#Edward the Elder

[lord-aldhelm]

Instagram Guide from James Northcote's Instagram.

This guide has been deleted so I am so glad I saved these.

[offbeat03]

Full design of Edward, really happy how he turns out ^^

[blanketp1ask]

Edward!!

Ugh I need a break /nm

[wonder-worker]

"Despite her indisputable agency and successes as ruler of the Mercians, the title of ‘queen’ eluded Aethelflaed. [...] Her feats were adjudged by Irish, Welsh, and Anglo-Norman chroniclers as worthy of the title, but in contemporary West Saxon and Mercian sources Aethelflaed is known as the ‘Lady of the Mercians’. This title was not an indictment of her merits, but rather a reflection of Mercia’s relative status within the context of West Saxon hegemonic expansion. […] To all intents and purposes, every indication within contemporary West Saxon and Mercian sources is that Aethelflaed was not viewed as a queen, that her subordination to her brother [Edward the Elder of Wessex] was well known, despite her having garnered immense authority as the Lady of the Mercians."

-Matthew Firth, "Early English Queenship, 850-1000: Potestas Reginae"

Aethelflaed's role as co-ruler in the tenth century [...] takes on an element of pragmatism. There was no male heir to the rulership of Mercia, and presumably no prospect of this given either Aethelflaed's abstinence or Aethelred's illness. In turn, their daughter Aelfwynn would only have been around 12 years old at the turn of the tenth century, thus representing no reasonable alternative to her father’s rule. For Edward, annexation of Mercia was not a resolution to this problem, especially with Aethelred still alive, no matter his physical condition. This would have risked rebellion in Mercia and conflict between the two kingdoms, which would have rendered both vulnerable and jeopardised the gains that had been made against the Danes in preceding decades. For Aethelred and Edward, Aethelflaed's promotion to co-ruler served a useful political artifice. It maintained the status quo, giving the semblance of Aethelred's continued involvement in governance, even if those powers in practice devolved to Aethelflaed. This then avoided any potential power vacuum developing during Aethelred's convalescence, it placed an individual with personal loyalty to both rulers at the head of Mercian government, and it ensured a succession tolerable to both Edward and the Mercian elites in the case of Aethelred's death. In short, Aethelflaed's rise to power preserved political stability. It remains, however, that in all extant diplomatic evidence for the couple’s rule prior to 911, this was formalised as co-rule and a tradition of this, as codified in Aethelred and Aethelflaed's charters, entered subsequent cultural memory.

Although Aethelflaed was well positioned to take over governance of Mercia upon Aethelred death, this did not mean that the Mercian ruler’s passing went unnoticed in Wessex. Aethelred's death represented a shift in the West Saxon–Mercian political dynamic, and Edward was poised to take advantage. According to the Chronicle, he immediately moved on Mercia’s southern borders, seizing London and Oxford and their surrounding lands. Yet there is no indication that this was an act of aggression directed at Aethelflaed herself, and it may be that this annexation represented some agreement between the siblings. The Register characterises Aethelflaed's period of sole rule as one of great activity, defined by remarkable outward-facing political and military agency. Aethelflaed goes on to build further burhs in the north and east of Mercia, annex key Danelaw burhs, and even arrange an incursion into Wales. However, she is never shown to be active in Mercia’s south. The implication is that the West Saxon–Mercian hinterland was stable, and sovereignty settled, so long as the siblings ruled over the two kingdoms. This allowed both Edward and Aethelflaed to turn their attentions to the project of extending their hegemony into those territories that had been claimed by the Heathen Army at the end of the ninth century.

[...] For all her independence in ruling Mercia, any doubt that Aethelflaed was, at least on a performative level, subject to her brother’s authority, should be put aside on review of the numismatic evidence. No coins were issued in either Aethelred or Aethelflaed's name. Those Mercian coin designs likely to derive from their reigns are remarkable for their distinctiveness – a symbolism undoubtedly imbued with meaning for a Mercian audience – but they bear the inscription Eaduueard rex: King Edward.

[...] However, whatever political or cultural considerations lay behind the Register’s decision to characterise Aethelflaed as Lady of the Mercians, rather than as their queen, was clearly absent from external sources. The histories and chronicles of societies separated from tenth-century England by time or place (or both) demonstrate no such reservations. While few sources purport to record the perspectives of Scandinavian settlers to Mercia’s east, no less their experiences of the Lady of the Mercians, Welsh and Irish sources provide valuable insights. In reporting her death in its entry for 918, Annales Cambriae names her Queen Aethelflaed (Edelflet regina), as does Brut y Tywysogion (Edelffleda vrenhines). This prominence is yet more pronounced in the Irish annals. In noting her passing, the Annals of Ulster declare her to have been famosissima regina Saxonum (the most famous queen of the Saxons). The claim that she was queen of the Saxons, rather than just Mercia, is also reflected in Brut y Tywysogion, as well as in Fragmentary Annals. In this latter, of course, she features more prominently than the simple recording of her death in the other Welsh and Irish chronicles. Fragmentary Annals names her as queen around eight times, identifying her as ‘Queen of the Saxons’ (rioghan Saxan) to Aethelred's ‘King of the Saxons’ (righ Saxan). All four texts are, as noted, later compositions or collations, and thus not necessarily contemporary to Aethelflaed's queenship. Nonetheless, they give some insight into the cultural memory of Aethelflaed's rule in Mercia and the perceptions of it held by her western neighbours.

It may also be that Aethelflaed's legacy simply grew in the telling. And here we come full circle to Henry of Huntingdon’s panegyric. William of Malmesbury does not accord Aethelflaed the title of queen, nor does John of Worcester. Geffrei Gaimar introduces Aethelred as king of the Mercians and later asserts that Aethelflaed was the rightful heir to his kingdom, but she herself is never named queen. Henry is, in contrast, refreshingly direct. While his prose closely follows the Register, and so titles Aethelflaed Lady of the Mercians, his verse is unambiguous. Aethelflaed was regina potens rexque trophea parans (a mighty queen and a victory-winning king). There is, of course, no evidence for Aethelflaed's ceremonial endowment as queen, quite the opposite in fact. But, to borrow from Stafford again, medieval authors ‘knew a queen when they saw one’, and in Aethelflaed, Henry of Huntingdon clearly saw a queen in action. So too did Welsh and Irish chroniclers who compiled their various annals around the same time as Henry. Perhaps then, the ideals of queenship had shifted into the twelfth century and beyond, and so Aethelflaed was more readily recognisable as a queen by later historians. More likely, however, is that the political impetus that saw her modelled as the ‘Lady of the Mercians’ had died alongside the West Saxon dynasty in 1066.

[...] Aethelflaed's political trajectory was remarkable among pre-Norman royal women. She ruled Mercia as its queen in practice, if not in name, for seven years, exercising singular military and political agency. She achieved political stability within her realm, secured its defensive capabilities, reconquered lost territories, and expanded Mercian hegemony to the north, east, and west. There is little wonder that the Lady of the Mercians stood out to later generations of historians, that she attracted their admiration and praise, and that they claimed for her the title that she had been denied in her own lifetime: queen.

[bforbetterthanyou]

[cheapcakeripper]

The Last Kingdom 1x02 vs The Last Kingdom 5x03 Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder Parallel

[kingsroad]

Edward the Elder of The Last Kingdom. ⌜ 2 - ∞ ⸥

[starmaniswaiting]

babygirlism really does run in the family huh

[a13xaandra]

Guys it’s hot as hell. Apollo needs to chill out Fr Fr.

Anyway here are gay trains (again mixed with tv girl because I am hallucinating)

[docpiplup]

The Bastard Kings and their families

This is series of posts are complementary to this historical parallels post from the JON SNOW FORTNIGHT EVENT, and it's purpouse to discover the lives of medieval bastard kings, and the following posts are meant to collect portraits of those kings and their close relatives.

In many cases it's difficult to find contemporary art of their period, so some of the portrayals are subsequent.

1) Aethelstan I of England (894 – 939), son of Edward the Elder and his wife Ecgwynn

2) Edward the Elder (c. 874 –924), son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith

3) Æthelflæd of Mercia (c. 870 – 918), daughter of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith

4) Eadgifu of Wessex (? - c. 951), daughter of Edward the Elder and his wife Ælfflæd; and her son with Charles III of France, Louis IV of France (920/921 – 954)

5) Edmund I of England (920/921 – 946), son of Edward the Elder and his wife Eadgifu of Kent

6) Eadwig I "All-Fair" of England (c. 940 – 959), son of Edmund I of England and his wife Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury

7) Edgar I of England (944 – 975), son of Edmund I of England and his wife Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury

8) Eadred I of England (c. 923 – 955), son of Edward the Elder and his wife Eadgifu of Kent

9) Eadburh of Winchester (921/924-951/953), daughter of Edward the Elder and his wife Eadgifu of Kent

10) Eadgyth of England (910–946), daughter of Edward the Elder and his wife Ælfflæd

[lord-aldhelm]

August 1, 2022 Behind the scenes video during the filming of The Last Kingdom season 5. Filmed by James Northcote and posted by Eliza Butterworth on Instagram.

[aethelflaedel]

top five characters I'm not normal about at the moment:

1) billy butcher AND hughie. it has to be both

2) edward tlk. he's my son AND he's my pathetic little loser. he's my husband AND he's my divorced wife

3) sansa & alicent. they are so me

4) all of the green kids

AND FINALLY

5) not a character actually, but richard ii. there's just something about him and how he was crowned so young and turned out like...that

[silentsihtric]

Killed my boy Edward offscreen 😔 I wanted to see his rage as he died - I know that man did not go out peacefully

[ragnaarson]

you forget. i am king and wield power like a king. an indie headcanon & show based portrayal of edward the elder. by e.

graphic resources: template. psd.

[coloursofunison]

On the 1100th anniversary of the death of King Ælfweard of Wessex

On the 1100th anniversary of the death of King Ælfweard of Wessex #nonfiction #histfic #onthisdayinhistory #Brunanburh #Kingmaker

The death of King Ælfweard of Wessex, 2nd August 924 Today sees the 1100th anniversary of the death of King Ælfweard of Wessex, a king most people have never heard of as his reign was just sixteen days in summer 924, and we know almost nothing about him. (According to one source, the Textus Roffensis he is credited with a reign of 4 weeks, which would have made him king before his father’s…

[cheapcakeripper]