Many Anglo-Saxon kings are familiar. AEthelred the Unready is one, yet less is written of his wife, who was consort of two kings and championed one of her sons over the others, or his mother who was an anointed queen and powerful regent, but was also accused of witchcraft and regicide. A royal abbess educated five bishops and was instrumental in deciding the date of Easter; another took on the might of Canterbury and Rome and was accused by the monks of fratricide. Anglo-Saxon women were prized for their bloodlines - one had such rich blood that it sparked a war - and one was appointed regent of a foreign country. Royal mothers wielded power; Eadgifu, wife of Edward the Elder, maintained a position of authority during the reigns of both her sons. AEthelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, was a queen in all but name, while few have heard of Queen Seaxburh, who ruled Wessex, or Queen Cynethryth, who issued her own coinage. She, too, was accused of murder, but was also, like many of the royal women, literate and highly-educated. From seventh-century Northumbria to eleventh-century Wessex and making extensive use of primary sources, Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England examines the lives of individual women in a way that has often been done for the Anglo-Saxon men but not for their wives, sisters, mothers and daughters. It tells their stories: those who ruled and schemed, the peace-weavers and the warrior women, the saints and the sinners. It explores, and restores, their reputations. AUTHOR: Annie Whitehead is a History Graduate & Member of the Royal Historical Society. She has penned three award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon Mercia: one, about the life of AEthelflaed, was long-listed for HNS Indie Book of the Year, & IAN Finalist. She was a contributor to: 1066 Turned Upside Down, with Helen Hollick, and Sexuality & Its Impact on British History (Pen & Sword 2018). She has won both fiction and non-fiction awards for her writing (Dorothy Dunnett Soc & New Writer Magazine), regularly contributes articles to several historical magazines and is an editor for EHFA (English Historical Fiction Authors). Her first non-fiction book, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, was published by Amberley Books in September 2018.
