The relics gave the church great prestige as Oswald had been one of the most important founding saints of Anglo-Saxon Christianity as well as a ruling monarch, & the decision to translate his relics to Gloucester shows the importance of the town to Æthelred & Æthelflæd, who were buried in St Oswald's Minster. It was initially dedicated to St Peter but when Oswald's remains were brought to Gloucester in 909, Æthelflæd had them translated from Bardney to the new minster, which was renamed St Oswald's in his honour. The Mercian rulers built a new minster in Gloucester &, although the building was small, it was embellished on a grand scale, with rich sculpture. Joanna Arman The Warrior Queen: The Life and Legend of Aethelflaed, Daughter of Alfred the Great Kindle Edition by Joanna Arman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 159 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle Edition £5.99 Read with Our Free App Hardcover £57.44 4 Used from £57. In 896 a meeting of the Mercian witan was held in the royal hall at Kingsholm, just outside the town. In the late ninth century Gloucester had become a burh with a street plan similar to Winchester, & Æthelred & Æthelflæd had repaired its ancient Roman defences. The remains of the royal Northumbrian saint Oswald were seized & taken from his resting place in Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire to Gloucester. The real Æthelflæd emerges as a remarkable political and military leader, admired in her own time, and a model of female leadership for writers of later generations.In 909 Edward sent a West Saxon & Mercian force to the northern Danelaw, where it raided for five weeks.

Yet she was also a patron of learning, who used poetic tradition and written history to shape her reputation as a Christian maiden engaged in an epic struggle against the heathen foe. A skilled diplomat who forged alliances with neighbouring territories, she was a shrewd and even ruthless leader willing to resort to deception and force to maintain her power. The sources from her own time, and later, reveal a more complex, nuanced and fascinating image of the ‘Lady of the Mercians’. In fiction, however, she has also been cast as the mistreated wife who seeks a Viking lover, and struggles to be accepted as a female ruler in a patriarchal society. To the popular imagination, she is the archetypal warrior queen, a Medieval Boudicca, renowned for her heroic struggle against the Danes and her independent rule of the Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. AEthelflaed, eldest daughter of Alfred the Great.

Æthelflæd, eldest daughter of Alfred the Great, has gone down in history as an enigmatic and almost legendary figure. The warrior queen : the life and legend of thelfld, Daughter of Alfred the Great.

The Warrior Queen by Joanna Arman