Lady Aethelflaed - Warrior? Queen?

On Saturday, 11th June 2023, as part of Æthelfest 2023, I gave a talk at Tamworth Castle. Here is the transcript from that talk:

Lady Æthelflæd - Warrior? Queen? 

[I began by thanking everyone for coming, and also expressed gratitude to Tamworth Borough Council and the organisers of Æthelfest for inviting to talk about one of my favourite Mercian women, who has a special place in my heart particularly as my novel about her really launched my writing career.]

To me, she has always been something of an enigma - a female ruler in a time when men were pretty much always in charge of kingdoms, a woman about whom so much has been said and written but about whom we actually know very little. A woman worthy of mention, yet hardly mentioned in the contemporary records.

So, was she a warrior woman? Was she a queen?

Perhaps we should start with what we DO know about her life, or rather, what we can piece together. And I must say at the outset, it really isn’t much. She is barely mentioned in the main stock of the annals known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (ASC), though we do have a preserved portion of a document known as the Mercian Register, which records her activities from 902-918. It is assumed that she was born around 870, but we don’t know. It is possible that she spent some of her childhood away from the court of the West Saxons, where her father, Alfred, was king. If so, Mercia would have been the obvious place because her mother was a Mercian, the daughter of a high-ranking nobleman, a tribal leader, and her paternal aunt was married to the Mercian king. We know that she was the eldest of Alfred’s children, because a Welsh monk, Asser, commissioned to write a biography of Alfred, tells us so. Asser spent time in Alfred’s court, so we must assume he knew the family well, although, oddly, he never tells us the name of Alfred’s wife! (And this strikes at the heart of our problems - the chroniclers didn’t often give us much in the way of detail about even the most high-ranking women of the time.) 

(And that's a very bad, non-contemporary portrait of her. Her name was Ealhswith, by the way)

In 886, (again, we’re not sure, but we assume it was in this year) Æthelflæd was married to the ealdorman of Mercia, seemingly as a diplomatic bride. This man was Æthelred. He’d helped Alfred take back London from the vikings and it appears that the marriage was the seal on the alliance between Wessex and Mercia. 

Æthelred was a tried and tested warrior - We have to assume this because he was obviously accepted as the leader of the Mercians once they’d effectively run out of kings, and he is named as being the man to whom Alfred entrusted London once it had been regained - and it’s safe to assume that he was older than his wife by some years.

He was named in the sources, fighting alongside Alfred against the encroaching Danes and, later on, with Alfred’s eldest son, Edward, too. 

The campaign against the Viking invaders is quite long and complicated, but I just want to highlight a couple of incidents. One is when Alfred came to an agreement with a Viking named Hasteinn and where Hasteinn gave oaths and hostages, and his sons were baptized with the sponsorship of Alfred and the ealdorman Æthelred.  Another was when Alfred’s son, Edward, besieged the enemy and ‘Earl Æthelred lent his aid to the prince [Edward].’ The three leaders were clearly working in concert together and are named as doing so in the annals. 

And then, around 902, Æthelred's name stops being mentioned. In 906, we’re told, Edward was forced to make peace, temporarily, with the Vikings ‘from necessity’. (Alfred had died by this point and there’s no mention of Æthelred, so Edward appears to be alone now.) In a few short years the English resistance had withered from a triumvirate to Edward working, seemingly, on his own. Gone are the comments along the lines of ‘with the aid of Æthelred, earl of the Mercians’ and then in 907, we’re told that Chester, in Mercia, was restored, i.e. wrested back from Viking control, but we’re not told by whom. Æthelred seems to have disappeared.

When we look at sources from outside Wessex and Mercia, specifically the Irish annals, we can see that he was ill, and here we are told that Æthelred, whom they call the king of the Saxons, was on the point of death yet still advising as to the best course of action. 

The Irish fragmentary annals known as the Three Fragments records that when Chester was overrun those inside the city sent messengers to the King of the Saxons i.e. Æthelred, who was in a disease, and on the point of death at that time, to ask his advice, and the advice of his queen. The advice which he gave was, to give [them] battle near the city outside, and to keep the gate of the city wide open, and to select a body of knights, and have them hidden on the inside ; and if the people of the city should not be triumphant in the battle, to fly back into the city, as if in defeat, and when the greater number of the forces attacking came inside, those there should close the gate and attack. There was, apparently, a ‘red slaughter’’ but still it wasn’t over, and we are told that the king, who was on the point of death, and the queen sent ambassadors to the Gaeidhil (Irish) and the message begins  "Life and health from the King of the Saxons, who is in disease, and from his Queen, who has sway over all the Saxons” and then it goes on to request aid. 

The annal goes on to say that many were killed with large rocks and beams hurled down upon their heads. The Saxons, apparently, also boiled up all the beer and water in the town to throw down on the invaders, and then threw beehives down on them, at which point they left. [Well you would, wouldn't you?]

Now in the course of telling this detailed episode, the Irish annalists tell us twice that Æthelred is ill. Neither the ASC nor even the Mercian Register records Æthelred's illness, but when Edward gathered West Saxon and Mercian forces and went harrying into Northumbria, there is no mention of Æthelred. When, presumably in retaliation, the Northumbrians broke peace, and ravaged Mercia, at the ensuing battle at Tettenhall, Æthelred is not mentioned. 

So it seems safe to say that he was ill for some years before his death, but still somehow able to rule.

For corroboration, we can look to that annal which is known as the Mercian Register, compiled in Mercia, and inserted, as I said earlier, into the common stock of the ASC. It does show Æthelflæd engaged in rather ‘queenly’ behaviour whilst her husband was still alive. For it tells us that it was she who built a burh, a fortified town, in 910. So, she’s clearly acting for him.

This, of course, changed with his death in 911. What is odd, and almost unprecedented, is that Æthelflæd then became the leader of the Mercians. From this point until her death in 918, here in Tamworth, she worked in tandem with her brother Edward, (although Edward took over control of London and Oxford, he left his sister to rule the rest of free Mercia), pushing back the Danes and carrying out a concerted and strategic campaign of burh-building with Edward building five fortresses and Æthelflæd building nine and both had the enemy submitting to them. The campaigns appear to have been very coordinated. 

In the middle of all this frenetic activity she sent an army into Brycheiniog (to Llangorse Lake) in Wales. The Mercian Register tells us that this was to avenge the death of an abbot but we have no further detail. The following year she took the borough of Derby and in 918 The Three Fragments says that she directed a battle against the Dublin-Norse, ordering her troops to cut down the trees where the ‘pagans’ were hiding. Thus we are led to believe that as well as partnering her brother in an extensive and well co-ordinated attack on the Danes, she was conducting her own campaign against the Norse. I have to say I’m a bit sceptical about this one, which would have us believe she she nipped up to Corbridge in Northumbria and back down again in very quick time. [It also says that she entered into an alliance with Alba and Strathclyde - this came up in the Q&A afterwards]

But in Mercia, between them brother and sister regained control of crucial areas: the five boroughs of Lincoln, Stamford, Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. 

In the year of her death, she was approached by the Danish leaders of York, who seem to have submitted to her in return for her protection although she died before being able to assist. 

She was also an effective administrator, seemingly. She issued charters in her own name which show her granting land to the nobility and she witnessed charters issued by the bishop of Worcester. She and her husband were certainly benevolent. As well as restoring land to the community at Wenlock to keep them in food, they also intervened in a case over a monastic estate which the bishops at Worcester had been trying to recover for some years. In 909 the bones of St Oswald were translated from Bardney to Gloucester and if this was done at Æthelflæd’s behest, as seems likely then it was a shrewd move on her part. An English saint was now safe in a strong Mercia, away from overrun Viking territory. There is no doubt that her husband was ill at this point; Edward was harrying Northumbria so it might be that he brought the relics back and into her hands for safe-keeping. The minster in Gloucester dedicated to St Peter was renamed St Oswald’s, and it was here that Æthelred was buried. 

St Oswald's, Gloucester

Although Æthelflæd died here in Tamworth, her body was taken back to Gloucester and she was buried at St Oswald’s, alongside her husband. She perhaps, ultimately, felt more affinity to her mother’s homeland than her father’s and despite the arranged nature and age gap of the marriage, was clearly a devoted wife, too. At some point before 911, and probably before 902, she had a daughter, Ælfwynn.

So, that’s the bare bones that we know of her life, and she clearly was a leader. She was instrumental in the repossession of the so-called Five Boroughs, and I think she must have been utterly exhausted by the time she died! But did she actually fight? And was she a queen?

If she did fight, actually wield a sword, then where did she learn the necessary skills?

I’m going to quote from Asser’s biography of Alfred, where he tells us that Æthelflæd was the first born and that ‘when the time came for her to marry, she was joined in marriage to Æthelred, ealdorman of the Mercians. Æthelgifu entered the service of God; Æthelweard, the youngest of all, was given over to training in reading and writing under the attentive care of teachers, in company with all the nobly born children of virtually the entire area and a good many of lesser birth as well. In this school, books in both languages, that is to say in Latin and English were carefully read. They also devoted themselves to writing, to such an extent that, even before they had the requisite strength for manly skills (hunting, that is, and other skills appropriate to noblemen), they were seen to be devoted and intelligent students. Edward and Ælfthryth were at all times fostered at the royal court - [and this is why some think that perhaps Æthelflæd wasn’t] - and these two have attentively learned the psalms, and books in English, and especially English poems and they very frequently make use of books.’

Now, this education seems to have been comprehensive, but it doesn’t specifically talk about the education of Æthelflæd, or say that there was any weapons training, though it does mention learning the pursuits of noblemen which we must assume means weapons training, but it doesn’t say it for Alfred’s daughters. So this isn’t especially helpful in tracking down any clues about women warriors.

We know that Edward’s own daughters were educated. An Anglo-Norman Chronicler said that Edward brought up his daughters so that, ‘in childhood they gave their whole attention to literature, and afterwards employed themselves in the labours of the distaff and the needle.’ Thus the royal daughters were literate, but also well-skilled in sewing and embroidery; excellent preparation for their adult lives as royal wives or indeed as religious women. So here we have a bit more detail but again, no mention of fighting.

Nowhere is it mentioned that royal daughters were schooled in weapons training, and it does seem rather unlikely. For details of Æthelflæd's martial activity, we can discount the ASC apart from the Mercian Register. But even that's not clear. It says she 'sent' an army into Wales, that she ‘took’ Derby, but can we confidently infer from that that she was actually leading the army? The Three Fragments says that she collected hosts and Chester was filled with her hosts, but doesn't say she was there.

Psychomachia Faith conquers Idolatry – BL, Cotton Titus D. xvi, fol. 6r

What about other written evidence? The Psychomachia is a poem by Prudentius, from the early fifth century AD and it contains images of women warriors. The trouble with this is that this work is an allegory and tells of the virtues fighting the vices, and it seems that the personifications are women because in Latin, words for abstract concepts have feminine grammatical gender. So this really isn’t much help. This is very stylised.

In the fourth volume of his Gothic Wars, Procopius of Caesarea, writing in the 550s, describes how an  Anglian bride from ‘Brittia’ went on the warpath against a tribe living on the banks of the Rhine. She had been betrothed to the king of this tribe, but he had died and his successor reneged on the deal. She then took 400 ships and led the expedition personally, defeating them soundly. Now there’s a few problems with this too, because whilst Brittia could mean Britain, and perhaps even East Anglia, we don’t know for sure. We do know that the Angles living in South East ‘England’ did have strong contacts with the Continent but even if this story is true, it still took place over 400 years before Æthelflæd was born. 

Now, I said at the start that Æthelflæd was almost unique in leading a kingdom. But we do have written evidence of a queen of the West Saxons whose name was Seaxburh. She was, definitely uniquely, included on a regnal list, but unlike our Æthelflæd we’re told by a later chronicler that the West Saxons would not go to war under the leadership of a woman. Bede recorded that after her husband’s death there was a troubled period during which sub-kings ‘took upon themselves the government of the kingdom, dividing it up and ruling for about ten years.’ The ASC, on the other hand, says that when her husband died she reigned one year after him. This succinct entry gives no hint about the circumstances. Was she, as would become more common, reigning on behalf of a son?

If we add to these two conflicting reports a third, that later chronicler, who said that Seaxburh ruled for one year in her husband’s stead, ‘but was expelled [from] the kingdom by the indignant nobles, who would not go to war under the conduct of a woman’, we get a scenario building where it looks like her husband died with no adult heir, and Seaxburh and the local nobility were in conflict over the succession. The chaos seems to have lasted more than a year in fact, because it’s two years before the next king is recorded. If she was fighting for her own right to the throne, and not on behalf of any sons, then she truly was a trail-blazer, but we just don’t know and I have to say that the information we have on her makes what we have on Æthelflæd seem extensive by comparison. But we just don’t know any more about her reign, just as we don’t know the circumstances that led another queen, wife of another king Wessex to (according to the ASC) raze Taunton to the ground. Kings DID fight, they led their forces. But we don’t know what the rules were for the VERY few women leaders. We must also bear in mind that these two women ruled, if that’s what they did, in the seventh century, and whilst we also know from Bede that at around the same period the Mercian king Penda left his wife in charge of Mercia for long periods while he was away fighting, he doesn’t say she fought, so it’s not enough to say that in either kingdom there was a tradition of women rulers who led armies. And, as we’ll see, Wessex did not necessarily have the same cultural identity and attitudes to royal women as Mercia.

Now, a Danish historian, Saxo Grammiticus, talked about women in Denmark dressing as men and cultivating soldiers’ skills. But Denmark isn’t England, of course, and he was also writing a good deal later - he died in around 1220.

So there’s really little in the written sources to enlighten us on this. What about the archaeological evidence then?

The obvious place to look is in graves, but of course only pre-Christian burials have grave goods. There are some where women are buried with weapons but that’s not conclusive as we don’t know the context. In 1954, two cemeteries, A and B, were excavated in Beckford, now in Hereford & Worcester, so Mercia, and Grave A2 was found to contain a female buried with a spear and shield. The skull had a lesion, maybe made by a weapon. 

The report concluded that this skeleton was probably female, but the accompanying spear and shield show that it was a weapon-bearing male, and therefore more likely to incur such an injury - clearly in the 1990s the thinking was that a woman could not be a warrior, so the bone analysis must be wrong in their view. Of course, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence but we need much more before we can say for certain that there were women warriors and we also need to remember that we have no context for this burial. It was much earlier, too, late fifth to mid sixth-century. Stating that something is true for such an early part of the Anglo-Saxon period is not automatically to say that it’s true for the later part. Remember that the Anglo-Saxon period spans the same amount of time as from present day back to the Tudors. Things changed.

So now then let's look at this notion of queenship, and a good place to start would be to go back to Asser, the monk who wrote Alfred the Great’s story and who was very much a contemporary source. He tells a very lurid tale and gives this incident as the reason why the wives of kings in Wessex were not called ‘queen’. 

It concerns Eadburh, who was the daughter of Offa of Mercia, and was married to the king of the West Saxons, a man named Beorhtric. According to Asser, Eadburh resented the influence over the king of one of his chief advisors, and contrived to poison him. Sadly for her, she accidentally also poisoned the king. For punishment she was sent abroad, to the court of the emperor Charlemagne, who set her up as abbess in a nunnery. She was later found in flagrante de licto with an Englishman and died in disgrace and poverty. Henceforth, Asser says, West Saxon wives of kings were never called queen. There’s a few things amiss with this tale: firstly, the ASC records a battle in the year Beorhtric died, in which Ecgberht, Alfred’s grandfather, became king, so it’s most likely that Beorhtric met his end on that battlefield. I actually think, given that his name is much more Mercian-sounding than West Saxon, that he was a puppet king installed by Offa. If this is the case, Asser would not have wished to dwell on any reminders that Wessex was once far less powerful than Mercia and actually had a Mercian in charge of them. 

And you can see how similar those coins of Offa and Charlemagne are - Offa clearly considered himself on a par with the emperor!

Now here’s a different coin and I’ll get on to that in a moment

However, whatever the reason, Æthelflæd's mother, (named Ealhswith as I said, though Asser doesn’t tell us so), was not a queen. Certainly, she didn’t witness any charters. But early on in Edward’s reign, just after Alfred died, there was a rebellion by Edward and Æthelflæd's cousin - it was a serious challenge, he declared himself to be the more throne-worthy, he minted his own coins (that's one of them above) and was eventually defeated in battle. But it is interesting to note that the rebellious cousin’s mother, was named regina in a charter whereas Edward’s and Æthelflæd's mother was not. As I said, their mother Ealhswith, never even witnessed charters. Still, Edward was declared king after Alfred’s death, not his cousin, so perhaps we should not read too much into the title of regina, and its importance in conferring status to the children of the marriage.* (Side note: Later in the tenth century it became important. King Edgar’s wife was officially crowned and a charter of 966 makes it abundantly clear that her children are throne-worthy, whereas Edgar’s older son by another woman was not (although ultimately it didn't make any difference and the older son was declared king in due course) - and it’s quite the beauty - this is the frontispiece).

[*I also mentioned that conversely, being a mother of a king brought a woman enhanced status]

We have seen that, according to Asser, the ninth-century West Saxons did not permit a king’s wife to be called queen, and actually he’s clearly wrong, because the rebellious cousin’s mother WAS called regina. An alternative title might have been hlæfdige (lady), which was used for Alfred the Great’s wife, Ealhswith. Edward had good reason to stress the status of his mother, obviously having faced rebellion so soon into his reign, and Ealhswith became the ‘true’, or ‘dear’ Lady of the English. So, the fact that her daughter Æthelflæd was called LADY of the Mercians should perhaps make us think that this was an important word, an indication of high, or even the highest status. 

Edward’s second wife was evidently an important royal wife and did her duty in providing ‘an heir and a spare’. But in the only surviving charter where she appears on the witness list she is styled not regina but ‘wife of the king’ and attests after her mother-in-law, Ealhswith, (who is styled ‘mother of the king’, receiving more recognition than she had as wife of King Alfred). So I should probably just explain about these charter witness lists - they’re a record of everyone who witnessed the act that the charter records - a land grant, for example, and they go in a strict pecking order.

Now, I’ve pretty much dismissed Asser’s claims about Wessex royal wives not being called queen, and especially the reason he gave for it, but a quick look at how some notable Mercian king’s consorts were styled in charters is revealing:

Cynethryth wife of Offa - regina (she had coins minted in her name, with the title regina on them too)

Eadburh, wife of Beorhtric, even though, apparently disgraced - regina

The wife of Cenwulf, a mercian king for 25 years - regina

Æthelswith, sister of Alfred, Æthelflæd's paternal aunt - regina. [I spoke briefly about her gold ring - commissioned by her for a gift; it's too big for a woman's finger] 

By contrast, in Wessex:

Wulfthryth the rebellious cousin’s mother  - regina (AFTER Eadburh and the poisoning story but in Asser’s lifetime, so he’s wrong there)

But as we’ve also seen, the second wife of Edward ‘wife of the king’ [Though I mentioned that some - by no means all - historians believe that the Second Coronation Ordo was not written for Athelstan's coronation but Edward's because it includes rites for consecrating a queen]

And in that charter Ealhswith is ‘mother of the king’

So maybe there’s something going on here - Mercian royal wives, regina, regina, regina,

But with the West Saxons it’s a bit more haphazard.

Ealhswith was not to be recorded or remembered as a queen. She did not attest any charters while Alfred was alive, and we don’t know why – although Æthelflæd did. She did more than just witness them actually, as I mentioned briefly earlier and which I’ll come back to in a moment.

So we can see that some royal wives and daughters witnessed charters, including Æthelflæd, and it’s notable that part of the paradox of Æthelflæd's life is that she actually wielded much more power than all of these women who were styled regina. 

We can also see that there’s no definition of a ‘queen’ per se. Sometimes this word ‘queen’ means a king’s wife, sometimes a king’s mother (and there are multiple instances of a woman’s status being elevated by being the mother of a king as we see with Ealhswith). But of course, in these terms, we then need to look at Æthelred's status, too, to determine if he was a king and if, therefore, Æthelflæd as his wife, was a queen. After all, it does seem that the wives of the kings of Mercia were indeed called regina, queen, so, if he was a king… 

In the early period, royal brides brought their status with them into the marriage - for example a 7th-century king of Northumbria needed to strengthen his claim to the southern part of Northumbria, the kingdom of Deira, so chose a bride who had Deiran royal blood. Is this the case with Æthelflæd, is that what was working here with her marriage? Was Æthelred looking to enhance his status by marrying a West Saxon ‘princess’ - not that they used that word. What is unusual about the marriage is if Æthelred himself wasn’t of royal stock, this would be pretty much the first time a royal daughter had been married to a so-called commoner. It didn’t happen again until the 11th century.

Alfred's Will

Æthelred was definitely remembered differently from the other ealdormen in Alfred’s will, being left a sword of great value. Interestingly, no mention in this will that he was Alfred’s son-in-law. Possibly because at the point at which the will was drawn up, he wasn’t, but if so, why the expensive bequest? Still, it was rare for royal daughters to marry non-royals as I said and it wouldn’t happen again until Æthelred the 'Unready' married two of his daughters to ealdormen in the early 11th century. So the evidence points to his being somewhat more than ‘just’ an ealdorman.

Now, we’ve already seen that the Irish annalists were happy to give Æthelred the title of king. They called him king of the Saxons, although actually the Mercians were more probably Angles.

The Welsh submitted to Alfred, Asser tells us, because of the ‘tyranny’ of Æthelred who was presumably acting independently of Wessex at that point.

Æthelred apparently began his reign as the ruler of an independent kingdom but there’s charter evidence which reveals that by 883 (so maybe 3 years before his marriage) he had submitted to Alfred and in that charter he’s styled (S218) ealdorman and operating with Alfred’s consent. No coins of his survive but Alfred had coins minted in Mercian towns - London, Oxford and Gloucester - which does suggest overlordship. Control of the mints is an important and significant thing. But in a way, Alfred’s forging a new kind of overlordship, one without major interference. Of course, he had other things to deal with!

Three years after his marriage, Æthelred is styled in a charter as subregulus which brings his status up a bit from ealdorman, to you know, a literal translation, subking. And it must be said that from the late 880s, after London, Alfred was styling himself Rex Anglorum Saxonus - king of the Angles AND Saxons

Sometimes Æthelred's granting land independently without reference to either King Alfred or King Edward, and we have the charter I mentioned earlier, where the couple give land to the religious community at Wenlock and without reference to the then king, Edward. 

Fragment of the Much Wenlock Charter

Æthelred's an ealdorman, sometimes even a subking, in West Saxon sources, but there’s a cartulary - a collection of documents, 

preserved in Worcester. It’s known as Hemming’s cartulary and among the documents is a regnal list, a king list, which includes Æthelred, so presumably at some stage the English Mercians considered him a full king. 

Interestingly - another side note here: though we often speak of the Viking kingdom of York, none of the English chronicles ever name these men as being kings. So we might wonder, actually, what constitutes a king, never mind a queen! 

So we’re not much further on with her husband’s status as ealdorman or king, so what about hers, independently? When Æthelred died, Edward of Wessex took over London and Oxford but was happy to leave the rest of Mercia under his sister’s direct control. Hence we can assume that there was no intrinsic aversion to female rule.

Henry of Huntingdon, an Anglo-Norman chronicler, was very taken with her, comparing her to Caesar:

Heroic Elflede! great in martial fame,wasA queen by title, but in deeds a king.Heroes before the Mercian heroine quail'd:Caesar himself to win such glory fail'd.

but the contemporary records say very little about her - the main ASC doesn’t even name her. Now, it could be argued that Mercia had run out of kings, that Æthelred was a vassal of Alfred’s, and therefore the couple could not have been king and queen of Mercia. 

Nevertheless, the Mercian Register  makes it quite clear that in 918, Æthelflæd's daughter was deprived of all authority. Clearly the Mercians were a) happy to have not one, but two female rulers and b) considered that Edward was wrong to take Æthelflæd's daughter into Wessex, and that her authority in Mercia was absolute. Presumably they felt this way about her mother’s agency too. And let’s not ignore this point: A female ruler succeeded, albeit briefly, a female ruler. This would not happen again in English history until these two:

We can see that Æthelred and Æthelflæd issued JOINT charters, which in itself contrasts with Ealhswith who didn’t even witness any in her husband’s lifetime, but often they’re doing it with the permission of Alfred or Edward. We even then have Æthelflæd granting by herself, in Weardburh in 915 as ruler of the Mercians. But ruler, not queen. Is there a difference? 

Perhaps if we move away from Wessex and Mercia things might become a little clearer - because her dealings with the Welsh and Irish Norse were different. We might wonder whether the West Saxons either thought of her as a junior partner in an alliance, or wanted history to remember her as such. The Welsh and Irish Annals clearly viewed her differently, and gave her a different title and spoke about her in different terms.

If we can believe the Irish annals, the men of York came to ask her for assistance, not her brother. Yes, Mercia is nearer, but clearly either the Irish chroniclers, and/or the men of York, were happy with the idea of a woman ruler. And the Three Fragments, remember, called her a queen who held sway.

It’s been suggested that though we know that Edward – probably in 919 – took the submission of certain Welsh rulers, they had earlier submitted to Æthelflæd, and that at her death Æthelflæd exercised some sort of hegemony over most of the major Welsh kings.

We also have to remember that the very fact that her death was recorded at all in the Welsh and Irish annals suggests that she was a leader of some significance, yet the main ASC chronicle remains very quiet about her, not even naming her as I said, just calling her Edward’s sister. The Welsh annals entry is succinct: It gives the date wrongly as 917 but it simply states that Queen Æthelflæd died. 

I mentioned at the beginning the curious entry in the annals that says simply that Chester was restored in 907 i.e. taken back from Viking control. We know that Æthelred was still alive at this point but that his wife was acting on his behalf. And we know that in the Irish annals they were called king and queen. Now, the Three Fragments reads rather more like a saga than an annal, but if we look again at this idea that Chester was restored:

Chester was a significant trading centre, it was the centre of large-scale minting of coins, and merchants from all over were trading there, so it was a lucrative place to have control over. 

This restoration of Chester was followed by the building of burhs along the Mersey - at Eddisbury in 914 and Runcorn in 915 (note that this is after Æthelred had died). The siting of these burhs suggests that the wary Mercian eyes were looking across the Irish sea, not to the Danes in Northumbria and the northeast of Mercia. So as well as acting in concert with her brother, she’s got one eye on the Irish Seaboard, and is effectively in control there.

So it’s perhaps in this context that we should look again at the request from York. By controlling access to Mercia from the Irish sea via the Mersey, she’s in a strong position to prevent another influx of Norse Irish, though of course they could still navigate a long way up the Ribble, north of the Mercian border. But it’s Mercia, not Wessex, that shares a border with Northumbria, and therefore with York. So to the Irish and Welsh, and indeed the Northumbrians, she’s looking powerful, not at all a junior partner of Wessex.

And although, when she died, Edward did finally take control of the whole of Mercia, Mercian history did not stop. In many ways Mercia remained independent - it seems to have welcomed Athelstan as king before the West Saxons did. Twice more in the tenth century the Mercian council opted for a different candidate from Wessex. Leading Mercians fell out with the Godwines, too, in the 11th century so there was always a strong independent/nationalist streak!

But to get back to our heroine, whom the Welsh and Irish called Queen, and who acted in every way as if she were one, more so than other women styled regina: can we answer our original questions?

Was she a warrior? It’s perhaps disappointing to some, and recent tv productions have shown otherwise, but I don’t believe Æthelflæd fought though others may choose to disagree. But I think we have to wait for more concrete evidence that there were such people in early medieval England. And I do feel that had she actually wielded a sword, someone might have commented. 

It’s difficult even to know for sure if she was governing independently or whether events and decisions were engineered by the men around her (and we don’t even really know who they were). Just what advice she was getting and how much she was bound by it, we just don’t know.

She IS presented as acting independently in the Mercian Register, she and her husband are called ealdorman and lady in charters and West Saxon sources, but some Mercian, and the Irish and Welsh sources elevate them to the rank of king and queen. Whether or not she wielded a weapon, she was acting in parallel with her brother Edward. She was making decisions - again I must stress that we don’t know who, if anyone, was advising her, but it is abundantly clear that the Mercians considered her to be their rightful ruler. And her daughter after her.

What we’ll never know is why we know so little. If the West Saxons were keen to play down her role in events, was this because she was representing Mercia, or because she was a woman? If there was no intrinsic aversion to women leaders, why weren’t there more of them? Why did Edward allow her rule, but not her daughter’s - was it a matter of character? Was it a matter of timing? If she was so exceptional, why wasn’t more comment made about her at the time? 

Even though she probably didn’t fight, she was a fierce and determined and undaunted person who remains pretty much unique.

Can we say that she was a queen? Well, perhaps it’s all just a question of semantics and how we define that word. The West Saxons didn’t seem to want to name her as such, but then as we’ve seen, they wanted to downplay her contribution full stop. The main version of the ASC promotes the rule of Edward, does not mention his sister by name, and incidentally even bigs up the latter part of Edward’s reign when it looks as if he was losing his grip over Mercia. Clearly Æthelflæd was acting in such a way that the Welsh and Irish thought she was a queen, and she exercised much more agency than those officially given the title. As we’ve seen, in contrast with some king’s wives who didn’t witness charters, she actually issued her own.

This woman was instrumental in stemming the tide of invading Danes, of recovering lost land, and establishing fortified towns. We’ll never know for sure whether she did that with a sword in her hand, or whether those around her called her, or thought of her as a queen, but the fact remains that when she died on June 12th 918, here in Tamworth, it ended a partnership with Wessex which had been phenomenal in fighting back the Vikings and this is how we all will remember her. 

And there you can see her title: Mrycna Hlaefdige - Lady of the Mercians

The transcript of my second talk of the weekend, Prominent Women of Mercia, can be found HERE

When Research Means Leaving Well Enough Alone

 My most recent novel is Book 2 of 2 in the Tales of the Iclingas series, which began with Cometh the Hour and the story of Penda, the last pagan king of Mercia and his struggles against the oppression of Mercia by Northumbria.

The Sins of the Father is the follow-up, and focuses on the next generation, in Mercia and in Northumbria, and how the children of the great warlords cope with the legacy left by their fathers. Some try to emulate their father, some try to forge a new path, and some resort to murder just to get noticed…

Penda of Mercia was seemingly unusual at this time for having married only once and, if that’s the case, then he and his only wife had a great number of children. (There are nine of them in my stories, although one is the son of Penda’s wife by a previous marriage, a boy whom Penda adopts as his own. And I made two of the girls twins, to give their poor mother a break from all those pregnancies.)

Tracking them down is not easy because very little was written about Penda himself, beyond his dealings with Northumbria, and even that was written by a Northumbrian (Bede) so is not always favourable, as you might imagine!

So in order to establish who his children were, we have to start elsewhere and join up the dots. We might not be told that they are Penda’s sons and daughters, but sometimes we do know that they were, say, the brother of one of his children, or we hear of a granddaughter of his, and her maternal aunt, and thus we know that aunt was Penda’s daughter, so we work backwards and voila!

I don’t mind wavy lines between those dots when it comes to writing fiction, but some just didn’t match at all. It’s at that point that you have to decide to leave people out of your story, no matter how intriguing they might be…

Osweard

This man was supposedly a brother of Penda’s son Ethelred (again with the backwards info!)  He is mentioned in two charters of AD714 in relation to land granted to a bishop, or rather, how the bishop came by these lands. These charters are unlikely to be genuine and the only other mention of Osweard was in the account of the bishop’s life which essentially repeats the information, saying, ‘A short time later, I acquired another estate with this one from Osweard, the brother of the aforementioned king [Ethelred]’. I think it’s safe to say that the bishop, like so many before him and afterwards, was trying to make a case for land ownership which probably wasn’t as water-tight as he might have wished.

Window in St John's Church, Chester, depicting
Ethelred of Mercia. Accreditation Link

I also think nine children is more than enough, even for a saga that spans two books and three generations, so Osweard didn’t get even a walk-on part. I had some more fun with the next generation though.

Rumwold

There is a curious story concerning a supposed grandson of Penda’s, a certain Saint Rumwold. According to tradition, he was a baby who died at just three days old. The Vita Sancti Rumwoldi, the eleventh-century account of his life, says that he was able to speak at birth, preached on wisdom and the Trinity, and predicted his own death, giving precise instructions regarding where his body was to be laid to rest.

St Rumwold's Well, Buckinghamshire
Accreditation Link

It is said that he was the grandson of Penda and the son of an unnamed king of Northumbria. In which case, he can only have been the son of one of Penda’s daughters married to the Northumbrian line. Except that only one of Penda’s daughters married a Northumbrian, and he was never king of the whole of Northumbria, though he was, briefly, a sub-king of its southern portion. There doesn’t seem to be any corroboration for this tale, so I left the precocious Rumwold out of the story.

Ruffin and Wulflad

There is no doubt that Wulfhere (known in my story as Wulf to his family) was a son of Penda’s. But there’s a  curious seventeenth-century anecdote which tells that, along with his children Werburgh (Werbyra in my novel) and Cenred, he had two sons called Wulfad and Ruffin. These two boys were, according to the story, baptised by St Cedd which so offended their father that he ‘killed them both with his own hands.’ Wulfhere was horribly tormented by what he had done, and ‘could find no ease’ until he went to St Cedd, who absolved him if he would suppress idolatry and establish Christianity throughout Mercia. It also says that the king built many churches and monasteries, among them Peterborough, although it is likely that the monastery there (Medeshamstede) was founded earlier, and by Wulfhere’s elder brother.

Detail of a 14th-Century Charter transcription of an Anglo-Saxon
Charter which purports to show Wulfhere's founding of Medeshamstede
Public Domain Image

That’s not the only problem I have with this story though. Little Werbyra became an abbess and saint, Wulfhere himself was a Christian, and it seems highly unlikely that he would have killed two of his sons because they’d been baptised. Since this was a period when couples could separate to take up the religious life, you’d think his wife would have left him if he'd murdered two of her children, or even step-children, yet she didn’t. When Wulfhere discovered that another king had apostatized and gone back to his heathen ways, Bede tells us that Wulfhere sent a bishop to ‘correct their error.’ Improbable then, that he would kill any Christian children of his own. It could, of course, have happened before his own conversion to Christianity, but it all seems very unlikely to me. I left them out of the book because the murder of two children by their father the king would have taken my story in an entirely different direction…

St Werburgh's Pilgimage Badge
Public Domain Image

Sometimes, when doing historical detective work, it’s best to leave the bodies right where you find them, and walk away!

About The Sins of the Father

A father’s legacy can be a blessing or a curse…

AD658: The sons of Penda of Mercia have come of age. Ethelred, the youngest, recalls little of past wars while Wulf is determined to emulate their father, whose quest to avenge his betrayed kinswomen drew him to battle three successive Northumbrian kings.

Ecgfrith of Northumbria is more hostile towards the Mercians than his father was. His sister Ositha, thwarted in her marriage plans, seeks to make her mark in other ways, but can she, when called upon, do her brother’s murderous bidding?

Ethelred finds love with a woman who is not involved in the feud, but fate intervenes. Wulf’s actions against Northumbria mean Ethelred must choose duty over love, until he, like his father before him, has cause to avenge the women closest to him. Battle must once more be joined, but the price of victory will be high.

Can Ethelred stay true to his father’s values, end the feud, keep Mercia free, and find the path back to love?

[A version of this article first appeared on author Charlene Newcomb's blog in 2021]

St Wilfrid and his Crypts

Last week, on my way back from a research trip to York, I called in at Ripon, to visit the cathedral there, or rather more specifically, to go underneath it. Stunningly beautiful though the cathedral is, it was the rather more mundane and plain crypt which attracted me.

I read recently that the crypt at Ripon is deemed to be 'creepy' but I didn't find it so. Perhaps it helped that there was a concert of organ music going on above while I was down there, but I think the crypt at Hexham, also associated with St Wilfrid, is perhaps the creepier of the two.

Ripon is proud of the fact that its crypt is the oldest in the country, beating Hexham to the title by just a few years.

Wilfrid had been inspired by what he had seen in Rome - ornate stone churches with catacombs - and he used stonemasons from overseas to build his church at Ripon, at a time when most 'English' churches were built of wood. The crypt contained holy relics, connected with St Peter, and it was lit by candlelight, which illuminated gold, silver, and purple wall decorations. The idea was to inspire, and it surely succeeded.

So, who was Wilfrid, and why was he at Ripon?

I think it's fair to say that he had a colourful career and, though he is remembered as a religious man who achieved great things, he also had an uncanny knack of annoying people, so much so that he found himself banished and briefly imprisoned.

He first comes to our notice when, as a fourteen-year-old boy, and according to one tradition, anxious to escape his wicked stepmother, he presented himself to Eanflæd, queen consort of Oswiu, king of Northumbria, who sponsored him and sent him off to study at Lindisfarne. Thereafter his chequered career is too long, and his fortunes too variable, to condense into a blog post (a quick glance at the length of his Wikipedia page will demonstrate that!), and I recommend you read Alan Thacker's detailed article at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and his contribution in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. 

Suffice to say for this post about the crypts that, after a time abroad, he was heavily involved with the discussions at the Synod of Whitby in 664, a vocal advocate for the argument which won the day on controversial matters such as the dating of Easter. He was appointed abbot of Ripon, but this was one of many contentious events in his career, because he expelled the abbot and the monks there, including the future St Cuthbert. He dedicated his new stone church to St Peter.

By 672, Oswiu of Northumbria had died, and his son Ecgfrith was married to Æthelthryth. It was she who reputedly remained a virgin throughout this, her second, marriage, and was encouraged to do so by Wilfrid. One tradition has her escaping from Ecgfrith (it's likely that he was happy to let her go, given that she was ten years older than him and he had no heir) before she went on to become abbess of Ely. However, whilst still in the north, she gave Wilfrid a large parcel of land at Hexham, where he built another stone church, this time dedicated to St Andrew.

Hexham Abbey is not so very far away from Ripon, but the existing building looks rather different. Wilfrid's church was completed in 678 but partly destroyed by Viking raids in 875. In the early twelfth century, the church became the Priory of Canons Regular of St Augustine and from the mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century more building took place.

In 1296, Scottish raiders set fire to the priory, and in the process destroyed shrines, books and relics. It is said that molten lead ran down the night stair and can still be seen to this day. 

But of course for me, the interest is much deeper down, in the crypt. With a good ethos of ‘waste not, want not’ recycled Roman bricks were used, from the remains of the Roman fort and town at Corbridge just a few miles away; Wilfrid's church was probably built entirely from stones taken from this site.

Is it the darker stone that makes Hexham a little gloomier, perhaps a little spookier? Let's have a reminder of Ripon again:

Well, whatever the case, for me it's a thrill to stand in either place, coming so close to the long-ago past, and feeling very in touch with the troublesome love-him-or-loathe-him Wilfrid. There are so few buildings which survive from the pre-Conquest era that a chance to visit those that still exist should never be passed up.

But in case all the gloomy pictures of ancient crypts aren't quite colourful enough, here's another glory of Ripon Cathedral:

Despite his 'interesting' career, he is rightly revered there, and there is also a beautiful painting of Queen Eanflæd by artist Sara Shamma:

Over at Hexham Wilfrid is also rightly remembered, but so too is his patron, Eanflæd's daughter-in-law, Æthelthryth:

Both are beautiful sites. From the outside you would never guess what 'Anglo-Saxon' architecture they are hiding. Here are some more images:

Clockwise from top left:
Hexham Abbey, Hexham Crypt,
Ripon Crypt, Ripon Cathedral

Wilfrid appears in my novel, The Sins of the Father, as do Eanflæd and Æthelthryth. Eanflæd also features heavily in the previous novel, Cometh the Hour, and both women's stories are in my book Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

For details of another 'Anglo-Saxon' crypt, this time in Repton, Derbyshire, read my blog post HERE

[all photos by and copyright of the author, taken with all permissions from the relevant authorities at Ripon Cathedral and Hexham Abbey]

Dial M for... Merewalh of the Magonsæte and all his little Ms...

 A family featuring prominently in my writing, both fiction and nonfiction, is that of seventh-century Merewalh of the Magonsæte, all of whom had names beginning with M, which perhaps displays either a lack of imagination, or a strong sense of kin!

The alliterative nature of the names is interesting, as it has often been cited as a reason to dismiss the idea that Merewalh was a son of Penda, the seventh-century pagan king of Mercia. But of Penda's numerous children only one, in fact, had a name beginning with P, so this is not a strong enough reason to say that Merewalh was not one of Penda's sons. The last part of his name causes more debate, because it suggests to some that he was either a slave (Old English wealh) or, perhaps more probably, a Welshman. Penda had strong friendships and alliances with the British living in what we now call Wales, and there was also likely to have been a lot of intermarriage between Mercians and 'Welsh'. There were kings/subkings/noblemen with this name element - Cenwalh, Æthelwalh, and Penwalh, for example - and I don't think it should tax us unduly, other than to note that it, along with others, might indicate a degree of intermarriage. Merewalh, it is assumed, was given the rule of the area where the people known as the Magonsætan by Penda, so perhaps it was either because he was Penda's son, or foster son, or because he was a Welsh ally rewarded for help/service.

Penda of Mercia

The Magonsæte was a subkingdom of Mercia, centred around Hereford, though the name itself is not recorded earlier than 811 and it may have been home to a culturally and ethnically diverse population. Merewalh, despite having at least three sons, didn't establish a ruling dynasty, and the area was later absorbed into greater Mercia.

It seems that Merewalh was married twice, and his first marriage produced sons Merchelm and Mildfrith. His second marriage resulted in yet more little Ms: daughters Mildburg, Mildthryth and Mildgyth, along with another son, Merefin, who did not survive infancy. 

We have very little information about Merewalh's sons; however, material does survive which tells us about his daughters. But first, mention must be made of his second wife who, you'll be pleased to hear, did not have a name beginning with M, though her name has caused plenty of confusion! She is sometimes mistakenly called Eormenburg, has been sometimes called Æbbe, but she was actually Eafe, or Domne Eafe (Domneva), daughter of a Kentish king.

Domne Eafe had two brothers who were killed by their cousin. A famous story concerns how she demanded compensation from their killer, and duped him into giving her more land than he'd anticipated. On this land she founded an abbey, Minster-in-Thanet, and it is still home to a community of nuns to this day, and part of the original building survives.

Minster Abbey, showing Saxon stonework
(photo by kind permission of the community there)

Of her daughters, Mildgyth remains a shadowy figure, about whom we have no information beyond that she was buried somewhere in Northumbria; some have questioned whether she even existed.

We are on surer ground with the other two daughters. Mildrith, we are told, was sent abroad, to receive her education at the monastery at Chelles, in Frankia. The abbess attempted to force her into marriage with one of her kinsmen and, when Mildrith refused to acquiesce, she was put in a hot oven, but miraculously managed to escape. The abbess then beat her so viciously that her hair was torn out. Mildrith sent some of this hair to her mother as an SOS signal. Domne Eafe sent a rescue party, although Mildrith refused to leave until she had collected some holy relics from her room. The delay meant that they were pursued and were only successful in escaping because the tide turned. No doubt her mother was pleased to see her again; Mildrith entered Domne Eafe’s house at Minster-in-Thanet and eventually succeeded her as abbess. 

Tapestry owned by Minster Abbey, depicting the first three
abbesses, including Domneva and Mildrith

The remaining sister, Mildburg, became the second abbess of Wenlock, and many miracles were associated with her. 

An important document, the Testament of St Mildburg, speaks of land and gifts granted to her by her brothers, Merchelm and Mildfrith, although the language used suggests that they were her half-siblings (thus the assertion above that Merewalh married twice). In the Testament, Merchelm is styled rex but if he did, indeed, succeed his father as king of the Magonsæte the line stopped with him. Mildfrith was named regulus in a monumental inscription set up by Cuthbert, bishop of Hereford in the eighth century. Perhaps the brothers ruled jointly? The only other information we have of Mildfrith is a story concerning the murder of Æthelberht of East Anglia by Offa, king of Mercia. Apparently, upon hearing reports of miracles associated with the victim, Mildfrith founded a minster at Hereford. But Mildfrith must have been long dead by the time of this murder, which occurred in 794.The Testament does tell us though that his sister, or half-sister Mildburg, was still alive in 727, and possibly even in 736.

Plan of the later medieval buildings at Wenlock

Before she became abbess at Wenlock it had been under the auspices of the abbot of an East Anglian abbey and an abbess who came there from Chelles. As already mentioned, we know that Mildrith was educated at Chelles, and it is possible that Mildburg also spent some time there. A curious mix, then, produced a religious house in Mercia, on the Welsh border, founded initially by East Anglians and styled on Frankish models. 

It seems that Mildburg also had connections with Llanfillo, near Brecon; during the seventh century relations between the Mercians and the Welsh had been good – her grandfather Penda and Cadwallon of Gwynedd had fought as allies against the Northumbrians – so perhaps there is a possibility that Mildburg’s father Merewalh was indeed a Welshman, given land for service by Penda, or that perhaps he was Penda’s Welsh son-in-law, by dint of his first marriage, rather than his son. 

We don't know when, where or how Merewalh died (a date of around 680 has been suggested), and we have scanty information about his family, but his wife and daughters seem to have led eventful lives!

The name Magonsætan was mentioned as late at 1041, so it seems that some 'tribal' memory/identity remained centuries later.

You can read more about Merewalh and his family in my nonfiction books, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England. They also appear in my novel about Penda, Cometh the Hour, and feature prominently in the follow-up, The Sins of the Father. 

I've revisited the murder of Domneva's brothers in my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge