England’s Forgotten Warrior Queen: Æthelflæd

Originally featured in Historia Magazine.

The room was dark, lit only by a few sputtering candles. It was hot, stuffy and overcrowded. The nervous throng huddled around a bed, peering into the darkness, desperate to understand the state of their king. Æthelred was dying. His face was covered in sweat, his breathing laboured and taut. His eyes hardly stayed open anymore. Ill-health, compounded by wounds suffered in his latest campaign against the Danes, tore at his life, dragging him down towards the darkness.

Seated beside him was a woman, quietly reciting prayers she had been taught from her childhood. She didn’t seem scared. She was calm, poised, confident. She looked up as her husband became restless, struggling for breath, wheezing, straining. Death was close. He slumped back into his cushion, his eyes frenzied, the colour almost completely drained from his face. He turned his head slightly to gaze at the woman beside him. He gargled something incoherent. His eyes stopped darting around. His tense breaths slowed to a silent halt. Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, was dead.

The woman rose, silently, momentarily an imposing figure in the claustrophobic room. All eyes turned to her; the weight of Mercia was now on her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled. She was Lady of the Mercians, the first in history. Her name was Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred, the new ruler of the second most powerful kingdom in England.

Born in 870 AD, she had been destined for greatness since the beginning. Little is known about her childhood, but from what can be pieced together, it seems she had been highly educated, especially for a woman of her time. Raised in the court of her father, Alfred the Great, she would have been imbued with a great sense of piety, scholarship and a powerful devotion to her country. Throughout her teens, her father was waging a brutal and bloody war against the Danish invaders. Successfully fending off the Danish onslaught for years, the Vikings eventually proved too strong, defeating Alfred and driving him and his family into hiding. Caught completely by surprise by a Viking invasion of Chippenham in 878 AD, everyone who didn’t manage to escape the city was killed or enslaved.

In exile, Alfred and his men conducted a guerrilla war, raiding Viking settlements and wreaking havoc. Eventually, he was able to assemble a large enough force to face the Danes head on, defeating Chippenham’s brutaliser, Guthrum at the Battle of Eddington in May, 878 AD. Spurred on by the impressive victory, Alfred re-took London, and quickly organised for his first-born daughter, Æthelflæd, to marry the Lord of Mercia, Æthelred.

This marriage was a statement of intent. It was a display of unity between Wessex and Mercia, and a clear show of power to the Viking hordes. Æthelred was ten years older than the sixteen year old Æthelflæd, but soon, a few years later, they had a daughter, Aelfwynn. According to William of Malmesbury, writing in the 1100s, her birth almost cost Æthelflæd her life, and she took measures to ensure Aelfwynn would be their only child.

As a marriage of political surety, Æthelflæd and her life could have faded from the records without much notice. But Æthelflæd, the powerful, confident, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued Lady of Mercia refused to be overshadowed by her husband. Records show that she was signing diplomatic documents, overseeing provincial courts and taking on much of the responsibility of the ailing King Æthelred.

It was in 907 AD, that this would come to a head. According to the Irish Annals, a Viking named Ingimund emerged from Ireland with his army, coming to the court of Æthelred demanding lands and power. Being ill, Æthelred was not present at the negotiations, and Ingimund dealt solely with ‘Æthelflæd, Queen of the Saxons’ (170).  Although she had granted the Vikings land around the city of Chester, Ingimund immediately noticed that there was far more attractive land around what he had been given. Complaining to the surrounding Danes and Norwegians, Ingimund began to forge a plan to take Chester by force.

Upon hearing this, Æthelflæd leapt into action, quickly putting into place a daring plan to save Chester. Writing to the Irish, who had allied themselves with the Vikings, Æthelflæd drew on their commonality as victims of Viking invasion, and, in this remarkable negotiation, the Irish switched sides, allying themselves with the Mercians.

The battle for Chester was fierce and violent, but Æthelflæd’s plan worked perfectly. The people of Chester rallied, defending the city by pouring boiling beer upon the invaders. When the Vikings fended this off with their shields, the defenders resorted to throwing beehives down to immobilise the onslaught. The Viking armies were massacred and the attack was called off; the city was saved and Æthelflæd proved she was a formidable ruler.

When Æthelred died, in 911 AD, with no male heir, the lordship of Mercia fell to his wife. Mercia had a long tradition of respecting the position and power of the queen, but none had ever ruled alone. What makes Æthelflæd’s succession that much more remarkable is that there is no record of any challengers to her rule. William of Malmesbury even goes so far as to write that she was ‘a powerful accession to his (her brother Edward's) party, the delight of his subjects, the dread of his enemies; a woman of an enlarged soul’. 

Throughout her reign, she proved herself to be a competent, powerful and effective leader. Working alongside Alfred’s heir, her brother Edward, she refortified Mercia, building a vast network of burhs, or fortresses, to protect from any future Viking invasion. While doing this, she also waged a successful offensive campaign in which she reclaimed Derby (a massive Danish stronghold), Leicester and York from the Vikings. She also invaded Wales, avenging the murder of one of her abbots, becoming ruler over three Welsh Kingdoms.

Joined with her brother Edward, King of Wessex, they shared Alfred’s aspiration for a united England. By refortifying the cities, towns and roads, and through their incredible success against the Viking invaders, they laid the groundworks for Æthelstan, Edward’s successor, to build the country into a glimpse of the England we might even recognise today.

Unfortunately, she was not to see this accomplishment, as she died in 918 AD, of a stroke, at the age of 48. Although she is not often remembered or celebrated, it is difficult to overstate the importance of Æthelflæd and her rule. She was pivotal as a founding mother of England, and ruled with cunning, power and success.

Further Reading:

Joanna Arman, The Warrior Queen: The Life and Legend of Æthelflæd, Daughter of Alfred the Great (Amberley, 2017)

Richard Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (Longman, 1998)

Asser, Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Penguin, 1983)

Tom Holland, Æthelflæd: England’s Forgotten Founder (Ladybird, 2019)

Tim Clarkson, Æthelflæd: The Lady of the Mercians (John Donald, 2018)

Michael Wood, In Search of the Dark Ages (Ariel, 1981)

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