It has long been acknowledged that queens of Mercia enjoyed a higher status than those of other English kingdoms. Two women in particular stand out, Cynethryth, wife of King Offa (r. 756–797) and Æthelswith, wife of King Burgred (r. 953–974). Both of them regularly attested their husband’s charters, in strong contrast to the wives of West Saxon kings during the same period.Footnote 1 Asser famously attributed the near-invisibility of West Saxon royal women to the bad behaviour of King Beorhtric’s wife Eadburh, herself a Mercian and the daughter of Offa, which one suspects may be connected with the long rivalry between the kings of Wessex and Mercia.Footnote 2 It is striking, however, that just as Offa’s daughter Eadburh was married to Beorhtric of Wessex, so the West Saxon Æthelswith became the wife of Burgred of Mercia. It seems that the natal kinship of queens might have some bearing on their subsequent careers and reputations. Investigation of this possibility is hampered by the lack of narrative sources, especially in the case of Mercia, for which we are often reliant upon tangential evidence from neighbouring kingdoms who ‘were frequently the victims of Mercian aggression’.Footnote 3 Surrounded by rival kingdoms, Mercia needed to be on a permanent war footing if it was to survive as a political entity. To borrow a phrase used to describe tenth-century statecraft, we might conclude that the so-called ‘Mercian Supremacy’ comprised both ‘intensive and extensive lordship’.Footnote 4 Such a strategy would require diplomacy as well as military might, in which case royal wives drawn from powerful kindred would be an obvious asset and consequently they could potentially negotiate a prominent role for themselves at court.
The major problem in discussing such issues is, of course, that royal women are rarely more than names, and any deductions about their familial networks can only be speculative, but in the absence of more direct evidence, prosopography offers a possible way forward. The case of Cynewise, wife of Penda of Mercia (d. 955), is of particular interest since she has been suggested as a relative of Offa’s wife Cynethryth.Footnote 5 Bede mentions her only once, as having custody of the Northumbrian hostage, Ecgbert, son of Oswiu of Northumbria, but he does call her ‘queen’ (regina), and given the first element of her name, she has been identified as the mother of Penda’s saintly daughters, Cyneburh and Cyneswith.Footnote 6 The same first element is found in the name of the West Saxon king, Cynegils (c. 611–c. 642), who accepted baptism in 635 on the urging of Oswald of Northumbria. Oswald subsequently married one of the daughters of Cynegils, whose name is given, admittedly in a much later source, as Cyneburh.Footnote 7 It seems at least possible that Cynewise was also a daughter of Cynegils. Indeed, her marriage to Penda may have taken place simultaneously with that of Cenwealh son of Cynegils to Penda’s (unnamed) sister.Footnote 8 Oswald fell in battle against Penda at Maserfelth in 642, and Cynegils may also have been a casualty, for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes the succession of Cenwealh in that year.Footnote 9 The deaths of both his father and his father’s ally might have induced Cenwealh to seek accommodation with the victorious Penda, a supposition made more likely by the fact that Cenwealh had, according to Bede, refused conversion; it was only after he was temporarily driven out of Wessex by Penda, allegedly for repudiating his sister, that he accepted baptism at the court of Anna of the East Angles.Footnote 10 The fact that both her daughters entered religion suggests that Cynewise herself may have been Christian. Bede reveals that Penda did not hinder the practice of Christianity in Mercia, although the process of conversion began in earnest only after his death in 655.Footnote 11 Any direct influence which Penda was able to assert over Wessex ended with the re-instatement of Cenwealh in 648, but Cynewise maintained her position as lady of his household and the mother/stepmother of his children, for (as we have seen) she bore the title of queen and was entrusted with the custody of the Northumbrian hostage Ecgfrith during Penda’s last campaign.Footnote 12
Cynethryth
If Cynewise hailed from Wessex, can the same be true of her hypothetical kinswoman Cynethryth, wife of King Offa? Looking simply at her name, an obvious candidate for her father is the West Saxon king, Cynewulf (757–86), himself possibly a descendant of Cynegils and Cenwealh, the putative father and brother of Cynewise.Footnote 13 Cynewulf took the West Saxon kingship in 757 by deposing his kinsman Sigibert and driving him into exile, just as, in the same year, Offa drove his rival King Beornred from Mercia. Cynewulf had already attested a diploma of Æthelbald of Mercia, whose murder in 756 had sparked the clash between Beornred and Offa, and it would be natural for him to continue good relations with his more powerful neighbour by marrying his daughter to the new king.Footnote 14 For Offa, marriage with a woman from the kindred of Penda’s queen might enhance his own relatively obscure background as heir to the Mercian throne.Footnote 15 We do not, of course, know the date of Offa and Cynethryth’s marriage, but a rapprochement between the two kings is suggested by Offa’s confirmation of a diploma issued by Cynewulf in favour of the minster of Bath in 758.Footnote 16 If the charter of Uhtred king of the Hwicce bearing the attestations of Queen Cynethryth and two of her children, Ecgfrith and Ælfflaed, is genuine or based on genuine materials, the marriage must have taken place before 770.Footnote 17
The alliance between Offa and Cynewulf was maintained, despite some difficulties, until Cynewulf’s murder in 786.Footnote 18 His eventual successor, Beorhtric, would marry Eadburh, daughter of Offa (and Cynethryth?), in 789.Footnote 19 Offa’s willingness to forge dynastic ties with Wessex over two generations explains the prominence enjoyed by Cynethryth as the first English queen to regularly attest royal diplomas. Fifty-nine charters are attributed to Offa’s reign, of which twenty-three were witnessed by Cynethryth.Footnote 20 The majority were issued in favour of religious houses and ten concerned the disposal of estates in the client kingdoms of Kent and the South Saxons. However, the most striking fact about Cynethryth is the minting of coins in her name. As of 2021, some forty-four specimens have come to light and all but two were minted by one Canterbury moneyer called Eoba.Footnote 21 The portrayal of Cynethryth on coins is clearly significant but in what way is difficult to assess, in the absence of other evidence. Traditionally, they have been linked with promotion of her status as the legitimate wife, and mother of Offa’s son and heir, Ecgfrith.Footnote 22 Pauline Stafford rightly notes that Cynethryth’s public persona emerges on the appearance of a viable male heir.Footnote 23 Stafford has also tentatively suggested a link between the imagery on Cynethryth’s coins and those featuring St Helena, mother of Constantine.Footnote 24 However, while there are allusions to Helena as a role model for queens in sixth-century Francia, this not apparent in England before the early ninth century.Footnote 25
Although Cynethryth’s coinage is based on Roman models, the coins are very similar in design to those of her husband Offa. Rory Naismith suggests that the majority share similarities with those of Faustina, wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (r. 138–161).Footnote 26 What is particularly striking is the prominent engraving of the name of the moneyer ‘Eoba’ alongside the image assumed to be that of the queen. The descriptor ‘Cynethryth regina’ is consigned to the reverse on all her coins. Eoba’s career as a moneyer spanned some forty years and he was clearly a significant figure in Canterbury, but nothing more is known of him. If the aim was to demonstrate Offa’s dynastic ambitions, why didn’t he simply use his own image and name, or that of Ecgfrith? Was Offa seeking to promote Cynethryth’s issue at the expense of older sons by other women? Regrettably, the sources are completely silent on this. However, the visibility of Cynethryth as opposed to Ecgfrith on Offa’s coins suggests that she had powerful connections that we can only view ‘through a glass, darkly’.Footnote 27
The minting of silver pennies in the queen’s name takes on a wider significance following the recent discovery of a Carolingian denier engraved with the words ‘Fastrada Regina’.Footnote 28 Fastrada was Charlemagne’s third wife between 783 and her death in August 794; on stylistic grounds her coin can be dated to 793/4.Footnote 29 Thus, it post-dates the circulation and apparent cessation of Cynethryth’s coinage. As Janet Nelson has shown, Fastrada features more prominently in Frankish records than other Carolingian queens. Her pre-eminence can be linked to her powerful East Frankish family connections, probably centred on Frankfort, apart from any other charms she may have possessed.Footnote 30 In a personal letter written in early September 791, Fastrada is described as ‘our beloved and most loving wife’.Footnote 31 The queen’s influence over her husband, despite having no surviving sons of her own, would explain the hostile press she received subsequently from Einhard, who accused her of cruelty.Footnote 32 We should perhaps see Charlemagne’s circulation of the Fastrada currency as an attempt to engender loyalty to the Carolingian regnum among a peripheral elite. This invites further speculation as to the motive behind Offa’s earlier distribution of coins in his wife’s name.
If we simply associate Cynethryth’s coinage with the promotion of her son, Ecgfrith, as Offa’s heir, then presumably his consecration in 787 explains the apparent halt in production by the late 780s, as it had served its purpose. However, this did not lead to a diminution in the queen’s position at court as she continued to witness Offa’s charters with her son. Cynethryth’s ongoing influence can be surmised from a letter written by Alcuin to an otherwise unknown nun, Hundrud (Hundrada), before 796. In the missive, Alcuin asks to be remembered to Cynethryth and says:
I would have written her a letter of counsel if the King’s business had permitted her to read it. Let her rest assured that I am as faithful to her ladyship also as I can be.Footnote 33
Offa went to some lengths to secure the possession of several unnamed religious houses by obtaining a priviligium from Pope Hadrian (772–795) that confirmed they were to be ‘held under the ‘authority’ (dicio) of Offa, Cynethryth, and those born of their ‘genealogia’.Footnote 34 The document is fragmentary and its Mercian provenance was only identified by the preservation of a single name, Cynedridae regine. Footnote 35 In restricting the ownership of these monasteries and estates to the royal couple’s genealogia, ‘the privilege outlines a way in which these might remain familial possession even if this family were to lose royal title, and kingship were to pass to another line’.Footnote 36 This is clearly how Cynethryth viewed the situation, as borne out by her attempts in widowhood to ensure that Bedford, Cookham and Glastonbury remained within the control of her kin. Indeed, Benjamin Savill moots the idea that Hadrian’s privilege was originally addressed jointly to Offa and Cynethryth and that its purpose was to protect her interests in properties distinct from those of the king.Footnote 37 Although the names of the monasteries are missing, we are told that they were all dedicated to St Peter, which has led to the identification of a number of possible candidates including: Bedford, Bath, Bredon, Chertsey and Woking. Savill augments this choice in his discussion of Cookham, Glastonbury and Winchcombe.Footnote 38 What is particularly striking is that several of these sites were located within the Thames Valley and shared a connection with Cynethryth and her natal family.
That Cynethryth continued to be politically active during her son’s brief reign is evident from her presence in the witness list of two of his three surviving charters as sole king.Footnote 39 We might also detect her guiding hand behind the existence of a papal privilege issued to Ecgfrith’s successor, Coenwulf, in 798 by Pope Leo III. This document confirmed an agreement that had been made between her son Ecgfrith, and son-in-law, Beorhtric of Wessex, to settle another family monastery, Glastonbury, on an otherwise unknown abbot Cynehelm in perpetuity.Footnote 40 Coenwulf had apparently confirmed the gift in the presence of Cynethryth as abbess ‘cum karissimis congnatis meis Etheburh et Celfled [Ælfflaed]’.Footnote 41 The attestation by Cynethryth’s daughters implies that their agreement to waive any rights of inheritance was necessary. Given Cynethryth’s involvement in the securing of Glastonbury for an otherwise unknown Cynehelm and his successors, and the shared first element in their names, he may have been a kinsman.Footnote 42 The confirmation by Coenwulf may have been an attempt at reconciliation, to forestall potential hostilities with Wessex, where Cynethryth’s daughter was queen.Footnote 43 The possibility that Ecgfrith was murdered may be inferred from another letter sent by Alcuin to Ealdorman Osberht, in which he states:
For truly, as I think, that most noble young man has not died for his own sins; but the vengeance for the blood shed by the father has reached the son. For you know very well how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom on his son.Footnote 44
The death of Cynethryth’s closest male family members in quick succession left her in a vulnerable position. Ecgfrith’s successors were distant cousins, Coenwulf (796–821) and his brother Ceolwulf I (821–823), who claimed descent from a Coenwalh, said to be the brother of Penda and Eowa.Footnote 45 There is no evidence that Penda had a brother called Coenwalh, but he did have a brother-in-law, Cenwealh, King of the West Saxons. If he was Coenwulf’s ancestor, then (if the links suggested above have any validity) Coenwulf may have been related to Cynethryth herself, which would be a further reason to acquiesce in her seeking of a papal privilege to protect Cynehelm’s position at Glastonbury. It is perhaps worth noting that both Coenwulf and his brother Cuthred had sons who shared the first name element ‘Cyne’.Footnote 46 As Ann Williams says: ‘In view of the enmity of the West Saxons and Mercians in the early ninth century, it would be ironic indeed if Coenwulf and Ceolwulf were descended from a West Saxon King.’Footnote 47 The irony is all the more bittersweet, given that a putative descendant of the same family, Ceolwulf II (874–c. 879) would be the last king of independent Mercia
After her son’s death, Cynethryth retired to become abbess of Cookham. At first sight this seems to have been an unwise choice given its location within liminal territory where the West Saxons and Mercians regularly clashed in their attempts to expand political and economic control. That Cynethryth’s position was insecure is revealed by the fact that she immediately faced litigation. It is suggested that what saved her was the existence of Hadrian’s privilege, obtained during Offa’s lifetime, and the desire of Coenwald to reach an accommodation with his wider kindred. At the Council of Clofesho (798), in order to retain Cookham, Cynethryth was forced to relinquish to the Archbishop of Canterbury 110 hides in Kent that Offa had appropriated to the church at Bedeford [Bedford] and which appear to have been retained by Cynethryth. In addition she was given the monastery aet Pectanege. Footnote 48 The agreement preserved at Christ Church reveals that the ownership of Cookham had long been a cause of friction between Wessex and Mercia. From a rather garbled account of the abbey’s history, it would appear that Cynewulf of Wessex was despoiled of Cookham by Æthelbald, who then granted it to Canterbury before his death in 757. At some point thereafter, Offa acquired the monastery and settled it upon Cynethryth. It is possible that this was a precondition of their marriage.Footnote 49 It is suggested that Cynethryth’s desire to retain Cookham after Offa’s death was because it was a West Saxon foundation that had once belonged to her family.Footnote 50 At this point Cynethryth disappears from historical sources.
Æthelswith
Although there may be ambiguity as to Cynethryth’s kindred there is no such issue with Æthelswith, daughter of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex (839–858). In 853, she married Burgred, King of Mercia (852–874), and as we shall see, Burgred’s military dependency on his West Saxon in-laws was reflected in the extraordinarily high status enjoyed by his queen. Unlike her immediate Mercian predecessors, Æthelswith not only witnessed all Burgred’s diplomas, she was also named as joint donor on at least two occasions.Footnote 51 As queen, Æthelswith held land in her own right that she could dispose of as she wished.Footnote 52 No equivalent examples of queenly activity have been documented in England before the eleventh century; such evidence only survives for widowed royal abbesses.
Burgred seems to have belonged to a family that ruled Mercia in the early ninth century.Footnote 53 He emerged as ruler in 852 after his predecessor, Beorhtwulf (839/40–851), ‘had been put to flight, with his army’ by the Danes in 851.Footnote 54 In 853, Burgred and his council sought military assistance from Æthelwulf against the Welsh and Burgred cemented the alliance by marrying Æthelwulf’s daughter.Footnote 55 Perhaps indicative of his subordinate status, it was Burgred who had to travel to Wessex to collect his bride.Footnote 56 Caution is needed when assessing the relationship between Burgred and his in-laws, as can be seen by comparing the tone of the various recensions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in their description of the expedition into Wales. The manuscripts written from a West Saxon perspective, unsurprisingly, give the initiative to Æthelwulf whereas the northern text attributes the leading role to Burgred.Footnote 57 In 868, however, Burgred was again forced to seek help from his brothers-in-law, King Æthelred I (865–871) and Alfred, against the Vikings who had taken up winter quarters at Nottingham.Footnote 58 Simon Keynes notes that, in this instance, Asser promotes the idea of West Saxon superiority by alluding to Burgred’s ‘humble appeal’.Footnote 59 As with the joint campaign against the Welsh, the agreement in 868 was cemented by a diplomatic marriage, this time between Alfred and Ealhswith, whose mother, Asser claimed, was descended ‘from the royal stock of the king of the Mercians’.Footnote 60
That same year, Æthelswith, without reference to her husband, granted fifteen manentes at Lockinge, Berkshire, to her faithful minister Cuthwulf, ‘with the consent and testimony of my elders’.Footnote 61 She specifically described the estate as her property (mee proprie potestatis). It is possible that Lockinge, close to the royal manor of Wantage, was part of her share of the family settlement made by her father, Æthelwulf, at Easter 854 prior to his departure for Rome.Footnote 62 This would explain the predominantly West Saxon signatories headed by King Æthelred.Footnote 63 Included in the witness list was another sibling, Alfred, and an Osweald, both of whom were described as ‘filius regis’.Footnote 64 A year later, in 869, Æthelswith and Burgred jointly granted five hides (manentes) at Uptrop to an otherwise unknown Wulflaf in return for fifty mancuses of gold. The diploma survives as an original or near contemporary copy and the text is particularly revealing about the relationship between the royal couple. Æthelswith is referred to as pari coronata stemma regali Anglorum regina (crowned queen of the Angles, of equal royal pedigree). The full significance of this statement has not received the attention it deserves. Historians have focused on the assertion of parity between both royal houses rather than the meaning of the term coronata, never before used to describe a royal consort in England.Footnote 65 While Julie-Ann Smith makes a passing reference, Janet Nelson consigns it to a footnote.Footnote 66 This is perhaps understandable as the evidence for queen-making and king-making rites in the west is somewhat tenuous before the mid-ninth century. Significantly, the earliest references to consecration ceremonies in England emanate from Mercia. The first was that of Ecgfrith who, following the Frankish practice, was anointed in 787, during his father’s lifetime.Footnote 67 There is also the charter of Ceolwulf I (821–823), to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, which explicitly states that it was issued on the day of the king’s consecration, 17 September 822.Footnote 68 In neither case does an ordo survive.
That queens received some form of blessing can be traced back to Bertrada, wife of Pippin, and the events of 751 and 754.Footnote 69 However, it is not until the ninth century that we have surviving ordines specifically prepared for queens. The earliest ordo was written by Hincmar of Rheims for the consecration of Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, on her marriage to Æthelwulf of Wessex in 856. Janet Nelson has argued for an Anglo-Saxon provenance, noting that the ‘Judith’ ordo shares several of the formulas used in the first English ordo preserved in the Leofric missal. She suggests that clerics in Æthelwulf’s entourage may have been involved in its compilation.Footnote 70
The English connection is particularly interesting when thinking about Æthelswith. Is it possible that she was a consecrated queen for whom a Mercian ordo has not survived? When was she ‘crowned queen of the Angles’? Was it in 853 or should we see the unique reference in S 214 as indicative of a recent event? Did the ceremony involve anointing? Can we read anything into Asser’s description of Æthelswith’s marriage beyond the fact that it was ostentatious when he says it ‘was conducted in royal style’?Footnote 71 The point has already been made that the celebrations were performed in Wessex. Unfortunately, Asser does not elaborate on Æthelswith’s position as regina despite his subsequent, famous explanation of why the West Saxons did not have queens.Footnote 72 The nuptials celebrated in ‘royal style’ implies that a more significant ceremony than usual was involved, but in what way is unknowable. Did Æthelswith undergo some form of anointing to become pari coronata stemma regali Anglorum regina in 853? It is tempting to take Nelson’s hypothesis a stage further by suggesting that the English clerics involved in adapting the first English ordo for Judith in 856 were chosen for their track record in preparing an earlier version, now lost, for Æthelswith in 853.
It is possible, however, that Æthelswith’s enhanced position as coronata occurred in response to a more recent event that had taken place across the Channel. In 866, three years prior to the issue of S 214, Hincmar of Rheims was, once again, involved in preparing an ordo for a queen. On this occasion it was for the consecration of Judith’s mother, Queen Ermentrude, wife of Charles the Bald. By this time the couple had been married twenty-three years and produced at least eleven children.Footnote 73 Ermentrude’s anointing was accompanied by prayers that conveyed not only hopes of future offspring, but also political messages relating to divine sanction of dynastic continuity and good kingship.Footnote 74 It has been suggested that the consecration of Ermentrude took place amidst fears for the future of the Carolingian dynasty.Footnote 75 As Janet Nelson says, the emergence of queenly anointing was associated with her role as the mother of royal heirs ‘and the implied confining of those heirs to a single line’.Footnote 76 Similar concerns may have been in the minds of Burgred and Æthelswith, who appear to have been childless. We shall return to this point later. The failure to produce a male heir would only have compounded Burgred’s political weakness. It would therefore have been in the royal couple’s interests to embrace the ideology around queenly status that was developing in West Francia from the 820s onwards.Footnote 77
Coincidentally, dynastic fears regarding the succession may have been in the mind of Æthelswith’s brother, Æthelred I of Wessex, as evidenced by the unique appearance of his wife, Wulfthryth, probably the daughter of Wulfhere, ealdorman of Wiltshire, as regina in a charter dated 868 (S 340).Footnote 78 Was it a coincidence that Wulfthryth’s visibility was enhanced in the very year that Æthelred’s younger brother, Alfred, was married? Æthelred’s concern to ensure a line of succession would explain Wulfthryth’s title. If the witness list for S 340 is genuine, then Æthelred was clearly bucking the trend of West Saxon kings to downplay the position of royal consort. Given that his mother may have been repudiated in favour of a more illustrious marriage to Judith, this was a significant move.Footnote 79 Ultimately, it was Æthelred’s early death at a time of crisis that caused his young sons to be sidelined in favour of their uncle Alfred in 871.
Asser may have been instructed to suppress any mention of Wulfthryth, especially given the existence of her progeny, and the lack of status afforded to Ealhswith. Just as Æthelred’s family were airbrushed out of the Alfredian narrative regarding the royal succession, so was any reference to the thoughts of Judith’s second husband, Æthelbald, on the matter.Footnote 80 Judith is only alluded to in relation to her first marriage to Æthelwulf, ensuring that her position could, if the need arose, be dismissed as a ‘foreign aberration’.Footnote 81 The story of Eadburh, who was also ‘foreign’, served as a caveat against powerful women.Footnote 82 David Pratt notes that a deliberate policy of downgrading royal wives ‘may have had advantages for a dynasty tightening its grip on the kingdom, in circumstances which made use of fraternal succession.’Footnote 83 The enhanced status afforded to Judith and Wulfthryth in charters represented a change in policy by Æthelbald and Æthelred in favour of rihtfaedrencynn (direct paternal ancestry), a lineal descent of kingship from father to son.Footnote 84 By the 890s, Alfred was also seeking to secure the rule of an extended West Saxon regnum, ‘the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, on his son at the expense of his nephews, hence Alfred’s wish to suppress his brothers’ dynastic ambitions in official records. This contention would support David Pratt’s argument for a revised dating of version A of the Second English ordo to the late 890s. If correct, this would suggest that Alfred was seeking to legitimise Edward’s position as his successor in the eyes of the Church. The text of the ordo includes a section on the coronation of a queen, presumably Edward the Elder’s wife Ælfflaed.Footnote 85
Aside from Æthelred’s sons, it is possible that Alfred had another nephew to contend with – that is, Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians. In 2001, Alex Woolf mooted the idea that Æthelred’s parents were Æthelswith and Burgred.Footnote 86 If this is correct (and there is no occasion when Æthelred attests Burgred’s charters as filius rex), it adds another dimension to Alfred’s policy regarding English Mercia. In 874, Burgred was driven into exile by the Danes and replaced by Ceolwulf II (874–c. 879). Though described by the A version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as ‘a foolish king’s thegn’, Ceolwulf was clearly a legitimate king in Mercia, and possibly a descendent of Ceolwulf I.Footnote 87 The ‘Two Emperors’ coinage, issued in both kingdoms and in the names of both Alfred and Ceolwulf, suggests a far more equal, even collaborative relationship between the West Saxon and the Mercian kings.Footnote 88 As for Æthelswith, it is presumed that she accompanied her husband to Rome, which is borne out by the appearance of their names in the Liber Vitae of Brescia.Footnote 89 Whether she stayed there is another matter. Asser tells us that Burgred died soon after arriving in Rome and thus it is possible that Æthelswith returned home to Wessex.Footnote 90 If we accept Woolf’s premise that Æthelred was her son, she may have sought to negotiate on Æthelred’s behalf for his Mercian inheritance after Ceolwulf II disappeared from view in c. 879. The first documented reference to Æthelred occurs in 883 when he granted privileges to Berkeley Abbey. In the proem Æthelred describes himself as ‘endowed and enriched with a portion of the realm of the Mercians’ and says his charter was made ‘with the leave and cognisance of King Alfred, and the whole of the Mercian council, both ecclesiastical and lay’.Footnote 91 When Alfred took control of the former Mercian city of London in 886, he entrusted it to Æthelred and it must have been about this time that Æthelred married Alfred’s daughter Æthelflaed.Footnote 92 Perhaps it was only after his future was assured that Æthelswith returned to Italy, where she died, at Pavia, in 888.Footnote 93
Conclusion
It is clear that the illustrious career of Cynethryth was a direct consequence of the extraordinary activities of her husband Offa of Mercia. No other Mercian king achieved the military success enjoyed by him at the expense of neighbouring kingdoms. However, while Offa’s dynastic ambitions undoubtedly enhanced Cynethryth’s status, equally she gave legitimacy to his rule by virtue of her Mercian and West Saxon royal antecedents. That this was important to Offa is evident in Cynethryth’s continued presence at court even after the assassination of her putative father, Cynewulf, in 786. The queen’s appearance on coins served to demonstrate that only her sons were to be considered throne-worthy. Nevertheless, despite her visibility, Cynethryth’s career was still ultimately defined by her roles as wife, mother and widow. The death of her husband and son in quick succession condemned her to the usual fate of royal wives, that of retirement to a religious house. However, her wider familial connections ensured a high degree of agency in negotiating the terms of her widowhood.
Cynethryth was concerned to ensure that some if not all the religious houses founded by her natal family should continue to be held by her surviving relatives. No doubt she intended that Cookham should be inherited by her daughters. As abbess of Cookham, the dowager-queen almost certainly engaged in mercantile activity on a par with the abbess of Minster-in-Thanet. It may be that her distant kinship with Ecgfrith’s successor, Coenwulf, made her a potential force with whom it was necessary to seek accommodation. This could explain his willingness to obtain a papal privilege confirming the ownership of Glastonbury in perpetuity by another mutual kinsman, abbot Cynehelm.Footnote 94 Unfortunately, the destruction and suppression of Mercian culture by vikings and the royal house of Wessex in the ninth century precludes a more in-depth study of the usual role played by queens as religious patrons. This applies to both Cynethryth and Æthelswith.
In the case of Æthelswith, we see another royal consort who was able to enjoy an extraordinary position of power thanks to her powerful West Saxon family. Æthelswith’s status as a crowned queen relies on the veracity of S 214, which has not been seriously questioned. Pauline Stafford has noted that there was ‘a tradition of queenly importance in Mercia’.Footnote 95 This tradition reached its apogee during the queenship of Æthelswith, which suggests that Mercian kings relied more than usual upon their choice of wives and their family connections in order to maintain control of an enclosed kingdom. This dependency is all the more visible during the ninth century when faced with the additional external threat posed by the Danish invasions. Burgred’s reliance on the support of his in-laws may have prevented Æthelswith from being repudiated despite her apparent failure to produce a viable heir during twenty years of marriage. However, if she was the mother of ealdorman Æthelred, then we might conclude that she was a resourceful woman who, on the death of her husband, returned to Wessex to fight for her son’s share in the governing of the new ‘Anglo-Saxon’ realm being created by her brother.
Cynethryth and Æthelswith were West Saxon princesses who married men who had emerged from obscure backgrounds to become kings of Mercia. This enabled both queens to exercise a degree of agency unparalleled elsewhere in England at the time. Offa was a successful king, whereas Burgred ultimately was not, and this impacted upon the fortunes of their widows. Cynethryth, as queen mother/dowager, retained power during the lifetime of her son and even afterwards, while Æthelswith’s eventual fate was to die in exile in Pavia. If, however, she was in fact the mother of Ealdorman Æthelred, then her son enjoyed an illustrious career as Lord of the Mercians, perhaps because his mother was not only sister and aunt of the West Saxon rulers, but also ‘crowned queen of the Angles’.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Ann Williams for her editing and helpful advice in the preparation of this article. My thanks are also due to Alex Woolf, Andrew Sargent and Morn Capper. Any errors of interpretation are mine alone.
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