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Arts & Humanities > Middle Ages Aethelflaed: noble beauty, warrior princess and diplomat

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Like Boudicca before and Joan d'Arc after her Aethelflaed's story is a meld of fact and legend, not an area where the academic historians like to tread. Add to this the potential for reference to modern gender politics and the story is treated to the whole range from extreme academic caution to a degree of fictitious romanticism. This telling of the story will take a path through the various versions that ignores some possible anomalies, though it does leave out some detail.

Aethelflaed was the eldest child of King Alfred the Great. She could well be called a Warrior Princess...

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