#wessex and mercia

[ancestorsalive]

Photo: Statue of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, who passed away in 918. Her nephew Aethelstan, future king of all England, looks up at her.

"Aethelflaed was one of three daughters of Alfred the Great, and her name meant "noble beauty". She married Aethelraed of Mercia at some point during the 880s and while this union meant a strong alliance between Wessex and Mercia the pair embarked on a "Mercian revival" with the city of Worcester at its centre.

When Aethelraed died in 911 after years of ill-health Aethelflaed remained as Lady of Mercia and held this position until her death, making her the only female ruler of a kingdom during the entire Anglo-Saxon era. The only compromise she made was to agree to her brother Edward, now king of Wessex, taking some of Mercia's southern lands under his control.

Their father Alfred the Great had fortified dozens of Wessex towns as "burhs" and Edward continued this work, connecting his burhs with those in Mercia to represent a united front against viking incursions, and it wasn't long before this was put to the test.

A force of vikings, pushed out of Ireland, landed in the mouth of the Dee after unsuccessfully trying to take land in Wales, and asked Aethelflaed if they could settle for a time outside the old Roman walled town of Chester. Permission was granted but the Norsemen raided and robbed the area at will so Aethelflaed led a force to shut them down. She had Chester fortified and waited for the inevitable viking attack, it came and was repulsed, the Scandinavian chancers sent packing in complete disarray.

This same Norse army was brought to battle at Tettenhall near Wolverhampton where Aethelflaed's forces destroyed them. The writing was now on the wall - the vikings had to go. Together with Edward she raided deep into Danelaw territory on a mission to rescue the bones of St Oswald - who had been killed and ritually dismembered by the pagan king of Mercia Penda - from a church in Lincolnshire then brought the relics down to Gloucestershire where a new church was built to house them...more on that presently.

The burhs continued to be built, and the Dane strongholds fell as Aethelflaed campaigned hard against them. Her forces defeated three Norse armies before finally taking the city of Derby, then Leicester, before the Danes of York came to her to pledge their loyalty. The vikings in Anglia capitulated to Edward and so all of England south of Northumbria was now back under Anglo-Saxon rule.

Aethelflaed died at Tamworth in 918 and so will be forever associated with the town, but she was carried down to Gloucestershire to be buried in the church she had built for St Oswald. Unfortunately the monastery there fell into decline over the centuries, was dissolved in 1536, then almost completely destroyed during the English Civil War. Nobody knows where Aethelflaed's resting place is now, but the ruins of St Oswalds are as good a place as any as a pilgrimage destination for those wishing to follow in the footsteps of the Lady of Mercia." - Source: Hugh Williams via Medieval England on FB.

Photo: Statue of Aethelflaed and Aethelstan at Tamworth Castle, by EG Bramwell, unveiled in 1913.

[lady-wyrd]

The Last Kingdom 3x01

[dailytlk]

THE LAST KINGDOM 2x07 / 32 days left

[theancientwise]

William the Conqueror conquers England and becomes its king...

Rollo, Gisla and Charles in the afterlife...

Ecbert and Ragnar...

Aethelwulf, Kwenthrith and Aelle...

Eh, my dear Ecbert and Ragnar... what goes around, comes around.

[inhistorysfootsteps]

aldhelm and aethelflaed have a dynamic that is SO interesting to me

[cheapcakeripper]

If there's one thing TLK and VV can agree on...

[anragaire]

Aldhelm babe, don't worry, Mercia's legacy is literally the Rohirrim so who has the biggest W in the end really

[caricatureblue]

FINALLY

the united heptarchy origins comic <3

the Anglo-Saxon kids, coming together to save their own lives- little Wessex won’t be the last one standing anymore! Now the world has a whole handful of idiot kids to deal with

Sorry guys lmao

[jasmineslonghair]

Chapters: 6/? Fandom: The Last Kingdom (TV) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sihtric (The Last Kingdom)/Original Character(s), Sihtric (The Last Kingdom)/Original Female Character(s) Characters: Sihtric (The Last Kingdom), Finan (The Last Kingdom), Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Osferth (c. 885-934), Alfred the Great (849-899), Aethelflaed Lady of Mercia, Original Female Character(s), Gisela (The Last Kingdom), Hild (The Last Kingdom) Additional Tags: dane - Freeform, Saxon - Freeform, Religious Guilt, Maybe - Freeform, Smut, Angst, Comfort, Period-Typical Sexism, mercia, Wessex - Freeform, Adorable Sihtric (The Last Kingdom), Sihtric Needs a Hug (The Last Kingdom), this is just to fulfil my need for Sihtric, Aethelwold is warning of its own, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

"Quiet and unseen", that was Verena's inner motto. The lands of Wessex were a peaceful one...well more peaceful than other lands she lived in. In a rare streak of kindness the Lady Aelswith took her in to train to become her daughter, Aethelflaed's personal lady's maid but the two girls found friendship and eventually the loyalty of this friendship and how deep it ran is tested when a certain Dane boy catches her eye. And now all Verena wants to do is follow her heart.

oc female x sihtric (season 2 - season 5)

 I DO NOT OWN 'The Last Kingdom' all right are reserved to BBC and Netflix.

cross posted on Wattpad

[barbiegirldream]

Holy shit I’ve heard of crusader kings but I didn’t know it was that detailed! Do you control the characters like a point and click game?

it's like basically you have a character who's a ruler small as a county or large as an empire. anywhere from iceland to north africa to india. And you get married have kids. Get murdered try to murder people. Wage wars. Etc etc. Once you die you move on to your heir. You can fiddle with lots of settings and make like gayness totally possible everywhere in 800 AD whatever you want. They throw in historical stuff and let you go ahistorical. Right now I'm going a what if Alfred the Great's older brother never died young without an heir and he never gained control of Wessex playthrough.

I recommend checking out a gameplay video to get a better sense.

[mirdaniaa]

5 - aelswith & eardwulf

When Eadith and Eardwulf first come to Winchester, Aelswith is sure that Eardwulf will never warm up to her. She cannot blame him. He has lost his home, his inheritance, and now his father and the closest thing he had to a mother. All he has left is his sister, and even then, he has to share her with Aelswith.

Eadith adores Aelswith almost as much as Aelswith adores her. She has missed having a little girl to dote on, and Eadith, still so tender from the loss of her home and her parents, clings to every single one of Aelswith’s affections, allowing the woman who is both nothing like her real mother and yet everything like her to dress her and comb her hair and fill her with sweets.

Eardwulf trails behind them, sullen and silent.

They are passing through the courtyard, Eadith buzzing around her skirts and Eardwulf trailing behind as always, when Aethelwold slithers out of whatever hole Alfred has banished him to. He smiles unpleasantly at Aelswith, who can feel her happy afternoon melting away.

“Are these children yours, Aunt?” he asks impishly; and then, before she can answer, “Or are they more of my uncle’s bastards?”

Her spine turns to ice as Aethelwold saunters past her, that ugly grin still wide on his face. Her legs stop working, and it is all she can do not to fall to her knees. How dare he? How dare he?

She feels something in her hand, and when she looks down, she sees Eardwulf pressing daisies into her palm, curling her fingers so that she’s holding them by the stem. He slips his hand into her other hand and looks up at her with his wide, solemn eyes.

She smiles, blinking back tears. “Thank you, Eardwulf.”

His smile says more than words ever can.

[thenobleone]

Sabía que los cotilleos y chismes se habían extendido desde la posesión de Aethelflaed sobre Mercia. El rey se había mantenido unánime, sin juicios ni altercados; aunque por su cuenta debía notarse su posición. Dejándose llevar por la supuesta presión, se dispuso a visitar la tierra de su hija, o mejor dicho, de la lady de Mercia. Vería por su cuenta cómo lo hacía.

⚔️ @sweetquccn

[dailytlk]

THE LAST KINGDOM 2x03 / 36 days left

[doueverwonder]

Thinking about my Anglo-Saxon kingdom oc’s again and particularly their relationships with religion

like for Wessex when they were Germanic pagan my guy did bare minimum. Did not care, could be 2 seconds away from actual death and wouldn’t ask for help. But when he converted to Christianity, oh boy, my guy turned into the most annoyingly religious person you’ve ever met.

Mercia was the opposite. When they were Germanic Pagan she was all in, Wōden was her guy. But when they converted to Christianity she just didn’t care anymore, bare minimum, never heard of Catholic guilt; high key tried to talk her way out of some things by looking at Denmark and going “yknow I’ve never been into this Christian God either-“

[abeautifulblog]

I've been down a rabbithole on 9th century Anglo-Scandinavian history for the past six months, and all of this is so unbelievably accurate. 😂

And then for bonus points, ask yourself:

Why is this author so invested in making King Blorbo look good?

(The answer is usually that they're a nationalist, engaged in the project of constructing a glorious national history.)

Or, why does this author have inexplicable beef with King Blorbo?

(Could be that they're from a culture King Blorbo colonized and terorrized, and they're rightfully fed up of hearing about how cool he was; could be that King Blorbo is the one about to get colonized, and this author is priming you to feel that he had it coming.)

But, you might be saying, King Blorbo died 1100 years ago! Why does it matter whether he was good or bad? Who cares if some historian is doing some shady scholarship to retroactively polish (or tank) his reputation?

Welll, because if they get their version of history entrenched in the cultural consciousness, that is going to shape how we understand the world around us, and how we deal with the current issues that are a direct legacy of that history. That's how you get Victorian scholars cherry-picking Anglo Saxon history to build a myth of British exceptionalism, to justify British imperialism, and American right-wing personalities canonizing Lincoln and the Founding Fathers for the same damn reasons.

History isn't dead, and whenever an author clearly wants you to feel a certain way about King Blorbo, good or bad, you should be asking why it matters to them, and what the implications are if you do.

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

[vryivs]

even a tiny island like the UK used to be multiple separate countries