for the time being I have some other projects to work on.
As March is Women's History Month, it gives me the opportunity to revisit one of my favourite figures from English History, someone who I first came across during my research into my dissertation on Anglo-Saxon fortified settlements. A Lady who was instrumental in the foundation of the country that we know as England, and some whose story has been largely pushed to the footnotes of history. Those of you who are fans of the Last Kingdom will know of her as Uthred’s love interest but her real story is so much more fascinating. I am talking about Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians.
Æthelflæd was born circa 870, daughter Wessex King, Alfred she was brought up in the period of serious danger to the last remaining Saxon Kingdom. It is widely believed that she was part of Alfred’s household that was forced to take refuge on the Isle of Æthelney in the Sommerset levels, where according to legend that the King burnt the cakes, she would have been somewhere between 7-8 years old at the time. Being the daughter of a King, her place in dynastic politics would have been clear to her at an early age. Sometime in the mid 880s Alfred married his daughter to the Ealderman of the neighbouring kingdom of Merica, Æthelred. This marriage was a number of powerplays that Alfred would make during this period that would see Alfred acknowledged as King of All English-Speaking peoples not under the control of Danes. This period would also see the refounding of a Roman town on the banks of the River Thames, Lundenburh. The town traditionally, within Mercian territory, was by 885 controlled by the Kingdom of Wessex and could possibly been ceded to Wessex as part of the bride price for the marriage.
Æthelflæd and Æthelred would rule Mercia as co-rulers in Mercia not only fighting off the Dane threat on the borders but also restoring the prestige of the kingdom. With the traditional seat of Mercian power of Tamworth dangerously close to the border a new seat of both political and religious power was established at Gloucester. Then in 910 a Dane army arrived in Mercia, attempting to travel from Wales to the Dane heartland in eastern England they found their route blocked by an allied Mercian and Wessex force. By this point Æthelred was already suffering from the illness that would take his life and whether he was present at Tettenhall is still debated. What we do know though is that Æthelflæd was certainly there and commanding the Mercian forces as the allied army put the Danes to the sword. Æthelred would pass away the following year, some believe due to wounds he suffered at Tettenhall, but he was clearly sick before then.
Following Æthelred death power in Mercia transferred solely to Æthelflæd united with her brother, Edward now King of Wessex, the siblings worked strategically to oust the Danes from England. She ordered the construction of a number of fortified settlements, known as Burh's, prominently in the Severn Valley and the North West frontier along the river Mersey extending the strategy that her father had put in place for the defence of Wessex into Mercia. The strategy of fortress building was changing now though away from defence in bases from which to lunch offensives into Dane held territory, ultimately leading the Mercian advance in the East Midlands and was instrumental in capturing the 5 Danish Boroughs.
As well as consolidating and extending Mercian power Æthelflæd was also charged with the care of her nephew Æthelstan. He would go on to achieve her fathers dream of ruling over a united English kingdom. Unfortunately, Æthelflæd would not live to see the dream achieved. Æthelflæd died in, the traditional seat of Mercian power, Tamworth on the 12th June 918. After her death her body was taken by procession the town that she moved power to Gloucester. She was buried alongside Æthelred, in St Oswald’s Priory that sat between the fortified town and the Royal Estate of Kingsholm. For you Rugby Fans out there, yest that Kingsholm.
Whether Æthelflæd was ever recognised as Queen in Mercia is still debated by historians, her leadership of the territory played an extraordinary part in the re-conquest of England and ultimately laying a foundation for the establishment of an English nation and although her accomplishments would be largely written out of the Wessex versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles her story has been past down to us through the Mercian Rolls and her story is finally being told and she rightfully takes her place amongst the great Anglo-Saxon rulers and in my opinion England’s Greatest Dynasty.
