Ask someone to name some notable early British queens, and you’ll get a lot of Boudiccas, Matildas, and Eleanors. One name you probably won’t hear is Æthelflæd, who ruled the kingdom of Mercia for over a decade in the tenth century. Maybe a lot of people still don’t know about Æthelflæd; maybe they just have a hard time typing her name. (Æthelflæd? Ælfled? Ethelfleda? Oh, you madcap Anglo-Saxons.) But from what we do know of her, it’s clear that she deserves a spot on any list of great English queens.
Æthelflæd was
the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, and she proved to be a chip off the
old block and then some. In her teens she was wed to Æthelred,
Lord of the Mercians, to seal the alliance between Mercia and Alfred’s kingdom
of Wessex. Her brother Edward inherited Alfred’s crown, but Æthelflæd claimed
the Mercian throne – first as Æthelred’s queen, then in her own right as his health declined.
When Æthelred
died in 911, Æthelflæd
succeeded him as Lady of the Mercians.
Æthelflæd was
no regent or temporary throne-filler – she was the crowned ruler, a queen
regnant in practice if not in title. It’s unclear exactly how many years she
ruled while her husband still lived (some estimate a full decade), but after
his death she reigned alone for 8 years. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes
her as having “rule and right lordship over the Mercians” – the fact
that she gets a mention at all says a lot about Æthelflæd’s
credibility and capability as leader in her own right.
Æthelflæd was a
capable administrator – founding abbeys, building towns, and renovating Roman
infrastructure – but her true claim to fame was as a fearsome military
tactician. Working in partnership with her brother Edward, Æthelflæd drove
back the encroaching Danes in battle after battle, victory after victory, often
leading her armies onto the field herself. (One legend has her single-handedly
killing a raiding party of Vikings on her way to her wedding!) When she took
York in 918, its leaders swore fealty to her as their liege overlord, as did
all the other cities she conquered on her own, spanning from Northumbria
to Wales.
When she died sometime around 918, Æthelflæd left
her crown to her daughter Ælfwynn. But Uncle Edward didn’t share the same partnership
with Ælfwynn that
he had with her mother – after a year or so he bumped Ælfwynn off
her throne and absorbed Mercia into Wessex once and for all (incidentally
creating England while he was at it, but hey). Some believe it had been Æthelflæd’s
intention to unite her kingdom with her father’s after she was gone, but the
fact that the merger did not occur during her lifetime speaks volumes about the
strength, independence, and all around bad-assery of this formidable woman. Æthelflæd might
have signed her name as Lady, but she was a great queen all the same.
(Images: painting of Æthelflæd, map
of Mercia, statue of Æthelflæd outside Tamworth Castle)
Heather Domin is the author of The Soldier of Raetia, a novel of Augustan Rome and Allegiance: a Dublin Novella.
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