Æthelflæd: The Last Mercian Queen

Child of the Viking Wars
Æthelflæd was born around 870 AD, the first child of the famous Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great, then a young prince (ætheling) at the peak of the Viking invasions of England. Having ravaged East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia the Vikings now turned their attention to Wessex, the last remaining independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

Alfred is one of only two English monarchs to be given the epithet “the Great” and the first King to style himself  the “King of the Anglo-Saxons”. The life of Alfred and his family was dominated by the Viking wars of the late 9th and early 10th centuries.

Æthelflæd at Tamworth Castle

At the time of Æthelflæd's birth the forces of Wessex were commanded by Alfred's older brother, King Æthelred and Alfred himself. Alfred is recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in 868 in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Ivar the Boneless and his Great Heathen Army invading the adjoining Kingdom of Mercia.

Wessex seemingly had a special relationship with Mercia. Alfred's wife Ealhswith was said to be at least of noble birth, if not a Mercian princess; her mother Eadburh was a descendant of Coenwulf of King Mercia who ruled the kingdom after Offa. Ealhswith's father was Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, one of the old tribes of Mercia, thought to have been based at Gainsborough in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire. The marriage of Alfred and Ealhswith at Gainsborough in 868 was likely connected in some way with an alliance between Wessex and Mercia. This alliance was to continue with Æthelflæd's marriage to Æthelred, Lord of Mercia.

Just two years later the Vikings arrived in Wessex at the end of 870 with nine engagements fought in the following year. In 871 AD, Alfred defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Ashdown in Berkshire. The following year, Alfred took the throne after the death of his brother Æthelred and reigned until his own death in 899. Throughout his life Alfred was troubled by health problems; it is thought that he likely suffered from Crohn's disease.

Alfred was a great believer in education and argued for teaching in 'English' rather than Latin. He commissioned the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, a record of the history of the Anglo-Saxons. Many copies were made of the oldest oldest manuscript, the Winchester (or 'A' text) Chronicle, commenced in the 9th century, and distributed to monasteries were it was maintained and updated. Nine manuscript versions survive.

The Danelaw

However, despite the success of Alfred's Anglo-Saxon forces at Ashdown, the Vikings continued to devastate Wessex and Alfred was forced to withdraw to the Somerset marshes. It is likely his family, including the young Princess Æthelflæd, went with him. From Somerset Alfred continued to launch surprise attacks against the Vikings.

In 878 Alfred gathered his forces and defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Edington. Alfred made peace with Guthrum, the Viking king, who received baptism. In 886 AD, in an effort to bring peace to the  land, Alfred negotiated a treaty with the Vikings in which England was divided “between the Rivers Thames and Tees”, with the north and the east declared to be territory of the Danish Vikings, a territory which would later be termed as the “Danelaw”.

Alfred had recovered Wessex by constructing burhs at strategic points in the kingdom. The burh, or burg, (plural = 'byrig') was a fortified settlement, today recognised as an important stage in the evolution of the medieval English borough; even today the regular street layouts and boundaries of some ancient burhs can be found preserved in modern urban boroughs.

Many burhs were constructed on former Iron Age hillforts or Roman fortifications, often linked by Roman roads. New settlements were constructed in naturally defended positions, such as in the crook of a river, defended on three sides by water. The largest examples were at Warwick, Wallingford and Alfred's Winchester, with perhaps the best-preserved examples found at Wallingford and Wareham where substantial banks and ditches are still visible. However many defy positive identification.

If the primary function of the burh was defence its secondary role was as a local administrative and commercial centre, with the burhs at Bridgnorth, Buckingham, Chester, Hertford, Tamworth, Maldon, Stafford and Warwick achieving municipal status in the Middle Ages.

After his death in 899, Alfred's policy of burh construction to re-establish Wessex as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom was adopted by his children Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd in the recovery of the territory surrendered to the Vikings in the Danelaw; Æthelflæd is credited with the construction of ten Mercian burhs.

Biography of a Warrior Queen
We know much of the “Life of King Alfred” from a biography wrote in 893 by a Welsh monk by the name of Asser. Yet there is no biography of his daughter, Æthelflæd, the remarkable woman who led the reconquest of Mercia, clearly influenced and inspired by her father's fightback against the Vikings against all the odds.

A charter of 887 records Æthelflæd as the wife of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, the marriage probably took place a few years earlier. Æthelflæd and Æthelred had one child, a daughter called Ælfwynn. It is claimed that after the pains of childbirth Æthelflæd was then celibate. Æthelflæd fostered Æthelstan, the son of her brother, Edward the Elder, and heir to the throne, destined to become the first king of All England.

After the death of the last Mercian king Ceolwulf II in 879, Æthelred ruled the western half of the kingdom; eastern Mercia was by now under control of the Vikings. In 888, 889 and 896 Æthelflæd witnessed charters of Æthelred. In 901 Æthelflæd and Æthelred are recorded as presenting land and a golden chalice to the shrine of Saint Mildburg at Much Wenlock church in Shropshire. Æthelred's descent is unknown, but it is suggested his roots lie in the Gloucester area.

Detail on Æthelflæd is extremely brief, in historical terms it can be argued that she played a minor role in the unification of England between the reigns of Alfred and Aethelstan. The lack of information of her achievements portrays West Saxon bias of much of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (A text) which at this time was concentrating on Edward the Elder and Wessex.

There are glimpses of Æthelflæd in Asser’s Life of Alfred the Great, Aethelweard’s Chronicle, the Annales Cambriae, and the Irish chronicles, yet, the story of Æthelflæd's battles against the Vikings and burh constructions is to be found in the so-called Mercian Register.

As stated above, the oldest manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is known as  the Winchester, or A text. This version of the Chronicle does not use the Mercian Register and concentrates on the achievements of the kings of Wessex, as stated. The Mercian Register was added to manuscripts B and C, forming a discreet, but significant, part of the Chronicle filling a gap in these versions of the Chronicle for the years 915 to 934. The Register also appears in manuscripts D and E, placing further emphasise on its absence from the A text of Wessex.

The Mercian Register covers the years 902 to 924, focusing on events between 909-919, the major achievements of Æthelflæd's reign leading up to the reconquest of Mercia at the time of her death. Æthelflæd appears in eight out of twenty entries which begin with the death of her mother Ealhswith in 902, continues with the death of her father Alfred, the accession of her brother Edward the Elder, the death of her husband Æthelred Lord of the Mercians, and the removal of her daughter Ælfwynn. The last entry is in 924 when Æthelstan, her foster son, is chosen by the Mercians as king. Then, in the blink of an eye, the Register disappears from the Chronicle as swiftly as it appeared.

St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester

Æthelflæd is depicted in a monument in front of Tamworth castle, erected in 1918 in celebration of a thousand years since her death at the Royal palace of the Mercians. Æthelflæd is shown with one arm around a young boy, presumed to be Æthelstan; in the other hand she grips the hilt of a sword, emphasising the two elements of her reign; family and war.

Æthelflæd was half-Mercian through her mother Ealhswith and was beloved by the Mercians who claimed her as one of their own; on the death of her husband Æthelred Lord of the Mercians, the year following the famous Anglo-Saxon victory over the Vikings at Tettenhall in 910, she was proclaimed Myrcna hlædige, “Lady of the Mercians” and ruled the realm alone in the face of Viking adversity until her death in 918.

Following her death at Tamworth on 12 June Æthelflæd was taken to Gloucester to be interred with her late husband Æthelred in St Oswald's Priory.

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