2021 Round-up (and Æthelflæd’s Daughter) plus News!

We once again spent much of the year in lockdown but writerly things were still able to happen and, indeed, are planned (find out more at the end of this post). Highlights of my year were:

Being shortlisted for the prestigious Exeter Story Prize and Trisha Ashley Award with my story The Borrowed Days.

The publication of the second and last in my Tales of the Iclingas series. Book One, Cometh the Hour, told the story of Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, his feud with the Northumbrian kings and his quest to avenge his womenfolk. Now The Sins of the Father continues the tale by focusing on the next generation. All are scarred in one way or another by the continuing feud, but does any of them have the strength to end it? The reviews have been lovely, with one reader saying:

 "Annie Whitehead’s writing is an absolute joy to read. Her prose is lyrical, her research is meticulous, and she recreates the Anglo-Saxon world so faithfully that it’s easy to lose yourself in the pages of the story. Whenever I read any of her stories, I can’t help but feel that I’m sitting in a mead hall, being entertained by the scop while I dine on fresh cheese and honey. The Sins of the Father, the sequel to Cometh the Hour, delivers everything I’ve come to love from one of Annie’s novels and more. She can’t produce a time travel machine, but she’s given us the next best thing. From the opening scene until the last, I was hooked. "

2021 also saw the publication of the paperback edition of my second nonfiction book, Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, of which Imogen Robertson, author and chair of the Historical Writers' Association, said: 

"Absolutely fascinating - Annie Whitehead pieces together the evidence with meticulous care, then tells the stories of an exciting variety of remarkable women in fluid, crystal-clear prose. It is a pleasure to read her thoughtful and nuanced portraits of peace-weavers, queens and saints and have my eyes opened to the complex histories of these forgotten Anglo-Saxon leaders."

And the publication of the paperback version of 1066 Turned Upside Down, our collaborative re-imagining of the events of 1066.

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, my first nonfiction book, continued to occupy a place in the top five of books on Anglo-Saxon history on Amazon and found its way onto several bookshop tables, including the huge five-storey branch of Waterstones in Birmingham just before Christmas.

In the autumn, I took part in the Ask Historians Digital Conference, where I discussed the misrepresentation of Anglo-Saxon Women by the later chroniclers, and you can see our roundtable discussion HERE

I was interviewed by Seb Whitehouse for his Youtube channel, where we chatted about social history as well as kings and queens and, of course, Mercia. You can catch the interview HERE

I had a lovely chat with the Tudors Dynasty podcast, too. Now, you might be wondering, what on earth does Anglo-Saxon history have to do with the Tudors? But, there is a link, and here's a little bit more information about that connection:

I'd been talking to a friend not so long beforehand, about the enduring popularity of the Tudors and why it should be so. I think the fascination is partly to do with two things: a king executing his queens is unique in English history, and women succeeding women to the throne is something which had never happened before and has not happened since, unless you count Anne’s succeeding William and Mary.

Well, I say it hadn’t happened before. It did, once, albeit briefly.

I’ve written a great deal about Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, in my novel To Be A Queen, and both my nonfiction books, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England. She was the daughter of Alfred the Great, and she was born at a time when ‘Viking’ incursions were not only a major nuisance, but had already seen two kingdoms - East Anglia and Northumbria - fall pretty much permanently under Danish (and Norse) control. Only the very top part of Northumbria, some of Mercia and the whole of Wessex were still under English rule. Alfred, and later his son, Edward, began working alongside Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians and, when a concerted joint effort pushed the invaders out of London, the alliance was sealed by the marriage of Alfred’s daughter Æthelflæd to Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians. 

We don’t have much information for the early years of their marriage, except the details of the continuing campaign against the 'Vikings'. Around the year 902, however, the chronicles stop mentioning Æthelred’s name and the Irish annals make it clear that he was suffering from some kind of illness, which prevented him from fighting but did not stop him giving strategic advice to his wife. This gives me the impression that by this stage, this was one amazing power couple, happy to support and protect each other - she looking after him while he was ill and he being happy to delegate to a ‘mere’ woman.

History records - and yes, it’s a bit of a spoiler - that after this protracted illness she ended up ruling alone. That’s also worth a moment’s pause. Only once before had a woman ruled an English kingdom, and it didn’t end well. Seaxburh, queen of Wessex, was the only Anglo-Saxon woman to be included on a regnal list. She ruled for somewhere between one and two years in the seventh century but as a later chronicler said, the men of the kingdom would not go to war under the leadership of a woman. I think ‘war’ is the clue here. It’s likely that she was actually ruling as regent for her son during a time of conflict over the succession. At any rate, her rule was not long, and was not successful.

Æthelflæd, on the other hand, ruled Mercia for seven years on her own and in that time she worked in partnership with her brother Edward to wrest occupied Mercia out of 'Viking' hands, building defensive towns called burhs, and famously taking Derby with her troops and losing in the fighting ‘four thegns who were dear to her.’ Derby was one of the strategically important ‘Five Boroughs’ of the Danelaw (the other four being Lincoln, Stamford, Nottingham and Leicester). By the time she died at Tamworth, their work was almost done.

From beyond the grave though, she pulled off another remarkable feat: her daughter Ælfwynn succeeded her. 

We know virtually nothing of Ælfwynn’s life, not even her year of birth, but we do know that she witnessed a charter of her mother’s, issued at Weardbyrig (unidentified but possibly in Shropshire) in 915, when Æthelflæd was in the midst of her intense burh-building programme. Even if Ælfwynn had been born late in the marriage – and it seems unlikely that she would have been conceived after her father fell ill in around 902 – she probably wouldn’t have been on campaign with her mother if she was still tiny. Most likely she was a young adult at the very least. Given that it would have been far safer for her to remain in the Mercian heartland, there could well have been a specific reason for her presence at Weardbyrig, that of watching and learning from her mother, with the intention that one day she would take over.

But if she was already a young woman, why had she remained unmarried? Again, I think it might be because she was being groomed to take over the country and keep it in Mercian hands. It’s said that her mother raised the future King Athelstan in Mercia but she clearly didn’t consider him her heir and, when she died, the Mercian council declared for Ælfwynn. We know this because, like Seaxburh all those years ago, her tenure was short-lived. Her uncle Edward, who’d been happy for his sister to rule, wasn’t so accommodating when it came to her daughter and according to the annal known as the Mercian Register, she was ‘deprived of all authority’. Thus they clearly believed that she was rightful ruler.

We don’t know what happened to her after that, other than that she was probably taken into Wessex. A later charter speaks of a holy woman called Ælfwynn, but there is no proof at all that this was the same woman. Like so many before and after, she simply disappeared off the pages of history.

But we should not overlook that very important point. In Mercia in 918 a remarkable thing happened: a woman ruler was succeeded by a woman ruler. This would not happen again until the time of the Tudors.

And finally... a version of the above mini-article first appeared on author Samantha Wilcoxson's blog and might give a slight hint of the direction my next novel will take me. But first, I have a talk to prepare for the re-enactment group, Swords of Penda, and I will be contributing a chapter for a new book about English kings and queens which will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2023. That should all keep me busy for a while!

Thank you for reading my blog articles - I have many more planned for the coming year so do please keep popping by.