In 913, central England was a battleground

In 913, central England was a battleground. Viking armies still held much of the Danelaw, and the old kingdom of Mercia stood between them and Alfred the Great’s emerging “England.”
Ruling Mercia was Alfred’s eldest daughter, Æthelflæd. Widowed after the death of her husband, Lord Æthelred, she did something astonishing for her time: she ruled on her own, known in the chronicles as “Lady of the Mercians.”
Instead of retreating into piety, Æthelflæd went on the offensive. Working with her brother, King Edward the Elder of Wessex, she launched a program of fortress-building—burhs—across Mercia. One of the key strongholds she founded was Stafford, raised in 913 as a defended town on the River Sow, intended to block Viking movement through the Midlands.
She didn’t just build walls; she used them. From these burhs, Æthelflæd’s forces struck at Viking bases, captured Derby and Leicester, and won the loyalty of Welsh rulers. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, even the people of York, heart of the Viking North, briefly offered to submit to her.
When Æthelflæd died in 918, her rule had helped tip the balance. Within a generation, her family’s line would control most of what we now call England.
Yet while we celebrate Alfred and Edward, Stafford’s warrior-foundress is barely remembered—proof that even queens who win wars can disappear from their own towns’ memory.

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