Aethelflaed: who was the warrior queen who crushed the Vikings?

On August 5, 910, the last major Viking army to raid England was defeated at the Battle of Tettenhall by the allied forces of Mercia and Wessex, led by King Edward and his sister Aethelflaed, wife of Lord Aethelred.

"There are only a handful of warrior women from the past who have captured imaginations for centuries. The most famous are Boudicca, her chariot complete with spiked wheels, and the armoured teenager, Joan of Arc. These were the exceptions – women in a man’s world who men followed into battle.

But there is one warrior woman who is less celebrated. Eleven centuries ago, Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, died and was buried in Gloucester. She was exceptional for many reasons. She is one of the few known women who not only held a role within the household as mother and lady – and within the court, as daughter and wife to kings – but also wielded power on the battlefield.

What’s more, she is the only queen in English history to have passed her reign directly to her daughter. She is a medieval marvel, but she has been overshadowed by the men who surrounded her in life – her father, Alfred the Great; her husband, Æthelred of Mercia (a kingdom in what is now central England); and her ultimate successor, her nephew, Æthelstan, ‘the king of the whole of Britain’. Yet Michael Wood has argued that “without her England might never have happened”.

Æthelflæd is one of the few known women who not only held a role within the household as mother and lady, but also wielded power on the battlefield
In the 12th century, the historian Henry of Huntingdon declared Æthelflæd to be “so powerful that in praise and exaltation of her wonderful gifts, some call her not only lady, but even king”. He praised her as “worthy of a man’s name” and “more illustrious than Caesar”. So why do we not know more about the Lady of the Mercians, and is it finally her time to shine?

Æthelflæd’s early life
It is difficult to know when Æthelflæd was born. Her parents were married in AD 868 and she is thought to have been their first-born child. The time at which she came screaming into the world was one of turmoil. Just three years earlier, a Great Viking Army had launched a massive assault on East Anglia. Then, over more than a decade, a coalition of Norse warriors took land in all the major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms – except Wessex, which had so far managed to defy them.

The Vikings’ purpose was to conquer the kingdoms completely, yet the battle of Edington in 878 stemmed the tide and a tentative alliance was drawn up, splitting the country in two between English-ruled territory and lands administered by the Danes (the Danelaw). It was on to this tumultuous stage that Æthelflæd stepped.

There is little information on her childhood, and she first appears in the historical record as a fully grown adult. By this time she is married to Æthelred of Mercia. She is mentioned in Alfred’s will, where he leaves her an estate plus 100 pounds, while her husband is bequeathed a precious sword.

As a wife, however, Æthelflæd’s story is all too familiar in terms of royal dynastic marriages. Daughter of the king of Wessex and his wife (a Mercian noble, possibly royal, woman), Æthelflæd was a precious commodity. Her marriage to the much older Æthelred, who had served Alfred as a loyal lieutenant, bound together the English-speaking kingdoms of Wessex and the newly reclaimed Mercia. Theirs was an entirely political union, designed to strengthen the two kingdoms against Danish and Norwegian incursions in the north. She could have faded from the records at this point, content to support her husband within the court and bear him many offspring.

Yet Æthelflæd wasn’t about to be overshadowed by her husband. Instead, records report that she was signing diplomatic documents and presiding over provincial courts in place of Æthelred. As he became increasingly ill she assumed more of his responsibilities, including arranging diplomatic agreements and refurbishing many of the towns. Concerned by the relocation of Viking settlers from the Irish coast to the north-west, Æthelflæd made two plans: on the one hand, she offered land for the Vikings to settle in the Wirral, and on the other instructed that the ancient Roman city of Chester be refortified in case they decided to press southwards into Mercia.

Æthelflæd went on to secure some of the most significant victories in battle of the early 10th century
Her caution was rewarded when in that same year, 907, the Wirral Vikings attacked Chester but failed to breach its walls. Æthelflæd’s reputation as a canny ruler extended, not only through the English-speaking world, but over the waters, reaching the ears of her Viking foes. She was developing a name as a keen diplomat, an engaged ruler and a military strategist."