Link to VideoLink to PodcastWelcome to Part 4 of 8 of the Birth of the English Nation History Series from Paul and Calum of Aspen Waite.
This week Calum and Paul take an in-depth look at who Paul describes as possibly the 2nd most important woman in English History.
Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (c. 870 – 12 June 918) ruled
Mercia in the
English Midlands from 911 until her death. She was the eldest daughter of
Alfred the Great, king of the
Anglo-Saxon kingdom of
Wessex, and his wife
Ealhswith.
Æthelflæd was born around 870 at the height of the
Viking invasions of
England. By 878, most of England was under Danish Viking rule –
East Anglia and
Northumbria having been conquered, and
Mercia partitioned between the English and the Vikings – but in that year Alfred won a crucial victory at the
Battle of Edington. Soon afterwards the English-controlled western half of Mercia came under the rule of
Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who accepted Alfred's overlordship. Alfred adopted the title King of the English, claiming to rule all English people not living in areas under
Viking control. In the mid-880s, Alfred sealed the strategic alliance between the surviving English kingdoms by marrying Æthelflæd to Æthelred.