Statue of Aethelflaed
Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians (r. 911-918), was the daughter of Alfred the Great and the wife of Aethelred, Ealdorman of the Mercians. She spent her life bringing together the realms of her father, Wessex, and her husband, Mercia, while simultaneously fighting the Vikings. She formally took Mercia in 911, after Aethelred’s death and waged successful wars of plunder and conquest against the Welsh and the Vikings, reclaiming several old Mercian towns from the Norsemen. Dying in 918, she was remembered by an Irish chronicler as “the most famous queen of the Saxons.”
The Aethelflaeda Monument was designed by Henry Charles Mitchell and sculpted by Edward George Bramwell. Unveiled in 1913 at Tamworth Castle, Staffordshire, Midlands, it commemorates 1000 years since Aethelflaed built a fortress at Tamworth, the ancient Mercian capital. Made of ashlar (stone), the statue depicts Aethelflaed holding a lowered sword in her right hand and embracing a young boy, her nephew, Aethelstan, with her left, embodying her role as defender and mother of the Mercian people.
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