Æthelflæd ~ Lady of the Mercians

Æthelflæd, the daughter of Alfred the Great, also known as the Lady of the Merciansis was a ruler in Britain who led her people against Viking raids and was pivotal in the unification of England in the late ninth century. She is a noted leader in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Æthelflæd was born in 870, a time when Viking invasions were at their height. By 878, East Anglia and Northumbria were conquered and most of England was living under Danish Viking rule.

Æthelflæd married Æthelred, lord of the Mercians on the request of her father in an effort to cement a strategic alliance between the surviving English kingdoms. When Æthelred died she became the sole ruler of Mercia. This is significant as she would be the only Queen in a Kingdom of England to be an unchallenged ruler in her own right until the 16th century. Ordinarily queens do not rule when Kings die, and this was not adopted as a norm after Æthelflæd's passing.