On This Day in History: The Death of Lady Ealhswith of Wessex — wife of Alfred the Great (5th December)
Ealhswith was born in the middle of the ninth century. Her father, Æthelred Mucel, was a senior nobleman in Mercia and was the Ealdorman of the Gaini (possibly Gainsborough). Her mother, Eadburh, was described by a contemporary scribe as ‘of the royal line of Mercia’, likely meaning she was the daughter/granddaughter of a previous Mercian king.
In 868, she married Alfred, a prince of Wessex, the southern neighbour and ally of Mercia, to strengthen the alliance between the two kingdoms. Alfred was the brother to King Æthelred of Wessex and would inherit the throne himself in 871, with Ealhswith as his consort.
Wessex had a tradition of limiting the involvement and status of the king’s consort in political matters due to a late eighth-century legend of a powerful Queen of Wessex poisoning her husband. Alfred continued this tradition, and like many of her predecessors, Ealhswith was not only given the title of Queen. She is also mostly ignored by contemporary scribes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle only records her death, while Alfred’s biographer, Bishop Asser, does not name her but refers to her several times as Alfred’s wife.
The royal couple had five children in total:
- Æthelflæd (born c.870) married Æthelred, Lord of Mercia and ruled Mercia herself after his death in 911.
- Edward (born c. 874) succeeded his father as king in 899 and conquered large swathes of Viking territories in southern England.
- Æthelgifu (born c.876) became the Abbess of Shaftesbury.
- Ælfthryth (born c.877) married Baldwin II, Count of Flanders, in the 890s.
- Æthelweard (born c.880) became a prominent figure and a leading magnate in Devon during Edward’s reign.
Ealhswith, being Mercian, likely was essential for the second half of Alfred’s reign as he sought to establish himself as overlord over the western half of Mercia. With Ealhswith beside him, he was likely seen as a more sympathetic figure to his newly gained subjects in the Midlands. Also important was Ealhswith being descended from previous kings of Mercia, which may have helped the legitimacy of her eldest children, Æthelflæd and Edward, who both, in turn, ruled Mercia after her death of the native Lord of Mercia.
Ealhswith outlived her husband, who died in 899. In his will, he left her three estates (at Lambourn, Wantage and Edington) and £100. After being frozen out of politics during Alfred’s reign, she could now attend her son’s council, which she did in 901 under the title ‘mater regis’ (mother of the king), perhaps providing her guiding hand to Edward in his early years as king. She also founded a convent, St Mary’s Abbey, Winchester, in 902, which remained in use until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. However, she died late in 902 on the 5th December, with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle commenting: ‘This year Elswitha died’, and a 10th-century calendar giving us the date: ‘The fifth [day of December] has dear Ealhswith, true lady of the English’.
Through her son, Edward and daughter, Ælfthryth of Flanders, she is an ancestor of every King of England, excluding Harold Godwinson and William the Conqueror, and possibly the rulers from the House of Denmark.
