The Book Bandit's Library : Read an excerpt from The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England by MJ Porter

The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England

By MJ Porter

Publication Date: 30th January 2024
hardback UK/epub direct from the publisher/4th April 2024 US and kindle edition. Publisher: Pen and Sword. Page Length: 237 Pages. Genre: Historical Non-Fiction

Throughout the tenth century, England, as it would be recognized today, formed. No longer many Saxon kingdoms, but rather, just England. Yet, this development masks much in the century in which the Viking raiders were seemingly driven from England’s shores by Alfred, his children and grandchildren, only to return during the reign of his great, great-grandson, the much-maligned Æthelred II.

Not one but two kings would be murdered, others would die at a young age, and a child would be named king on four occasions. Two kings would never marry, and a third would be forcefully divorced from his wife. Yet, the development towards ‘England’ did not stop. At no point did it truly fracture back into its constituent parts. Who then ensured this stability? To whom did the witan turn when kings died, and children were raised to the kingship?

The royal woman of the House of Wessex came into prominence during the century, perhaps the most well-known being Æthelflæd, daughter of King Alfred. Perhaps the most maligned being Ælfthryth (Elfrida), accused of murdering her stepson to clear the path to the kingdom for her son, Æthelred II, but there were many more women, rich and powerful in their own right, where their names and landholdings can be traced in the scant historical record.

Using contemporary source material, The Royal Women Who Made England can be plucked from the obscurity that has seen their names and deeds lost, even within a generation of their own lives.

Excerpt

Eadgifu, the third wife of King Edward the Elder

Eadgifu lived a long life, unlike many of the kings of Wessex and then England that she would have known throughout her life. It is said that Eadgifu was the daughter of ealdorman, Sigehelm of Kent, who must have died either not long after her birth or even just before it at the devastating Battle of the Holme in 902/3, when Edward fought for his kingship against a coalition of his disgruntled cousin, Æthelwold, and the Danes.

There is much about Eadgifu that is unknown. But what can be envisaged is this – throughout the middle years of the often-overlooked Wessex/English kings. She ‘almost’ embodies, as an individual, the years that are so rarely studied – those from the death of King Alfred in 899 to the beginning of the reign of the much-maligned King Æthelred II, her great-grandson.

It would seem that Eadgifu may have been more important during the reign of [her youngest son] Eadred, than even during the reign of [her oldest son] Edmund. This is worth considering in more detail. Eadred did not marry, like [his half-brother] Athelstan, and unlike his older brother, Edmund. Was this a purposeful decision? As Athelstan before him, did Eadred intend his nephews to rule after him? If this were the case, then Eadgifu, as both mother of the king and grandmother of future kings, would have been a much-needed steadying force, especially after the unexpected murder of King Edmund in 946.

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MJ Porter

MJ Porter is the author of over fifty fiction titles set in Saxon England and the era before the tumultuous events of 1066. Raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a young age that it housed the long-dead bones of Saxon kings, it’s little wonder that the study of the era was undertaken at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Royal Women of the Tenth Century is a first non-fiction title. It explores the ‘lost’ women of this period through the surviving contemporary source material. It stemmed from a frustration with how difficult it was to find a single volume dedicated to these ‘lost’ women and hopes to make it much easier for others to understand the prestige, wealth and influence of the women of the royal House of Wessex.

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