Aethelflaed the daughter of King Alfred The Great was born in 872 and when old enough in 889 was married to Earldorman Aethelred of the Anglo Saxon part of Mercia. A friend of her fathers, Aethelred although not a king ruled the kingdom with Alfred’s consent from 883 and when Alfred captured and fortified London in 886 it was handed into Aethelred’s keeping.
Alfred the great died in the October of 899 and his son Edward (the elder) took over, he was crown king in June 900 at Kingston on Thames. His cousin Aethelwold disputed his claim to the throne and seized Wimbourne and Christchurch, but when faced by Edward’s army fled north and was declared king by the Danes of Northumbria. In 901 Aethelwold returned at the head of a Danish fleet and the following year expanded his army by persuading the Danes of East Anglia to join him.
With his hands full elsewhere in the kingdom Edward relied heavily on his formidable sister Aethelflaed and her husband Aethelred to keep Mercia safe from the inroads of the Norse and the Danes.
In 907 with her husband ill, Aethelflaed proved that she was her fathers daughter by seeing to the defence of Chester against the Norse army led by Ingimunds. She also expanded her father’s programme of fortified Burh building into Mercia and in 910 erected a stronghold at Bremesbyrig. (These fortified Burhs in time would become the Boroughs of today.)
909AD The Mercian forces of Aethelred and Aethelflaed allied with King Edwards army began a five week campaign agaist Linsey (Island of Lincoln) and wrested the relics of St Oswald from the hands of the Danes.
910AD The Danes Invaded the heart of Mercia in retaliation, and were brought to battle, and defeated, by Aethelred and Aethelflaed's army at a place called Tettenhall.
Aethelflaed’s husband Aethelred died in 911, possibly from wounds received the previous year at the battle of Tettenhall. From then on she ruled alone and continued to strengthen Mercia’s defences by building burhs in strategic locations. In 912 she built fortresses at Scergeat and Bridgenorth, then the following year at Tamworth and Stratford. These were quickly followed by Eddisbury and Warwick in 914 and then a further three in 915, Chirbury, Weardbyrig and Runcorn.
In the June of 916AD Abbot Ecgberht died at the hands of the Welsh and within three days ‘The Lady of the Mercians’ as Aethelfaed was now known, despatched her army into Wales and captured the wife of Brycheiniog and thirty three others. In 917 Aethelflaed conquered Derby and in the following year the army at Leicester submitted to her.
In 917AD Aethelflaed marched with her army and captured the Viking stronghold of Derby.
Athelflaed also formed an alliance with the Scots and the Britons of Strathclyde in a bid to conteract the threat posed by the Viking warlord Ragnall and in 919 sent a contingent of Mercian warriors to assist her allies at the Battle of Corbridge.
Aethelfaed, a true warrior queen, died at Tamworth twelve days before summer 918 and was buried in St Peters church in Gloucester.
After Aethelflaed's death, her daughter, Aelfwyn was confirmed as her successor. King Edward however, seeing her as a threat to the unity of the kingdom, had her seized after only a year in power, taken into Wessex and placed in a nunnery.
