Family tree Bas » Aethelflaed van Wessex (869-918)

Personal data Aethelflaed van Wessex 

• She was born in the year 869.
• (Levens event) .Source 1

  Æthelflæd (who was also called the Lady of the Mercians) was the eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his queen, Ealhswith. Æthelflæd was born at the height of the Viking invasions of England. Her father married her to Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia and after his death in 911 she ruled Mercia, until her own death in 918. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle referred to her as the Myrcna hlæfdige, or 'Lady of the Mercians'.
  
  Contents
  Family and marriage
  
  Æthelflæd is mentioned by Alfred's biographer Asser, who calls her the first-born child of Alfred and Ealhswith and a sister to Edward, Æthelgifu, Ælfthryth and Æthelweard. [1] By the time he wrote, roughly about the year 890, she was already married to Æthelred, then ealdorman of Mercia.[2] Æthelred and Æthelflæd are recorded as having had one daughter, Ælfwynn. Æthelstan, the son of Edward the Elder and the grandson of Alfred, was brought up in their court.[3]
  
  Near the end of the reign of Alfred the Great, Æthelred and Æthelflæd were requested by Werferth, the Bishop of Worcester, to fortify the town, in return for which they shared the rents and other profits which had belonged to the bishop.[4]
  Lady of the Mercians
  
  Æthelflæd is known to have established garrisons in Hereford and Gloucester before 914 and to have repaired the old walls of Chester in 907.[5] In 910, she built her first fortress, whilst her husband took no part in the campaign against the Danes, leading some scholars to suggest that she was the real leader of the Mercian people.
  
  On her husband's death in 911 after the Battle of Tettenhall, she was recognised as the 'Lady of the Mercians'. This title was not a nominal position; Æthelflæd was a formidable military leader and tactician and ruled for eight years.[6] Upon succeeding her husband, she began to plan and build a series of fortresses in English Mercia, ten of which can be identified: Bridgnorth (912); Tamworth (913); Stafford (913); Eddisbury (914); Warwick (914); Chirbury (915); Runcorn (915). Three other fortresses, at Bremesburh, Scergeat and Weardbyrig, have yet to be located.[7]
  
  Æthelflæd allied herself to her brother Edward the Elder. The historian Sir Frank Stenton described Edward's ability to rely on Æthelflæd during this period as the reason why he was able to achieve "the outstanding feature of his reign", the move against the occupying Danes in the south of England.[8]
  
  In 916, she led an expedition into Wales to avenge the murder of a Mercian abbot and succeeded in capturing the wife of the king of Brycheiniog.[9] Edward the Elder issued coinage with novel reverses of extraordinary designs and it is speculated[by whom?] that this series of coinage was for circulation in that part of Mercia under the rule of Edward and his sister, with the design of the coinage perhaps showing the influence of Æthelflæd.
  Death and legacy
  A statue of Æthelflæd in Tamworth
  
  In 918, the people of the region around York promised to pledge their loyalty to Æthelflæd, probably in order to secure her support against Norse raiders from Ireland, but she died on June 12 918, less than two weeks before the city was able to pay homage to her.[10]
  
  She died at Tamworth, Staffordshire in 918 and was buried at St Peter's Church (now St Oswald's Priory) in Gloucester, a city she had reconstructed from Roman ruins, and laid out the core street plan, which is still in existence today. She was succeeded as Lady of the Mercians by her young daughter, Ælfwynn.
  
  Æthelflæd is a featured figure on Judy Chicago's installation piece The Dinner Party, being represented as one of the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.[11] A statue dedicated to her stands outside Tamworth Castle.
  
  She is also an important figure in The Saxon Stories of Bernard Cornwell, especially from Sword Song on.

• She died on June 12, 918, she was 49 years old.
• A child of Alfred "De Grote" van Wessex and Alswitha Ealswith
• This information was last updated on January 28, 2013.

Household of Aethelflaed van Wessex

She is married to Aethelred II van Mercia.

They got married in the year 889, she was 20 years old.

Child(ren):

1. Aelfwynn van Mercia  888-938 

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Timeline Aethelflaed van Wessex

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