Vulgar History - Women Leaders, part 4： Killing Vikings With Murder Bees (Rerelease)

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history the feminist women's history comedy podcast

00:00:14.740 my name is ann foster and what you are about to hear is a re-release of an episode that first came

00:00:19.980 out in uh on march 17th 2020 so just to put you in a time and a place that was the week that a lot

00:00:29.180 of us left our office jobs thinking we would be home for a few weeks. And then that turned into

00:00:34.720 a few years and everything got, you know, COVID times of four years ago. So I'm sure you're going

00:00:43.040 to hear me mention some stuff about that in the episode. And just so you know, that's the context

00:00:47.960 of me recording that. But also this is part of season, I want to say two, season two of Vulgar

00:00:54.900 history from 2020. So Vulgar History recently celebrated our five-year anniversary because we

00:00:59.580 started in November of 2019. And season two was the first season where I had a theme. And the

00:01:06.280 theme of this season was women leaders in history and the men who like to whine about them. And yeah, 0.99

00:01:12.180 so Ethelflaid, Lady of the Merchins. I mean, it's an iconic story. I don't want to spoil anything

00:01:16.860 of it if you haven't heard it in a while or you've never heard it before. But she is somebody who I

00:01:21.540 think is well worth remembering when we're talking about great women leaders from from

00:01:26.100 oldie times i think part of why she's not super remembered a lot is the fact that her name is

00:01:32.520 spelled like that and this period of um british history i'll say british meaning just kind of

00:01:39.820 like the whole island that is now great britain it's not remembered a lot because it's like after

00:01:45.900 the Romans were there, but it's like before kind of medieval times that we think about were

00:01:52.240 happening with like all the King Henrys, et cetera. Anyway, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Merchants. This

00:01:58.540 is a throwback episode, a much younger me from four years ago, not knowing what COVID times are

00:02:05.480 going to be like. But again, that's not what the episode's about. Just so you know the context of

00:02:09.660 some of the remarks that I might make during this episode. And you know what? Enjoy.

00:02:15.900 hello my name is ann foster and you are listening to the vulgar history podcast this is a feminist

00:02:23.700 women's history comedy podcast and this is season two the season's theme is women leaders in history

00:02:30.300 and the men who whined about it and thus far we've been looking at basically women who roman men

00:02:37.520 got angry at for being cool and women who also killed a lot of people but the people they killed 0.64

00:02:45.540 it's sort of like everyone was killing everyone so we looked at cleopatra we looked at agrippina

00:02:50.580 we looked at bodica it was sort of a situation where it's like everyone is killing everyone

00:02:55.460 so the fact they killed people isn't like super weird for the time but also this week things get

00:03:02.380 a little different we're jumping ahead in time so those three all were around the same time

00:03:07.560 more or less within a century of each other. We were going from minus 50 BCE up to like

00:03:14.900 the year 50 AD. And now we're leaping ahead in time, 800 years to the year 861. We're staying

00:03:24.920 in the island of what we now call United Kingdom, which is where Boudicca was, but lots of things

00:03:31.820 past so just imagine like if this was a movie there'd be sort of a montage of you know years

00:03:38.580 going by and like Romans being there and then Romans being driven out and then Vikings coming in

00:03:43.460 you know things being built things being abandoned like 800 years pass think about what it was like

00:03:49.660 800 years ago from now was the year 1200 yeah god I don't know was the year 1220 so that's an

00:03:57.380 incredibly long expanse of time so just just know that lots of things have happened a couple

00:04:03.080 highlights include christianity being introduced to the again the island that we call now the united

00:04:10.000 kingdom the england the country you know now is england um bodica's iseni tribe not really

00:04:16.620 a thing anymore romans long gone and what we have now are basically um we have the anglo-saxons

00:04:24.340 we have the Vikings and those are kind of the main groups of people we're going to be looking

00:04:28.840 at today but guess what there's lots of little subgroups within those groups no one got along

00:04:33.480 with anyone and and we're going to learn today about a woman whose name is Aethelflaed Lady of

00:04:41.040 the Mercians and there's a lot of really interesting Anglo-Saxon type names in here

00:04:46.600 they all start with that letter that's like A and E smushed together which I believe is pronounced

00:04:51.860 like an A. That's what I'm going with. But you'll see in the show notes, these names all just look

00:04:58.460 really cool visually. So Athelflad is who we're going to be learning about. And let's get to it.

00:05:05.080 So a little history lesson. So prior to the year 927, and again, we're like fully in A.D.

00:05:13.900 territory, all the before the year zero stuff, that's all behind us. Years go in the expected

00:05:19.840 chronological order that's what's going on so the area now known as england prior to 927 so in 927

00:05:27.080 it all joined up to become englandy you know in oldie time writing with lots of vowels but before

00:05:33.800 that it was seven kingdoms which were called east anglia essex kent mercia northumbria sussex and

00:05:41.180 wessex these have been founded around the fifth century so this is again like bodica was around

00:05:46.740 the year like 50 this is we're talking the fifth century 400s like so much time has passed just

00:05:52.620 clothes have changed um languages have changed the way that people fight wars new weapons just

00:05:59.940 like a lot of stuff has happened and changed but basically these places the seven kingdoms

00:06:03.920 and you're getting if you're getting sort of game of thrones-ish vibes guess what

00:06:07.300 george r r martin just took all the cool bits from every era of history and made game of thrones

00:06:12.160 and a dragons. And that's what it is. I keep rediscovering as I find new things in history

00:06:17.980 that are exactly like Game of Thrones. So anyway, we have these seven kingdoms. England does not

00:06:23.280 even exist at this point. So these seven kingdoms have been founded by immigrants from the Germany

00:06:29.980 slash Holland area. So they were the Saxons because the Germany slash Holland area was 0.83

00:06:35.640 Saxony, but they came over to the island and they became the Anglo-Saxons. And that's where that 0.92

00:06:41.960 term comes from so these groups obviously as illustrated by every time in history when there's

00:06:47.740 been a group various groups of people sharing an area they did not get along with each other

00:06:51.740 so they're all basically at war with each other constantly and then just to add some more drama

00:06:57.960 so the romans long gone the romans had left behind a lot of their old infrastructure though so there's

00:07:03.020 still a lot of sort of towers and battlements and stuff that these groups could kind of use for

00:07:08.100 themselves as well but in the absence of roman invaders guess who comes viking invaders from

00:07:13.660 norway and denmark and they kind of just blitz through and they realize like oh cool there's 0.78

00:07:18.940 these seven kingdoms they're all fighting against each other so we the vikings can just they're not 0.60

00:07:24.140 going to team up against the vikings so the vikings are able to sort of divide and conquer

00:07:27.780 which is exactly what the romans did so long history of the different groups on that island

00:07:33.420 not getting along very well foreshadowing to the year 2020 who's to say anyway so these norwegian

00:07:42.180 and danish vikings came in and they just started taking seizing and taking control so they started

00:07:47.840 taking over towns they started taking over land they started taking over property the farms if

00:07:53.020 the anglo-saxons at this point have been able to set aside their differences and team up together

00:07:57.280 like bodica had gotten all the warring tribes to team up together maybe they could have stopped

00:08:02.440 the Vikings from becoming quite as widespread, but everybody was much too stubborn for that. 0.96

00:08:07.740 So by the time our story starts, the 9th century, which is the years 800 to 899, 9th century. So

00:08:15.900 five of these seven kingdoms were almost entirely conquered by the Vikings. The Vikings had taken

00:08:20.460 over most of what we would now call England. The only bit that was not conquered was the kingdom 0.97

00:08:26.860 of Wessex. And that is where Ethelflad was born. And she is today's heroine. So she was born around

00:08:35.660 the year 870. This is the sort of time when everybody's too busy kind of being at war

00:08:41.320 constantly with each other to bother taking a lot of written records of the birth dates of

00:08:46.780 people, especially young girls. But we know about her, well, because of what she's going to do. But

00:08:53.400 also we know kind of around when she was born because she is the oldest child born to the king

00:08:58.540 so her father is called alfred the great and he was the king of wessex her mother is called

00:09:05.120 eelswith and she was from mercia mercia which is one of the other seven kingdoms so the two of them

00:09:11.480 had gotten married and that kind of meant they represented the there was a what do you call it

00:09:16.960 survivor, an alliance between the Wessex and the Mersians. And she was, so she was half Wessex,

00:09:24.900 half Mersian. Her name, Athelflad, by the way. So it's a combination of two words. Athel means

00:09:31.400 noble and Flad means beauty. So her name means basically noble beauty. And the noble part was 0.60

00:09:38.360 really important to sort of represent that she was a princess. She was a royal person. She was a

00:09:45.940 special important person. She was also the eldest of the children of the king. So she had some

00:09:53.480 sisters, some brothers, and one of her younger brothers. So four years younger than her was a

00:09:57.800 boy named Edward, who's later going to become known as King Edward the Elder. And unlike in

00:10:03.420 every story so far we've done this season, so Aethelflaed had a good relationship with her

00:10:09.860 family no one was trying to kill each other she and her brother got along there was no incest

00:10:17.040 people weren't poisoning each other it's like truly 800 years have passed from just sort of

00:10:21.980 the non-stop chaos of of the ancient roman stuff we were looking at before like things are a bit

00:10:27.120 things are a bit calmer in general there's some people are going to die in this story at convenient

00:10:32.020 times but the culture is such that no one even now suspects that people were secretly poisoning each

00:10:38.440 other. It's just, that's kind of the setting for this story. So we can all just kind of calm down

00:10:42.760 a little bit. They could kind of calm down a little bit vis-a-vis. Are they going to be

00:10:47.480 murdered by their family members? They couldn't come down in the sense of constant Viking attacks.

00:10:52.280 So also by this point, Christianity was popular in this area and it had been for a couple hundred

00:11:01.360 years. So her family were Christians, which is notable for perhaps that's part of why they're

00:11:08.580 not all murdering each other. Their branch of Christianity was one where maybe you didn't

00:11:13.200 poison each other all the time. Not sure. But basically, it also meant that they celebrated

00:11:18.000 Christmas every year. And that's important because the first, we don't know a lot about

00:11:23.180 Aethelflaed's early, early years, but we know when she was eight years old, during the Christmas

00:11:27.660 celebrations, the royal family was attacked by Vikings. So she and her family had to flee for

00:11:33.500 their lives. And just bear in mind, this is December in the year 878 in England. And I don't

00:11:41.660 think December in England in the year 2020 is especially a great place to be weather-wise.

00:11:49.540 I think it's a little chilly, a little messy, snow and slush. So this is, you know, not a great

00:11:55.860 situation for them. So they were, they had to flee. They were fleeing the Vikings. They could

00:12:00.760 be killed at any point. It was cold and they ended up running out in sort of marshlands,

00:12:05.340 like sort of swamp. And they, they made their way out. So this is one would imagine formative

00:12:11.280 experience for eight-year-old Ethelflad and her four-year-old brother, Edward and the others.

00:12:16.120 Her father, Alfred though, is a skilled negotiator and he's able to broker a peace deal with the

00:12:20.480 Vikings. So they sort of agreed that Wessex, the kingdom where they all live, was divided into

00:12:25.840 So Albert was in charge of the western part, western Wessex, and the eastern part was absorbed into the Viking territories, which was called the Danelaw.

00:12:36.240 So sort of the Danish Vikings land altogether called the Danelaw.

00:12:40.480 So Wessex divided in two, but they got half of it.

00:12:44.260 So and they also weren't murdered.

00:12:46.440 So things are looking OK, considering the alternatives at this point.

00:12:51.900 So what Alfred did, though, after, after escaping with his family's life, he started reinforcing the leftover Roman settlements, like the buildings and stuff in his part of Western Wessex. So he like fixed up these old Roman walls and structures and built new similar ones to sort of to better protect themselves from the Vikings, because he knew because this is what was going on.

00:13:15.840 If you've watched The Lost Kingdom, the TV show, like people, when you make a deal in this time and place between the Vikings and the Saxons, everyone's not like cool and no one ever attacks each other again. Like obviously the Vikings were going to attack him again at some point and he wanted to be ready for that.

00:13:31.240 So these fortified towns he was working on were known as burrs, which is an oldie time word that would go on to be today's contemporary word, boroughs, boroughs, like the boroughs of New York City.

00:13:44.620 And Alfred, during his time doing this, he completed about 33 of these fortified towns.

00:13:50.940 Another important bit of background information is that Alfred, sorry, Alfred, education was really important to him.

00:13:57.960 So he was super religious. He was very serious about his piety and his spirituality and also about education and scholarship. And he thought that they were sort of connected to him in a sort of way where he thought that the better educated people are, the more religious people are, just the better society will be.

00:14:17.160 So he set up a national program. And again, this is the year, what, like 800, whatever. This is when we think about like what people sometimes call the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages or whatever. You think about these people just sort of like wandering around and nobody's reading books and everything. I don't know. I don't know. Everyone's just like watching jousts or whatever. But he was really into education in a really serious way.

00:14:41.020 So he set up a national program to encourage schooling for all of the children of Wessex.

00:14:44.900 So not just like, not just his children, but definitely including his children, but all the children, boys and girls.

00:14:51.180 This is just like, history can be surprising when you dig into stuff and set aside your stereotypical expectations of what people are going to be like.

00:15:00.780 So that being said, so Athelflaed was able to get this really great education living in a situation where her father thought that scholarship was so important.

00:15:11.020 He brought in male and female tutors to tutor all of his children, his daughters, his son.

00:15:17.580 So she was given the same educational opportunities as her brother.

00:15:21.240 And so she became very well-read.

00:15:22.980 And also all of them, just growing up in this situation, became very Christian, very religious.

00:15:29.520 So both studious and very religious.

00:15:31.560 And that's just kind of what their personalities were like.

00:15:34.280 That's what the world was like.

00:15:35.600 that's but also um very aware of the fact that vikings could attack at any moment and so you 0.94

00:15:42.000 have to be ruthless and smart and also as per you might expect this is uh i'm gonna call this like

00:15:50.180 a medium patriarchal society like if we put rome at like the worst treatment of women like ancient 0.93

00:15:58.980 rome era this is like medium like she was allowed to go to school that's good uh she she was allowed

00:16:06.360 to learn how to read uh she got a name that wasn't just her father's name feminized so things were

00:16:13.120 like better than ancient rome but that's not saying lots this was the sort of time and place

00:16:19.160 where noble born boys inherited titles and jobs and noble born girls are expected to either become

00:16:24.160 nuns or to marry into useful alliances and that's just kind of what the world was she wasn't standing

00:16:30.000 on a soapbox being like joe march and little women you know saying like this isn't the life

00:16:34.160 for me she's just like here's what's up like i respect my father i respect my family and this 0.78

00:16:38.520 is what i need to do to help keep this kingdom as strong as it can be like she's just like

00:16:43.660 again after the romans it's just it's refreshing to me to have someone who not someone but just

00:16:49.900 like a situation where this family is just like okay to each other and they're not killing each

00:16:54.600 other. It's just, it's a nice little change. So in 886, a marriage was arranged for Aethelflaed,

00:17:01.000 who is at this point 16 years old. And this was a total alliance based scenario. So she was being

00:17:07.900 married to the Lord of the Mercians. So her mother was from Mercia. Mercia? She herself was half

00:17:15.580 Mershian, but from Wessex. So this was very much just sort of solidifying this alliance between

00:17:20.320 Mershia and Wessex by marrying her to the lord of the Mershian. And he had a name that is so

00:17:27.380 similar to her name. I'll try and pronounce it very clearly differently so you'll know who I'm

00:17:32.080 talking about when. But her name is Aethelflaed. Her husband is Aethelred. And he was lord of the

00:17:38.880 mercians not king of the mercians because alfred ethel fled's father was he was the king of wessex

00:17:45.860 and the king of wessex was sort of in charge also of mercia in a way like mercia was sort of a sub

00:17:51.460 kingdom under him so ethel red the husband was sort of a sub king so he couldn't be called king

00:17:59.040 specifically because only the person in wessex could be the king so in if you watch the last

00:18:03.740 kingdom the tv show he is played by toby regbo from rain super dreamy looking and athelflaed

00:18:10.560 herself is played by millie brady super badass and they show them they're basically about the

00:18:15.300 same age he's like a bit older than her in actual history he was uh way older than her like a fully

00:18:22.080 grown much older man who is also not in amazing health and that's going to affect things as we go

00:18:29.800 on. So the kingdom of Myrcia was located in what we now consider the middle of England. And if

00:18:37.140 you're from England, I'm sure you'd call it something else. But I'm in Canada, and I don't

00:18:41.920 know those minute details off the top of my head. So sorry. Myrcia had been one of the more peaceful

00:18:48.480 kingdoms until the early 9th century, when the person who was king of Wessex before Alfred

00:18:54.240 had mostly conquered the territory so remember how athelflaed's mother was a mersian noble woman

00:19:00.080 her she was married to alfred partially to sort of like ease the peace between the two places and to

00:19:06.700 ally the two kingdoms together against the vikings so by this point in the story alfred the great was

00:19:12.520 king of wessex and mersia leaving the day-to-day rule of mersia to a lord the people of mersia were

00:19:17.860 very independent minded and didn't love that they had been sort of taken over by wessex through

00:19:23.340 this marriage, Aethelflaed fulfilled the Anglo-Saxon role of a peace weaver, meaning someone

00:19:28.400 whose marriage literally weaves together two groups who had been enemies, making them all

00:19:32.640 in-laws so hopefully they would stop attacking each other and try and fight off the Vikings as a

00:19:37.800 team. So in 886, the same year that Aethelflaed was betrothed to Aethelred, the combined forces

00:19:46.500 of Alfred and Aethelred were able to reclaim London from the Vikings and make it part of

00:19:51.080 mercia again upon the royal marriage alfred appointed ethelred in charge of london so do

00:19:57.160 you remember london was called londondinium when we were doing the bodica episode and it was sort

00:20:02.980 of like this little emerging city in bodica burned it down and it was awesome so london is still sort

00:20:08.500 of a major city just called london now so alfred appointed ethelred in charge of london partly to

00:20:15.780 appease the merchants who like were sort of under wessex but were so independent that he they they

00:20:22.220 needed to get some scraps they needed to get some stuff that was their own because otherwise they

00:20:26.620 might the alliance might break up etc so also potentially london itself was maybe part of

00:20:32.920 ethel fled's dowry like a bonus prize that her husband would get for marrying her whatever the 0.54

00:20:38.160 motivation so ethel fled at this point moved to london and when she married ethel red she gained

00:20:44.620 the title that she became known as, that we're going to call her the Lady of the Mercians.

00:20:51.100 So again, there's not a queen and there's not a king of Mercia. It's because there's only the

00:20:57.500 king in Wessex. They're like one step below. So, but as it turns out, becoming consort to the Lord

00:21:03.100 of the Mercians was an incredible stroke of good luck for Aethelflaed. Back in Wessex, women weren't 0.94

00:21:08.080 given much political power. For instance, her mother, Eelswith, wasn't given the title of queen, 0.98

00:21:13.220 even though she was married to the king.

00:21:15.380 Mersha, however, had a tradition of granting female consorts power in their own right.

00:21:20.960 So between Æthelflaed's being half-Mersian,

00:21:23.820 her new title as Lady of the Mersians and just local culture, 0.61

00:21:28.100 she was able to have much more power and control than she ever would have had back in Wessex.

00:21:32.020 So it kind of worked out.

00:21:34.640 For it to work out, she had to marry a much older man who's also constantly sick.

00:21:40.160 But you know what? Could be worse.

00:21:41.660 so she was 16 and was also way better educated than a lot of people around her she lived through

00:21:48.240 viking sieges she had learned from her father how to be strong how to be a strong and successful

00:21:52.560 military leader um how to be crafty and clever she'd been educated in you know army type things

00:21:59.760 not specifically fighting with the sword but just strategy and that sort of stuff and also her

00:22:04.120 husband was super sick so instead of just being kind of wife of the lord she sort of co-ruled

00:22:11.380 alongside him sort of in in a partnership type situation like there's documents they both sign

00:22:16.700 together eventually she starts sending them on her own like she really stepped up in a way that

00:22:21.660 sort of shows she was super smart super capable knew what she's up to but also that people listened

00:22:25.940 to her and they just her her whole self her charisma was such that people were okay with her 0.98

00:22:32.080 taking on quite a bit of power in the situation where women could have some power but this was 0.99

00:22:36.740 like more even than usual for them and also she was popular there because she was half merchant

00:22:43.680 her mother was from there and because people liked her oh my cat's visiting hey there hi um this is

00:22:50.720 one of those podcasts with the cats who i guess now so people liked her which meant that people

00:22:56.060 were more willing to like her father slash the fact that he was the king over top of them and

00:23:03.120 it made the people of mercia less likely to rebel so this is her whole peace weaver deal

00:23:07.100 coming up again she and ethelred had one child together a daughter who they named elf win a name

00:23:14.740 that means friend of the elves which is just like you have a person or a cat to name consider the

00:23:21.320 name elf win it's adorable so they only had one child which is unusual for this sort of time and 0.99

00:23:27.820 place because of women especially in this sort of situation we're expected to have lots of kids to

00:23:32.540 cement the alliance and also people weren't into birth control and whatnot so they only had one

00:23:39.760 child so one school of thinking is that her the the birth process was so traumatizing for her

00:23:46.500 which like yeah it was like the year 800 whatever I'm sure it was like horrifying that she was just

00:23:52.880 like guess what I'm never doing again giving birth like that's it we have a daughter everything's

00:23:58.260 fine um the other thing to bear in mind of course is that her husband was was sick like sick to the

00:24:03.840 point that she was doing a lot of the day-to-day ruling stuff so it's entirely possible just like

00:24:08.980 physically they weren't able to conceive again anyway so they had one daughter i kind of love

00:24:16.320 the story that she was just like guess what i'm never like i love i love the thought that maybe

00:24:20.480 she just was just like screw that like guess what we're being now abstinent together so when alfred

00:24:27.520 the Great, Aethelflaed's father died in the year 899. Her younger brother, Edward, took over as the

00:24:33.580 king of Wessex slash sort of king of the Anglo-Saxons, which sort of all the areas that

00:24:39.980 weren't Viking controlled, basically. And Aethelflaed stayed, well, she was still married

00:24:45.700 to Aethelred, but they were just kind of, the two of them were in charge of Myrcia slash mostly her

00:24:50.240 because her husband was so sick. So it was kind of like a brother-sister situation. So Edward,

00:24:53.840 her brother was the the main king and then she was sort of like a supportive helping him out

00:24:59.820 behind the scenes type and so but what worked out really well is the two of them were such a good

00:25:04.440 they grew up together they got along fine and they could sort of like divide literally divide and

00:25:10.940 conquer or conquer back like work at getting the vikings out and getting anglo-saxons in more

00:25:16.580 place as a team so in the year 902 a group of norse viking refugees came to see ethelflaed who

00:25:25.020 like again her husband is not dead but everyone's just treating her as the person to go to when you

00:25:30.700 won't need stuff the person who's in charge like she just in all but officially was in charge of

00:25:36.480 marcia so a group of norse viking refugees came to see her with a wild request so they'd just been

00:25:43.360 kicked out of dublin up in oldie time ireland which had been a viking place because like

00:25:49.320 everything was a viking place anyway these norse vikings have been kicked out of dublin by the

00:25:53.000 irish they had nowhere to go and they just i don't know why went to see athelflaed lady of

00:25:58.580 the mercians to ask if she could maybe give them some land to live off like bold move vikings just

00:26:04.140 to ask but also unexpected and i kind of like it so it's interesting also in the sense that they

00:26:10.600 came to talk to her like they said we'd like to talk to athelflaed lady of the merchants they

00:26:14.400 didn't say we want to talk to athelred and his wife they're like we want to talk to her we know

00:26:19.060 who's in charge here so um the viking refugees requested this land and athelflaed was like

00:26:26.200 all right um she let them stay on some land just outside chester which was a fortified town that

00:26:32.120 was within her boundaries so one of these like fortified towns that her father had helped

00:26:37.220 kind of like rebuild from the Roman stuff. So why did she give them land? So potentially to try and

00:26:44.400 make nice with them so that the Norse Vikings would team up with her against the Danish Vikings 0.58

00:26:49.520 because the Norse Vikings and Danish Vikings didn't like each other. It's just like, it's

00:26:53.460 literally, it's survivor. Just everybody's out against everybody else. Alliances all over the

00:26:58.240 place. But once the Vikings saw their new home, they decided that Chester, well, sorry. So she

00:27:04.060 set them up in sort of firmland just outside of chester the vikings arrived on the firmland they're

00:27:09.120 like you know what looks nice though it's like literally chester this fortified town next to

00:27:12.760 the firmland that ethelflad gave us so they decided to try and take over the town ethelflad

00:27:17.800 kind of suspected this might happen and so she had been kind of preparing for this to happen

00:27:22.540 and this is gonna get amazing so just okay so ethelflad had some of her troops wait on top of

00:27:29.460 the town's fortifications because it was remember it was like walls around the whole town to keep

00:27:33.520 an eye out for the vikings when the vikings approached the merchants who were like standing

00:27:37.540 on top of the fortification used their height advantage and they just started throwing stuff

00:27:41.540 over the wall at the invaders um stuff including for instance like this is gonna get amazing and

00:27:48.300 it's gonna get even more amazing so just wait so first they threw boiling hot ale like beer like

00:27:53.880 boiling beer like cauldrons of it they just poured it over um and apparently it was so hot that it

00:27:59.960 strip the skin off their enemy like boiling beer and then so the vikings realized what was happening 0.92

00:28:05.860 and they're like oh shit so they held animal skins over their heads as sort of shields so like 0.96

00:28:10.100 you know smart but then but then um athelflaed had her team throw all the town's beehives at them 0.98

00:28:17.380 like filled with bees like they're on top of these battlements first they poured hot beer on them and

00:28:23.520 then they threw beehives full of beefs on top of them and then apparently the bees were like they

00:28:28.360 being stung so much they couldn't move their arms or legs bees like also like sugar and stuff don't

00:28:33.260 they so i'm sure the like beer was like extra appealing to them just like attack bees like

00:28:38.000 oh my god i like can you even so now as per everything in this story mostly because her

00:28:46.080 whole story exists kind of in the shadows there's just a couple of counts of what she did 1.00

00:28:49.720 we have to sort of piece together as per women's history constantly fuck off the patriarchy

00:28:55.440 anyway the thing about the attack bees caveat it only appears in one chronicle that was written by 0.93

00:29:01.460 a guy who was like very dramatic but at the same time the fact that he wrote it down and people

00:29:05.800 believed it means it could have happened but also means that ethelflaed had developed this

00:29:10.600 amazing reputation at being like clever skilled at battle and super creative and just someone

00:29:15.740 that you don't want to attack her towns in the following years chester went on to become a

00:29:20.240 particularly prosperous city in part due to athelflaed's town planning so she had she built

00:29:25.620 like her father she thought that a religion and school was really important so she built

00:29:30.240 lots of sort of infrastructure there so that people could be educated like a church places

00:29:35.580 for people to to gain knowledge and about religion and learn to read and just really cool

00:29:42.440 cool stuff she's doing and now for a quick advertising break welcome to the realms of

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00:30:16.740 The war is over and both sides lost.

00:30:23.940 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

00:30:28.960 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:30:36.860 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

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00:30:58.120 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

00:31:02.860 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:31:13.400 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:31:20.300 I'm Mandy.

00:31:21.400 And I'm Melissa.

00:31:22.200 And this is Moms and Mysteries. 0.80

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00:31:41.580 Welcome to Mick Unplugged.

00:31:43.100 the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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00:32:41.580 Let's get started.

00:32:50.880 And we're back.

00:32:52.660 She also, and this is as per every previous episode in this season, coin corner.

00:32:59.520 Like, I think I need to make this an official part of every episode because there's always this coin moment.

00:33:04.640 She had coins minted for Chester and they didn't have her face on them, but what they

00:33:09.200 had on them was the shape of a building, potentially a church, which kind of solidified

00:33:13.180 that she was building these buildings.

00:33:15.260 She was Aethelflaed.

00:33:16.100 She was the builder.

00:33:16.920 She was the daughter of Alfred, who had also done building like through building beautiful

00:33:21.420 buildings.

00:33:22.440 She was getting everybody together and fighting off the Vikings.

00:33:25.400 So in the year 909, the brother-sister warrior team of Aethelflaed and Edward, they combined

00:33:31.960 their forces.

00:33:32.480 So Wessex people with Mershian forces went up to Northumbria to try and retake some land from the Danish Vikings.

00:33:40.640 This campaign lasted for five weeks and ended successfully.

00:33:44.700 Ethelflaed and Edward, victoriously, they reclaimed this land.

00:33:47.880 And they also reclaimed what was on this land, which was some relics of St. Oswald of Northumbria.

00:33:54.200 So a note on that.

00:33:56.900 so saintly relics if you don't know are sort of bits of bones like literally organs or like bits

00:34:03.760 of the body of dead saints were thought to have sort of supernatural powers so saint oswald and

00:34:11.600 this was back in the time where it's like saint oswald had lived not that long ago just like um

00:34:15.960 i forget how long ago a couple hundred years ago anyway so saint oswald was a former northumbrian

00:34:21.300 king who had been killed by mercians years ago and so the he was a really important saint to

00:34:27.980 the mercian people so and for a monarch to be in possession of saintly relics sort of meant like

00:34:34.320 if you had them like you it's sort of they had these supernatural powers but you having them

00:34:38.420 sort of meant good things to you um it meant that uh your reign was blessed like to have them

00:34:44.440 was was gave you sort of superpowers as well so ethelflaid did during her various campaigns

00:34:50.600 There was a lot of sort of shuffling around of relic bits so that they would be where she was.

00:34:55.620 And so everybody could see how sort of blessed she was.

00:34:58.320 The relics of St. Oswald specifically were taken to an abbey in Gloucester, which was renamed.

00:35:03.540 So this was an abbey that Aethelflaed had built originally, I believe, as part of her sort of city building stuff.

00:35:10.720 So they renamed the abbey St. Oswald's Priory in honor of the relics that were there.

00:35:17.960 so the danish vikings mad about this they were mad about northumbria being attacked um retaken

00:35:24.700 they were mad about the saint oswald relics being taken so in 910 a bunch of them came

00:35:29.400 climbed onto a boat and came sailing down the river for some revenge pillaging in mercia they

00:35:34.820 thought that they would be safe to do this because edward king of wessex was off somewhere else

00:35:39.720 attacking some other groups of vikings but edward had found out about the plan edward and ethelfod

00:35:45.140 were just like i'm really impressed with both of them they're really good intel and they're always

00:35:49.720 prepared for everything it's it's great sort of cleopatra-esque so edward found out that the

00:35:53.840 vikings were doing this and he dispatched his troops to intercept the vikings on their way back

00:35:57.660 he was able to connect with athelflaed so this is again we're having a brother sister team where

00:36:01.760 each is on a different part of the country work to cover twice as much ground so she sent along

00:36:07.840 submersion forces as backup and all this meant that the vikings trip back home was unexpectedly

00:36:13.000 interrupted by this army the brother sister army and the ensuing battle became known as the battle

00:36:18.300 of tetenhall throughout all of this um so edward's away ethel red the husband is sick back in london

00:36:25.020 so ethel fled may have led the troops in this battle whether she she might not have been out

00:36:30.420 there like literally fighting with a sword but just kind of being there on a horse like being

00:36:34.300 sort of a rallying cry because the wessex people loved her because she was the daughter of alfred

00:36:39.160 the sister of the current king, Edward.

00:36:41.260 The Martians loved her because she was half-Mertian.

00:36:43.180 She was Lady of the Martians, so just being there

00:36:44.940 as sort of a figurehead, very like Elizabeth I-y of her.

00:36:49.500 And at this battle, the Anglo-Saxons

00:36:51.500 soundly defeated the Danish Vikings,

00:36:54.320 inflicting thousands of casualties,

00:36:56.060 including three of the main Northambrian Viking leaders,

00:36:58.840 which was devastating to them

00:37:00.360 to lose three of their main leaders.

00:37:01.980 This victory was major. 0.99

00:37:04.020 It ended the threat of Danish Vikings in the north 0.89

00:37:06.320 and meant that Aethelflaed and Edward 0.99

00:37:07.920 were now able to turn their attention to drive out the rest of the vikings basically and to 0.57

00:37:13.820 to reclaim all the seven kingdoms as a single country under their rule of course shortly after 0.83

00:37:19.700 this battle um ethel red her husband died and things become much more interesting and also just

00:37:27.580 like again side note this was not a situation where people were murdering each other i don't

00:37:31.860 think she killed him he was sick for a long time she's not this like it's not like a sneaky

00:37:36.540 poison-y sort of story so i don't know how this is going to affect her scandalous score later but

00:37:40.720 he died and it doesn't seem to be anything untoward about it so usually when a male ruler died in this

00:37:48.860 time and place the wife would retire to a nunnery and then the new man would come in and take over

00:37:52.900 so like the dead king's son or his brother or whatever but what happened here is that edward

00:37:58.980 appointed ethelflaed the official leader of mercia lady of the mercians in her own right so not just

00:38:03.900 as the wife of the lord of the mercians but like she's now in charge and she had basically been in

00:38:08.880 charge and now she was officially in charge this is a singular event in anglo-saxon history it's

00:38:14.700 the only time a woman ever took or was given sole control of a kingdom and it really speaks to how

00:38:20.880 much trust and faith edward had in his big sister and why wouldn't he she was amazing so and also

00:38:27.580 she was so popular among the people of marisha like he was always trying to make them not rebel

00:38:31.620 and want independence so just her presence there was like good soothing um continuity and she was

00:38:38.620 great and the brother sister team got to i don't know like the removal of ethel red via his death

00:38:45.080 it changed some things technically but like what was actually happening continued on the same she

00:38:51.500 was in charge everybody loved her everything was great and ethelflaed becomes even more powerful

00:38:57.760 and fearsome. So where her father had struggled for much of his reign with the infighting between

00:39:02.420 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, having Aethelflaed and her brother be allies, like no question,

00:39:09.000 like this was never an issue. So they were able to strategize effectively and coordinate their

00:39:12.640 attacks. And so they both continued on with what their father had done, overseeing the repair and

00:39:17.800 or construction of more of these burrs, these fortified towns left over by the Romans. So not

00:39:23.360 just defensive ones for protection but also they started building new ones right on the front lines

00:39:27.860 to support their aggressive raids into viking territory so the brother sister team like they

00:39:34.680 both were super well educated for this time both were experienced in battle both were just really

00:39:39.680 smart really clever on their own and they both were like outside the box thinkers so it and just

00:39:45.900 the fact that they're such a good team such a good duo flip the balance of power firmly towards

00:39:51.480 them so ethel fled her reputation just continued on and people far and near far and wide heard

00:40:01.360 about her and thought she was amazing but unfortunately the people in the welsh kingdom

00:40:05.380 of brightchnyog had not heard this much to their detriment so in the year 916 king huigan of

00:40:12.940 brightchnyog heard that again they heard oh edward's out of town let's just like attack some

00:40:17.240 place it's like oh athelflaed is like come on just because edward's out of town doesn't mean

00:40:22.480 no one's paying attention so um king huigan decided to attack mercia as part of this raid

00:40:28.420 he oversaw the murder of one of athelflaed's abbots so like one of her church official type

00:40:34.480 guys um which i mean she was mad that they were attacking in general but killing her abbot she

00:40:41.240 took seemingly incredibly personally. So three days later, she herself showed up in Breitjinyog

00:40:47.760 with revenge on her mind and with her army. The Breitjinyog forces surrendered because she and 0.69

00:40:55.160 her army were so formidable. And then the merchant seized the royal fort and, Boudicca style,

00:41:00.380 burned it down. They took 34 captives back with them, including the queen, because Huygen himself,

00:41:07.060 ironically was out of town and unavailable to be captured himself so that's just example of her

00:41:12.140 being badass don't cross her uh in 19 sorry in 9 17 ethel flood and edward launched simultaneous

00:41:19.180 campaign to try and reclaim even more land from the vikings and this was the first time that

00:41:24.300 ethel flood led her first offensive campaign like begging people like taking taking the charge not

00:41:29.720 just fighting against somebody who's invading her and this was her biggest success called the battle

00:41:33.800 of derby so she attacked so the battle of derby derby was a fortified town that the vikings were

00:41:39.060 living in uh the danish vikings well i guess the danish vikings were living there but they were off

00:41:44.100 everyone just keeps attacking when people are out of town so she went to attack derby to steal it

00:41:49.840 back from the viking guess who was there just like randomly in derby king huigan from the like

00:41:55.760 previous story i just said so now minus his queen his fortress and 33 of his friends because

00:42:01.320 ethelflaed had destroyed them so he like decided to team up with the danish vikings against ethelflaed

00:42:06.480 because he was so mad at her at this battle four of her most trusted nobles were killed apparently

00:42:11.500 by huygan himself but then when the tide turned and it seemed obvious ethelflaed's side was going

00:42:17.660 to win king huygan took his own life rather than losing in battle to a woman because i mean good 0.99

00:42:23.660 riddance but also just like oh fuck off so this victory was a massive success for the saxons 0.99

00:42:29.780 and allowed them to annex this entire region back from the Danish Vikings into Mercia. 0.99

00:42:35.800 So they're just like getting more and more and more land back all over the place. Amazing. 0.95

00:42:39.960 Her diplomatic skills were also top notch. She's credited with negotiating an alliance of mutual 0.88

00:42:45.640 protection against the North Vikings with Constantine II of Scotland. Well, he was from

00:42:52.300 Alba, which is part of modern day Scotland. So they were allies there. She also part of that

00:42:58.240 same alliance that she negotiated involved owen ap dwinful of cumbria which is part of modern day

00:43:05.020 wales so like they were just like you're a woman and you're in charge of maretia that's cool let's

00:43:09.840 just like make this treaty all together we're not judgmental about that we see you're amazing

00:43:14.640 let's do it so in 918 athelflaed provided much-needed support to constantine the south

00:43:20.160 from scotland against norse vikings in the battle of corbridge during this battle the vikings were

00:43:25.140 forest deep within the woods at which point ethelflaed is said to have commanded her troops

00:43:28.900 to cut down the trees with their swords so so they could kill all the vikings and this happened so

00:43:34.440 the vikings went to flee into the woods ethelflaed was like you know what outside the box thinking 0.97

00:43:39.580 let's cut down the trees and then killed like so smart so clever bees cutting down trees boiling 0.81

00:43:45.660 beer like her fame and reputation spread so widely that in 918 when she pulled up with her troops in 0.78

00:43:51.400 leicester to a place that was being held by vikings the vikings preemptively surrendered they're like

00:43:56.520 we're not even gonna attempt to fight you like obviously you're amazing and you're gonna win

00:44:00.200 just like what happened with bodega where people are just like we like don't even you don't even

00:44:05.200 need to attack us like here take the city back the same year the danish vikings occupying the

00:44:10.980 trading center of york offered her a pledge of loyalty rather than facing off against her and

00:44:15.580 her troops in battle this offer basically meant that ethelflaed could peacefully capture the entire

00:44:20.500 northern part of england like she just her reputation did that um so it's notable about

00:44:26.320 these offers like the one from before so they were made to ethelflaed herself not to her brother

00:44:31.760 edward so even though he was literally the king and she was kind of like the sub king they they

00:44:38.080 wanted to deal with her herself she had that much power and then just when you're getting so much

00:44:42.660 momentum getting all the land back from the vikings she suddenly died um in the year 918 on

00:44:48.080 june the 12th aged 48 um of a stroke and that's just like what how can it just stop but that

00:44:56.000 that is how these things go so following her death ethel's body was transported in a procession to

00:45:01.940 gloucester where she was buried in saint oswald's priory remember that was where she um that was

00:45:07.940 where they had put the the bones of saint oswald she'd sort of had the building built so it's a

00:45:12.940 suitable place for her she was buried next to her husband ethel red it's potentially significant

00:45:18.180 she was buried there and not back in the wessex part or that she was buried there because they

00:45:23.420 didn't want um her to become sort of a symbol of merchant independence they didn't want her

00:45:27.800 in mercia so she died and when the lady of the merchants dies or the lord's inherited and in

00:45:35.680 her case who inherited it but her daughter elfin this is the only mother to daughter succession in

00:45:42.260 all of english history like at no other point did a mother to daughter succession ever happen which

00:45:48.760 is like one of those things where you're like oh that's cool and interesting but also just like

00:45:52.400 oh that sucks i wish it happened lots more so elfin succeeded her mother as lady of the mercians

00:45:58.020 this is also only the first of two times that a woman-to-woman succession happened the only other 0.91

00:46:03.400 time this happened was when queen mary the first um passed the crown on to her sitter queen elizabeth

00:46:08.800 the first and but then of course this cool moment was short-lived other than that is just like a

00:46:14.380 fact we all now know because Elfland took over duties um for just six months um because then

00:46:21.360 uncle Edward blew into town claimed Marisha as part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom and basically

00:46:26.740 forced Elfland back to uh nunnery in Wessex where she spent the rest of her life um I hope she had

00:46:33.080 a nice time. Aethelflaed's influence though continued on after her death in the actions of

00:46:37.300 her nephew, Æthelstan. So Æthelstan is the son of Edward. Edward had two sons. He had two wives.

00:46:44.000 Æthelstan was the son of his first wife. His other son with his other wife was called Æthel

00:46:48.560 Weard. And he wanted Æthel Weard to be his heir, but then Æthel Weard randomly died. And this is

00:46:55.060 again where you're like, was he murdered? But it's just like not that sort of story. I think he just

00:46:59.060 died because of like oldie time reasons leaving Æthelstan. So ha ha. What this means is that

00:47:04.860 Aethelstan was Edward's son from his wife he didn't like as much. So when he kind of ditched

00:47:10.520 that wife, he sent Aethelstan off to live with Aethelflaed because, well, he just didn't want

00:47:16.220 to raise that son. He just didn't think that son was going to be his heir. He didn't think that

00:47:18.880 son would matter, but also he trusted his sister to raise him. So Aethelstan was sort of like

00:47:22.700 foster son to Aethelflaed. So she was the aunt, but she raised him. So he grew up in

00:47:28.000 Mershian royal court under his aunt's influence. And so as such, Aethelstan, she raised him the

00:47:35.840 way that she and her brother had been raised. So super focused on education, like teaching him to

00:47:40.240 be clever and smart and religious, etc. So Aethelstan ends up succeeding Edward as king of

00:47:48.460 the Anglo, well, king of Wessex slash Mershia in 924. And then three years later, he became the

00:47:55.200 first king of a united england when he sort of united the seven kingdoms again so ethel fled

00:48:00.420 ethel stan sorry is personally remembered as one of england's most effective monarchs

00:48:05.560 as was his grandfather alfred um he was known for his effective and clever military leadership

00:48:11.840 keen intelligence ability to unify people and skills as a negotiator oh what's that all skills

00:48:17.760 that ethel fled also demonstrated that maybe she passed down to him slash taught him etc so that's

00:48:24.620 kind of her in terms of legacy. He did amazing. She raised him. That's a credit card. In the 14th

00:48:30.540 century, an Irish chronicle lists her as Æthelflaed, the most famous queen of the Saxons,

00:48:35.800 and recording the date of her death in 918 is a notable historical event. Hers is the only

00:48:40.700 Anglo-Saxon ruler whose death was mentioned in this whole source. It doesn't mention Æthelstan,

00:48:44.820 it doesn't mention Alfred. It just highlights how famous and important her reign continued to be

00:48:49.600 even centuries after her death and yet her name and story have gone largely unsung why is that

00:48:56.900 because people sort of skipped right from her father alfred to her nephew ethelstan and sort

00:49:04.300 of skipped over everything that happened in between people credit a lot of what happened

00:49:08.300 the viking land that they got back is credited often to edward because he was the king and she

00:49:14.020 was like the sub king even though she's doing all this awesome stuff and also she's a woman

00:49:17.380 and people don't give a shit in summer 2018 celebrations were held to commemorate the 1100th 0.83

00:49:23.700 anniversary of ethelflaed's death in tamworth which is where she's said to have died as well 0.98

00:49:27.840 as in gloucester where she is buried and there's been a number i think around that same anniversary

00:49:34.640 quite a few by quite a few i mean like there used to be like zero biographies of ethelflaed and now

00:49:39.880 there are several i'll put a link to them in the show notes but i do want to especially shout out

00:49:44.900 this cute little book,

00:49:46.260 Aethelflaed, England's Brought and Founder

00:49:47.920 by Tom Holland,

00:49:49.620 which ends,

00:49:50.740 I'm just going to read this,

00:49:51.980 the very last paragraph of it,

00:49:53.660 that a woman played a role

00:49:55.160 in England's creation

00:49:56.080 quite as significant as any man's

00:49:57.840 should be better remembered than it is.

00:49:59.780 Aethelflaed's legacy has endured

00:50:01.140 for 1,100 years.

00:50:03.060 It is not too late to pay

00:50:04.140 the Lady of the Mercians

00:50:05.160 the credit that is her due.

00:50:07.140 So she is amazing.

00:50:09.400 I adore her.

00:50:11.400 But how is she going to score

00:50:12.460 on our scandalous scale?

00:50:14.900 is the question so the first category the first category is well honestly okay maybe this might

00:50:22.100 just like increase with each category because the first category is scandaliciousness and there's

00:50:26.780 just not much she was just like a straight like stand-up person it was in a situation where like 0.97

00:50:32.480 everyone was poisoning everybody so she wasn't poisoning other people like she married one time 1.00

00:50:38.200 we don't know about any lovers i mean if you want to call scandalicious the fact she potentially

00:50:42.900 declared a vow of chastity after having a horrible birth experience like is that scandalous or is

00:50:48.500 that just like sensible i mean i don't know i feel like she would almost be offended if i gave her

00:50:54.220 scandalous points i'm i can't i can't not give any i'm sure i'm gonna give her one one oh i hope

00:51:01.760 she makes it up in the other categories because i want her to score really well uh scheminess

00:51:06.020 well that's a straight up 10 scheminess like for other people who are looking at their schemes and

00:51:11.340 it's like you know figure out ways to secretly poison somebody or how to murder somebody or like

00:51:16.840 have these secret assignations or whatever but Æthelfledge he's just like in terms of scheming

00:51:20.960 it's like warlike like genius moves like oh no the vikings are coming why don't we just like throw 0.94

00:51:26.080 beehives at them come on like oh no the vikings are hiding in the trees let's just like cut down 0.98

00:51:32.340 all the trees like genius like scheminess incredible like that's how is that anything

00:51:37.840 but significance is the next category and that is really tricky because she is significant the

00:51:45.140 stuff that she did was monumentally huge so between her her brother and her father like

00:51:50.120 and her nephew like the four of them all of them combined were what got the the united anglo-saxon

00:51:58.980 kingdoms back from the vikings she was a crucial part of that people don't know about her but that

00:52:06.240 doesn't mean she herself didn't do significant thing right like hugely significant like the the

00:52:12.220 victory she made like the fact that people were calling her like making deals with her like

00:52:17.240 skipping over her brother her husband like i'm gonna give her an eight for significance because

00:52:23.480 like without her like the next whatever a thousand years of history in england would have been 1.00

00:52:30.380 potentially real different um sexism bonus is where we give bonus points depending on how the 1.00

00:52:38.840 being a woman might have held them back and this is also an interesting one because she

00:52:43.620 had the privilege of being the daughter of a man who respected her and educated her and treated her

00:52:52.820 seemingly well which is like the first time that's ever happened in this podcast ever and

00:52:58.720 then her brother also respected her like she was able to get a lot of power because the men around

00:53:04.980 her let her have that power not if she had been a man like she wouldn't have been married off to

00:53:10.280 mercia then she wouldn't have accomplished a lot she did it's sort of like um agrippina in the sense 0.78

00:53:16.680 of she had a lot of power herself but it wasn't like she wasn't you know holding down a ladder 0.99

00:53:22.140 to help other women gain the same amount of power it's just like she had this amount of power and 1.00

00:53:25.920 she did amazing things with it. If she'd been a man, I don't know. I don't think her sex held her 0.99

00:53:32.120 back that much. But I mean, it did in some ways in the sense of like, she wasn't allowed to be

00:53:37.400 called the queen. If she had been a man, she would have inherited Wessex. She wouldn't have

00:53:42.320 been sent off to Marisha, because the older child, or if it was in a sexist society where a woman 1.00

00:53:47.360 could do that. I'm going to give her a six. No, I'm going to give her a seven. So this adds up to, 1.00

00:53:53.300 hang on one sec 26 that is not bad at all so i score everybody at the end of these episodes just

00:54:01.240 to kind of it's a nice way to wrap it up and also just to compare the different stories how much

00:54:05.180 stuff was in all of them considering she had a scandalousness score of one to get a 26 i think 0.93

00:54:09.980 is great you know who else is a 26 tits out francis howard who got all of her points from

00:54:15.460 scandalicious and very little from significance she also had good scheminess i think the two of 1.00

00:54:20.120 them that's where they both matched up so she's sort of mid-range ethelflet and that's i mean

00:54:25.280 we're not scoring like who's the coolest person who's the best person whatever we're just kind

00:54:29.380 of seeing on this score where does everybody land and i think midway is is respectable for her but

00:54:34.960 i'm also excited to have done a podcast talking about her because i want other people to know

00:54:38.940 about her because she is amazing and unsung and did some really fucking cool stuff so this is

00:54:47.080 the vulgar history podcast my name is ann foster here's my little i have notes there's so much

00:54:52.860 stuff to tell you all these things i want to remember to say so first of all you can follow

00:54:57.100 us on instagram and twitter at vulgar history pod on instagram vulgar history on twitter right

00:55:03.120 now actually on twitter i'm doing because this is posting in a march whatever doing this march

00:55:08.280 madness thing about who is the most scandalous woman in history ethelflaed is one of the people

00:55:13.700 i think competing so if you go to uh at vulgar history on twitter you can follow along with

00:55:20.460 this whole march madness scenario yeah this should be posting and there's still quite a bit of march

00:55:25.280 madness to go it's fun um i think i'm really interested to see who's going to win because

00:55:29.520 there's 32 women competing and they're all awesome in their own ways if you want to support this

00:55:34.460 podcast you can go to audible trial.com slash vulgar history that's audible trial.com slash 0.94

00:55:41.800 Vulgar History and get a free trial of Audible. There are a lot of, again, not a lot, a handful

00:55:48.900 of books about Aethelflaed. None of them seem to be on Audible, but I will recommend the book

00:55:53.760 Matilda, Empress, Queen, Warrior by Catherine Hanley, who is about another super cool woman

00:55:59.460 who led armies and was amazing in British history. And perhaps there's going to be a podcast episode

00:56:06.500 about her next week. So then that's also a really good book. So Matilda, Empress Queen

00:56:12.700 Warrior by Catherine Hanley, available on Audible. Oh, young me, you didn't know what was coming.

00:56:23.680 And honestly, a lot of good things came for young me. Like I got a book contract,

00:56:28.940 which is what I'm doing right now, writing this book, which is why I'm playing this rerun

00:56:32.880 of this episode because I'm super busy. But so next week on Vulgar History Podcast is going to

00:56:40.380 be a brand new episode where we're going to be talking about, or dipping back into the world of

00:56:46.200 the Marie Antoinette series, which is what we've been doing now. That's what our new season is,

00:56:51.580 season seven. And we're going to be connecting what was happening in France with Marie Antoinette

00:56:57.120 to what we talked about before a little bit, which is the Haitian revolutions that's coming up.

00:57:02.880 next week and in the meantime you can keep up with me in all the places on social media i'm on

00:57:07.960 instagram i'm on threads i'm on blue sky just look for vulgar history pod and there i will be

00:57:13.020 i'm also on substack which is kind of like a social networking site like sometimes i put

00:57:18.480 little jokes there too but the main thing i do in substack is i post vulgar history a la carte which

00:57:22.920 is my fortnightly newsletter where i sometimes i profile a woman from history sometimes i talk

00:57:29.640 about historical connecting historical events to current events anyway it's totally free if you

00:57:35.980 want to follow me there on substack it's vulgar history a la carte and when you subscribe to

00:57:40.960 those there then you get a little notification whenever i post a new thing which is about every

00:57:45.480 two weeks and those will go into your email or if you don't check your email it'll go into your

00:57:50.380 substack app or whatever you'd like to do you can also support this podcast on patreon all love to

00:57:56.280 all my patreons the paid patreons unpaid patreons i just appreciate having that community there

00:58:01.640 because um it's a way that i can connect with you in a way that's really i don't have to worry about

00:58:10.000 the algorithm and like are you going to see the updates or the questions or the polls so if you

00:58:13.700 join the patreon which you can do by going on your browser to patreon.com slash ann foster writer or

00:58:18.780 go on your patreon app if you're using that and just look up ann foster writer and so if you are

00:58:23.560 a free member of the Patreon, what you get is just my regular updates. What's going on,

00:58:27.620 how my book writing is going. There's like a special podcast called Anna's Writing a Book

00:58:31.900 that all the free members and everybody can hear on Patreon. And I also share like images

00:58:36.180 from the episodes. We have like chats there, discussion of the episodes. If you pledge at

00:58:41.200 least $1 or more a month, you get early ad-free access to all episodes, past, present, and future

00:58:46.120 of Vulgar History. And if you pledge $5 or more, you get access to bonus episodes as well. And

00:58:51.500 by that i mean vulgar peace theater so this asshole and the after show as well as any other 0.94

00:58:56.260 um spinoff shows that i think about and also if you join at the five dollars or more 0.98

00:59:00.580 level you can join our discord which is just like a fun little group chat for the tits out brigade

00:59:06.020 we also as ever are working with common era jewelry which is a small woman-owned business

00:59:11.360 that makes beautiful heirloom pieces of jewelry inspired by classical mythology and women from

00:59:16.160 history. There's not an Aethelflaed design. I think she might be a bit too obscure at this

00:59:22.680 point, but I think it would be cute. They could have like her and like a bee and like, you know,

00:59:26.940 like a beer stein on it or something. Anyway, there are people who've talked about Boudicca,

00:59:32.820 Cleopatra, Agrippina, Anne Boleyn, and also female figures from mythology like Medusa and Aphrodite.

00:59:41.280 Hatshepsut is also there in terms of people we've talked about on the show.

00:59:44.060 and their pieces are available in solid gold

00:59:46.860 as well as in more affordable gold for May.

00:59:49.140 Vulgar History listeners get 15% off

00:59:51.700 whatever you buy from Common Era

00:59:53.020 when you go to commonera.com slash vulgar

00:59:55.500 or using code vulgar at checkout.

00:59:57.960 That's commonera.com slash vulgar

00:59:59.360 or using code vulgar at checkout.

01:00:01.440 You can also get Vulgar History merchandise

01:00:03.760 at vulgarhistory.com slash store. 1.00

01:00:06.240 That's for the Americans. 0.94

01:00:07.480 If you live anywhere other than America, 0.93

01:00:09.480 I recommend going to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com

01:00:12.160 because the shipping is a lot better there.

01:00:14.960 And, oh, I think I mentioned this episode,

01:00:16.840 some Aethelflaed merchandise that no longer exists,

01:00:20.120 but would you like it to?

01:00:21.580 Let me know.

01:00:22.180 Maybe we can add that back into the store.

01:00:24.020 You can get in touch with me to tell me things like that.

01:00:26.520 Like, do you want the Aethelflaed merch design back?

01:00:29.180 Go to vulgarhistory.com.

01:00:30.880 There's a little like contact me button there.

01:00:32.500 And then you can just like send me a little message.

01:00:35.740 And yeah, next week we were dipping back into the,

01:00:39.000 i guess it's the it's the early 1800s so the 19th century so it's like the marie antoinette

01:00:46.840 adjacent period talking about the haitian revolution that's coming up next week on vulgar 0.93

01:00:50.840 history and until then keep your pants on and your tits out vulgar history is researched written and 0.96

01:00:58.180 hosted by ann foster that's me the editor is christina lumagi theme music is by the severne 0.99

01:01:04.740 The Vulgar History Show image is by Debra Wong.

01:01:08.680 Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek.

01:01:10.760 Find transcripts of recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com.

01:01:20.120 Legendary stories, awe-inspiring sound, and endless adventure.

01:01:26.520 Welcome to the realms of peril and glory.

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01:02:18.620 Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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01:03:23.720 The world of Sonic the Hedgehog

01:03:32.120 has been thrust into a not-so-dark,

01:03:35.380 not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story

01:03:37.880 that probably nobody saw coming.

01:03:41.680 Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotix Detective Agency

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01:04:09.380 Wait, what?

01:04:13.660 All will be revealed in

01:04:15.720 Sonic the Hedgehog presents

01:04:17.960 The Chaotic's Case Files.

01:04:19.860 Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Vulgar History - January 01, 2025

Women Leaders, part 4： Killing Vikings With Murder Bees (Rerelease)

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