Edward the Elder: Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians

by Andrew Staden

This is the second in a series of biographies of the kings of Wessex and England which started with Alfred the Great.Edward the Elder was the tenth-century king of the English from 899 till his death in 924. He was the son of one great king, Alfred, and the father of another, Æthelstan, and was a vital cog in the creation of England. In the second half of his reign he pushed out from his West Saxon base to the north and east and into the Danelaw. Simultaneously his sister, Æthelflæd, broke out from Mercia into the north and west, restoring Chester and Tamworth and building a string of burhs near the Wirral to prevent the Vikings of Ireland communicating with the Norse of York. Together brother and sister reclaimed southern England from Danes who had decimated the land in the latter half of the ninth century and taken control of most of the territory south of York. By the time he died in 924 Edward ruled all the land south of a line from Manchester to the Humber estuary. He was a significant element in the creation of England, which his sons and grandsons would go on to form in the later tenth century.This biography of Edward is also a biography of Æthelflæd, known as the Lady of the Mercians.

258 pages, Paperback

Published June 11, 2019