Æthelflæd (c. 870 AD-12 June 918) is a little known but remarkable and interesting historical figure. She was something of an Anglo-Saxon Joan of Arc during the dark days of the Danish invasions.
Æthelflæd was the oldest daughter of Alfred the Great. She was married to Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia in an effort to seal the merger of the remaining Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into, well, "Angleland"-now known as England . Æthelred was apparently sickly through much of his term and Æthelflæd appears to have been The Woman Behind the Man in Mercia and became the Unexpected Successor after her husband's death. In partnership with her brother Edward, King of Wessex, she led campaigns culminating in the Battle of Tettenhall which stopped the Danish advance and began the reconquest of the Danish territories.
She and Æthelred only had one daughter, Ælfwynn. She inherited the lordship of Mercia from her mother in 918, but was deposed by Edward after only six months on the throne. It is unknown what became of her afterwards.
Depictions in fiction:
- King Alfred's Daughter: The Lady of the Mercians by Marjory Grieser.
- Features heavily in Bernard Cornwell's series The Saxon Stories. Particularly in the later books, she is a strong ally to Uhtred. She frequently uses her support base and estates in Mercia to give him him resources and a degree of protection; she also uses her standing in Wessex (as first daughter and then the sister of the king) to give him political cover at court in Winchester. In the TV adaptation, The Last Kingdom, she is played by Millie Brady.
- The Edge On The Sword by Rebecca Tingle is told from a teenage Æthelflæd's perspective and deals with her journey to Mercia for her political marriage to Æthelred, which a Danish warlord attempts to interrupt.
- She shows up as a child in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, where protagonist Eivor (a Viking and an enemy of her father) helps a boy get a flower to woo her.
- The Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama "The Lady Of Mercia" depicts a heavily fictionalised version of Æthelflæd, her name tweaked to "Æthelfrid", during the final days of her life.
