Thursday 8 March 2012

Staffordshire's greatest woman?


International Women’s Day - Ethelflaeda comes to mind. I guess, if you had to nominate Staffordshire’s greatest woman leader, you’d have to think of Ethelflaeda, who was the Anglo-Saxon queen of the kingdom of Mercia (whose core was here in Staffordshire) over 1100 years ago.

She was King Alfred’s warrior daughter, built the original Tamworth Castle, and was conqueror of both the Danes and the Welsh.
She only died after having made it possible for her young nephew Athelstan (seen here with his aunt in this statue outside the castle), who was brought up at her court, to acclaim himself King of All Britain. 

The story is that she also was the originator of the very idea of a Staffordshire.

Celebrations for International Women’s Day (which is today, March 8th) are an annual feature of life at the local university, Keele.
Link: Keele University - Women's Day Celebrations

2 comments:

  1. Wow! She was one tough lady! I like you photo of her statue and the story about her.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I loved history at school and had forgotten about her role in the life of Athelstan. Interesting to note that her daughter ended her days in a nunnery.

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