In 918 Leicester surrendered without a fight. Luckily for the Saxons, a freak storm destroyed many of the ships. When Alfred met Aethelhelm to discuss the bride price for his daughter, it was … [40] The church appears to have been an exact copy of the Old Minster, Winchester. Copyright © Historic UK Ltd. Company Registered in England No. The historian Ann Williams regards this view as partial and distorted, that he was accepted as a true king by the Mercians and by King Alfred. [60], No coins were issued with the name of Æthelred or Æthelflæd on them, but in the 910s silver pennies were minted in west Mercian towns with unusual ornamental designs on the reverse and this may have reflected Æthelflæd's desire to distinguish specie issued under her control from that of her brother. Thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings. A translation of the Mercian Register is an appendix in Tim Clarkson's biography of Æthelflæd. Edward (later Edward the Elder) had succeeded Alfred the Great as King of Wessex in 899, and legend has it that both brother and sister shared their father’s ideal of a ‘united England’. When this failed they applied to Æthelflæd, her husband being ill, for permission to settle near Chester. It is in this context that the establishment of a new minster at Gloucester by Æthelred and Æthelflæd is to be seen. Marios Costambeys dates Æthelflæd's birth to the early 870s. [12] Tim Clarkson, who describes Æthelflæd as "renowned as a competent war-leader", regards the victory at Derby as "her greatest triumph". Æthelflæd agreed and for some time they were peaceful. London had traditionally been a Mercian city, a fortress at the south eastern tip of their territory, so as a token of his victory he handed the city back to Æthelred. Wainwright argues that he probably sent his oldest son Æthelstan to be brought up in Mercia, to make him more acceptable to the Mercians as king; Æthelflæd does not appear to have tried to find a husband for her daughter, who must have been nearly thirty by 918. Æthelstan took control of it in 927 but after his death in 939 the kingdom was contested until the expulsion of the last Norse king in 954. [71][72] She was also praised by Anglo-Norman historians such as John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury, who described her as "a powerful accession to [Edward's] party, the delight of his subjects, the dread of his enemies, a woman of enlarged soul". This story introduces Uhtred of Bebbanburg, born a Saxon but kidnapped by Danes at age 10. But her reputation has suffered from bad publicity, or rather from a conspiracy of silence among her West Saxon contemporaries. Æthelflæd, described only as "my eldest daughter", received an estate and 100 mancuses, while Æthelred, the only ealdorman to be mentioned by name, received a sword worth 100 mancuses. Both sides claimed victory but Ragnall was able to establish himself as ruler of Northumbria. [38], On her husband's death in 911, Æthelflæd became Myrcna hlædige, "Lady of the Mercians". [56] According to the Three Fragments, in 918 Æthelflæd led an army of Scots and Northumbrian English against forces led by the Norse Viking leader Ragnall at the Battle of Corbridge in Northumbria. [b] Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal house, probably a descendant of King Coenwulf (796–821). Concerned about any future Mercian uprisings, the exiled Ælfwynn was quickly ‘persuaded’ by her uncle to keep a low profile and consequently lived the rest of her life in a nunnery! He commented: "It was through reliance on her guardianship of Mercia that her brother was enabled to begin the forward movement against the southern Danes which is the outstanding feature of his reign". Celtic visions of Æthelred and Æthelflæd as king and queen certainly offer a different, and equally valid, contemporary take on the complex politics of this transition to a new English state. To the popular imagination, she is the archetypal warrior queen, a Medieval Boudicca, renowned for her heroic struggle against the Danes and her independent rule of the Saxon Kingdom … [10] In the twelfth century, Henry of Huntingdon paid her his own tribute: Some historians believe that Æthelred and Æthelflæd were independent rulers. At this point Æthelflæd because the sole ruler of Mercia, and her title became ‘Lady of Mercia’. A formidable and infamous Danish warlord, Earl Ragnar is fearless, charming, and a natural leader, and doesn't hesitate to take Uhtred under his wing. Her brief reign ended however when King Edward of … Æthelwold joined forces with the Vikings when he was unable to get sufficient support in Wessex, and his rebellion only ended with his death in battle in December 902. Derby was the first to fall to the English; she lost "four of her thegns who were dear to her" in the battle. 'Father ... oh, Father! •I was pleased that Æthelflæd was dealing effectively with her would-be rapist before Erik arrived; it made a change from the growing tendency for cameras to linger long on helpless female bodies before salvation belatedly arrives (if at all). In 883 he made a grant with the consent of King Alfred, thus acknowledging Alfred's lordship. To the West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelflæd was merely King Edward's sister, whereas for the Mercian Register she was Lady of the Mercians. They granted the church of Worcester a half share of the rights of lordship over the city, covering land rents and the proceeds of justice, and in return the cathedral community agreed in perpetuity to dedicate a psalm to them three times a day and a mass and thirty psalms every Saturday. Legend has it that Æthelflæd actually brought a great deal of military leadership and strategy to the table, including the tactic of fortifying the Mercian borders whenever they had driven the Danes further back. [19] In the view of Ian Walker: "He was a royal ealdorman whose power base lay in the south-west of Mercia in the former kingdom of the Hwicce around Gloucester". [6][e] She was succeeded as Lady of the Mercians by her daughter, Ælfwynn, but in early December 918 Edward deposed her and took Mercia under his control. Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. Historians consider this unlikely, but she may have sent a contingent to the battle. In the mid-880s, Alfred sealed the strategic alliance between the surviving English kingdoms by marrying Æthelflæd to Æthelred. The eastern part of its territory had long been in direct control of the Danish Vikings, with the remaining western part of the kingdom being effectively a puppet of the Vikings. Alfred had built a network of fortified burhs and in the 910s Edward and Æthelflæd embarked on a programme of extending them. The Norse Vikings then joined with the Danes in an attack on Chester, but this failed because Æthelflæd had fortified the town, and she and her husband persuaded the Irish among the attackers to change sides. [12] In the late ninth century Gloucester had become a burh with a street plan similar to Winchester, and Æthelred and Æthelflæd had repaired its ancient Roman defences. Instead, she died in Tamworth just two weeks before she had planned to visit, and was later buried in St Oswalds Priory in Gloucester. [23] Worcester was able to preserve considerable intellectual and liturgical continuity and, with Gloucester, became the centre of a Mercian revival under Æthelred and Æthelflæd that extended into the more unstable areas of Staffordshire and Cheshire. Unfortunately this was one of many battles in which Æthelred was not involved. In 904 Bishop Werferth granted a lease of land in the city to Æthelred and Æthelflæd, to be held for the duration of their lives and that of their daughter Ælfwynn. ). [35] After Æthelflæd's death, Edward encountered fierce resistance to his efforts to consolidate his control of the north-west and he died there in 924, shortly after suppressing a local rebellion. In Keynes's view, "the conclusion seems inescapable that the Alfredian polity of the kingship 'of the Anglo-Saxons' persisted in the first quarter of the tenth century, and that the Mercians were thus under Edward's rule from the beginning of his reign". [64], The choice of burial place was symbolic. A building suitable for a royal mausoleum has been found by archaeological investigation at the east end of the church and this may have been St Oswald's burial place. When Aethelflaed ( Millie Brady) was a teenager, her parents betrothed her to the self-styled king of Mercia, Lord Aethelred ( Toby Regbo ). The Last Kingdom is set in ninth-century England when Alfred the Great ruled Wessex and eventually became King of the Anglo-Saxons. [12] The relics gave the church great prestige as Oswald had been one of the most important founding saints of Anglo-Saxon Christianity as well as a ruling monarch, and the decision to translate his relics to Gloucester shows the importance of the town to Æthelred and Æthelflæd, who were buried in St Oswald's Minster. In 886 Alfred occupied the Mercian town of London, which had been in Viking hands. However, when Æthelred (not to be confused with Lady Æthelflæd, whom this article is about!) Upon hearing of the Viking uprising in the area, Æthelflæd rode north to meet the Danes with a cunning battle plan… she would fight the Vikings outside the city, but would then would fall back and ‘draw’ the Vikings into the city walls. In 913 she built forts at Tamworth to guard against the Danes in Leicester, and in Stafford to cover access from the Trent Valley. Alfred’s eldest daughter Aethelflaed, born just before he ascended the throne of Wessex, became a prominent character in the second season of The Last Kingdom. The version of record as reviewed is: .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#33aa33;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}"Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians" (PDF). By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. It did not suffer major attacks and it did not come under great pressure from Wessex. The marriage may have taken place earlier, perhaps when he submitted to Alfred following the recovery of London in 886. The town was one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, together with Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. Æthelred died in 911 and Æthelflæd then ruled Mercia as Lady of the Mercians. But it also contains, especially for our period, much genuine historical information which seems to have its roots in a contemporary narrative. Æthelflæd immediately turned to her brother Edward for support. [39] The Mercian rulers built a new minster in Gloucester and, although the building was small, it was embellished on a grand scale, with rich sculpture. Ages '' 64 ], Ceolwulf is not a true story, but many of the alfred the last kingdom daughter saint... 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