Tag: history

This particular lady is one who has come close to being written out of history, and it’s about time she was put back in. It is partly because she is so obscure that I think her movie should be done as a sequel to one on her father, Alfred the Great who, though better known, also deserves more recognition and is definitely worthy of a movie in his own right.

By the 9th Century AD the southern part of the island of Great Britain had been taken over by Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Missionaries had converted them to Christianity and the original seven kingdoms had merged into three. To the north was Northumbria; to the east and centre was Mercia, which included the area settled by the Angles; Alfred’s kingdom was Wessex, land of the West Saxons, and covered the area to the west and south.

This period is often called the Dark Ages, and when the Great Viking Army arrived in must have seemed to many Christians that it was about to get even darker. The invaders still worshipped old gods such as Tiw (Tyr), Odin (Woden), Thor and Freya who had held sway over Germany and Scandinavia for centuries. [The spelling varied in the different areas, but evidence of their is still to be seen in the days that bear their names; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.]

From this complex mythology, only the Valkyries survive. They were originally the “shield maidens” of Odin who rode into battles to bring the bravest of the fallen to Valhalla. In modern times they are seem in many forms, standard bearers of a near forgotten culture that have been absorbed into our own. Personally, I’m glad they are still with us, for I rather like them and would love to see a fantasy sequence involving them included in the movie.

The invaders quickly overran Northumbria, although the film would only mention this in passing. It would concentrate on the struggle for survival of the two southern kingdoms against the Danish Vikings, thought of by the monastic chronicles of the time, as the forces of darkness. The Danes also believed in magic, and their mythology was full of tales about rings of power or doom, such as Andvarinaut, a cursed ring that blighted many lives. If all this sounds familiar to Lord of the Rings fans, it is hardly surprising: J.R.R. Tolkien was professor of Anglo Saxon studies at Oxford University.

While he got his inspiration from many sources (and did not welcome speculation on such matters!), it is, however, hard to ignore certain similarities between Middle Earth and Anglo Saxon England. For example both had: just one woman to fight on horseback; one woman to lead men in battle; one woman to help rule her people when destiny called. Taking everything into consideration, it is quite likely that the legends of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, inspired Tolkien to crate Eowyn, Lady of the Rohan (left). I do admit, that this similarity seems to relate more to their character, rather than to the lives they led in fact and fiction.

When Aethelflaed was born in 869 her uncle, Aethelred was King. These were troubled times and Alfred was soon helping his brother lead the army of Wessex against the invaders. The Vikings had been raiding Britain for many years but this army was a much more dangerous proposition – they had come to stay. In 871, Aethelred died of wounds received in battle and Alfred became King. He fought the Danes to a standstill and kept Wessex the only area free of them, but at a heavy price: part of the peace settlement involved paying off the Danes, which Alfred reluctantly did. His little kingdom was exhausted and he knew that if he was killed in battle, there was nobody to follow him. But this only bought him five years. The Danes started encroaching on Wessex and in January 878, launched a winter offensive which took the Saxons completely by surprise. The whole of Wessex was overrun and the royal family was forced to flee, fugitives in their own land.

A lesser man would have quit – the King of Mercia fled to Europe when his kingdom was overrun. Alfred was made of sterner stuff, and this became his finest hour. He went to the Somerset marshes and four months later had transformed a ragged band of followers into an army which defeated the Danes at the battle of Edington. A movie about Alfred would pay particular attention to this period, and I don’t think it unreasonable to assume that Aethelflaed would want to help her father in his time of need. He organised guerrilla warfare against the Danes, and I would include a scene in which eight-year old Aethelflaed spies on them. She is spotted and chased, but gets away. As they give up the chase our little heroine hears them remark; “These Saxon brats are just like their King, good at running and hiding.” We have a close up of a dirty but fiercely determined little face. “When I am grown up, it is you who will be running and hiding from me,” she says passionately.

When Aethelflaed gets back to camp she finds her mother Ealswyth frantic with worry. Everybody had been out looking for her and she was in big trouble – Alfred towers above her, and demands to know where she has been. When he finds out she has been spying on a group of Danes that were in the marshes he is furious, but when he stops yelling long enough to listen he realises that the information his daughter has brought him is extremely valuable. It’s difficult to stay angry with someone of whom you are very proud… After his decisive victory Alfred was able to dictate peace on his terms, which included the partition of Mercia. He achieved a lot, but I don’t anticipate his movie spending much time on them. There would still have been troubles with the Danes, who were a collection of independent bands rather than a true army, as we would understand it.

Aethelflaed’s gravecover in Gloucester

At the age of twenty, Aethelflaed married Ethelred, a powerful noble of Mercia and long-time friend of her father. They ruled together, but were never officially known as King and Queen, since many people were still waiting for the return of the King of Mercia from exile. A scene involving Ethelred finding out first hand that she knows how to fight would be a must. I like the idea of them being ambushed while travelling through a forest. Aethelflaed is travelling by wagon but when the Danes attack, her husband ignores her protests and gives her his horse. He tells her to ride on and sends half their bodyguard with her as protection. A short distance away she stops, and notices that the outnumbered Saxons are in trouble. She tries to send the men with her back, but they reluctantly refuse – their orders are to stick with her. Aethelflaed smiles, turns her horse and charges into the fight, picking up a sword from a fallen warrior on the way. The men have no alternative but to follow her; the Danes are taken completely by surprise and after a spirited scrap are beaten off.

Towards the end of the century the Danes attacked again but the combined efforts of Wessex and Mercia drove them back. Alfred was quite sick by this time and although he had organised the defence, such as the creation of a navy, the actual fighting was left to the younger generation. In 899 Alfred died and his son Edward became King of Wessex. The two countries continued to cooperate as before, and together increased the area of Mercia held by the Anglo-Saxons.

After her husband died in 911, Aethelflaed ruled alone until she died in 918 – he had been sick for some while before this, so in reality she already had the reins. In these last few years she is reported to have led her army in battle against the Vikings, recaptured the town of Derby without a siege, skilfully negotiated treaties with the Danes, Scots and Welsh, and built fortifications – her street plan can still be seen today in the town of Gloucester, where she also rebuilt the Roman walls. Though final victory went to others, without Aethelflaed’s tactical prowess to pave the way, the task of those who followed would have been much harder, if not impossible. [Picture at left is Skeggjold, one of a serious of Valkyrie dolls created by Tanya Van Der Ploeg – for more information visit her website.]

Her daughter briefly ruled after her death, but Edward took over when he found she was not up to the job, and ruled the two kingdoms as one until his death, when his son Aethelstan succeeded him. At a very young age Aethelstan was sent to Mercia where his Aunt Aethelflaed raised him, another potential plot thread. Mercia became his home and it is only natural that he would become their next king – the kingdoms were never separated again. Aethelstan continued the family tradition of gaining land from the Danes and finished up controlling the whole country, having taken over the Danish kingdom centred on York. A good indication of how close he was to his aunt is the statue of Aethelflaed that stands in the grounds of Tamworth Castle. Her right hand firmly grips a sword, but her left arm is protectively draped around the child Aethelstan.

In my view, Alfred, Aethelflaed, Edward and Aethelstan should be looked at collectively as the family that created England as a nation. I have no problem with Alfred becoming known as “The Great”, many years after his death, but think it only fair to point out that without his daughter, son and grandson, his efforts would not have had much lasting effect. Aethelflaed in particular has been relegated to a mere footnote, or worse still completely ignored, and the time is long overdue to do something about it.

A sequel to Alfred’s movie could feature Aethelflaed, though the basis for this would be neither the list of battles fought and fortifications built on the web, nor stuff that I make up. It should be based on the legends of Aethelflaed, which for some reason have been lost over the centuries. When William the Conqueror successfully invaded England in 1066 he cared little for his immediate predecessors, but found many stories still being told of Alfred and his warrior daughter. What better way to legitimise his rule than by marrying Matilda of Flanders, a direct descendant of Elfthryth, Aethelflaed’s sister? This connected William to the legends and enabled his descendants to trace their line right back to Alfred.

I saw one such descendant not long ago, hosting a documentary on the History channel. The credits referred to him as Edward Windsor, but we know him better as Prince Edward, Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son. Further evidence of his interest in history is the title he took on marriage: Earl of Wessex. His brothers have secondary titles to give their wives rank too, but neither went back over a thousand years to find them. Sounds to me like the right person to go digging in the royal archives, and see if he can find anything about Aethelflaed’s legends…

There were actually two queens of Halicarnassus called Artemisia. In the 4th century BC, one built a mausoleum to her husband, that was so beautiful that it became acknowledged as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but she was the later, and at least for our purposes, the secondary holder of the name. Her predecessor’s time in the spotlight came during the Battle of Salamis, in the year 480 BC – the story of how she arrived there, leading a squadron of ships, would occupy the bulk of the movie, with the battle as the climax. Artemisia had married the King of Halicarnassus about twenty years earlier and when he died a few years later, took the throne for herself.

There is more speculation involved than historical fact, but since very little – not even the King’s name! – is known for sure, and nobody suggested making a documentary, we can be forgiven some dramatic license in the next couple of paragraphs. I think portraying him as an older man, who takes Artemisia as a young trophy wife, would be a credible assumption. I see him being sick for a time before death, so she runs the state in his name and makes a really good job of it. After he passes, Most of the nobles, all the people and even the Persian overloads are keen for her to continue, but nothing is ever that easy.

Every film needs a villain, so let’s have some evil characters in the background. Give the old King a son from a previous marriage; a real nasty type, with a beautiful (but even nastier!) wife. They expect to rule when the King dies, but make no attempt to help Artemisia in running the place – indeed, quite the opposite, they cause nothing but trouble. With little home support, the stepson gets some from a nearby enemy city. The two sides battle for control, Artemisia wins, and her rivals for power flee into exile. It is safe to assume that she didn’t get the throne without some kind of a fight, and if we include Persian assistance for our heroine, this would explain why she later supported their cause, in gratitude for their help.

Now back to historical fact. Halicarnassus was one of the Ionian Greek States on the West coast of what is now Turkey. It is known that Artemisia led her ships in action against other Greek city-states long before the main battle. There is nothing unusual in this as the Greek states often fought amongst themselves. She gained enough success to become a military advisor to King Xerxes of Persia, the world superpower of its day.

The Persian Empire was a huge collection of diverse races united only in the tributes they paid to Xerxes. A select group of these subservient allies plus some of his own officials made up his military council. Artemisia was a member of the council and she alone spoke against taking on the Athenians in a naval battle. She advised him that the fleet would be better employed in supporting the army. Athens had already been occupied, and the whole of Greece lay open, but if the Persian fleet were decisively defeated, most of the army would have to withdraw as it could no longer be supplied from the sea. She wasn’t predicting disaster – but she wasn’t ruling it out either and considered it not worth the risk.

This would make a very dramatic scene, and would also be historically accurate. Xerxes liked her and listened to what she had to say, but went ahead and tried to smash the Athenian fleet anyway. Over-confident to the point that he set up his golden throne to watch the battle, Xerxes was to be disappointed. Although heavily outnumbered, the Greeks out-thought, out-manoeuvred and then out-fought their foes, gaining in the process one of the most important and decisive naval victories of all time. The battle itself was of enormous importance and if the Greeks had lost, it is quite possible that their civilization as a separate entity would have been extinguished. In the past it has been impossible to do such battles justice, but in the era of CGI, it can be done.

Artemisia’s part in the battle is well documented, although there does seem to be some minor variations. I have tweaked my favourite version for the purposes of the movie version. She is in the thick of the battle and her ships have been holding their own. Elsewhere things are going badly for the Persians as the allied fleet, starts to disintegrates. Realising that the cause is lost and that it is now time to abandon her rearguard action and look to her own survival, Artemisia plans her escape. With a Greek trireme bearing down on her ship, and her escape route blocked by the confused melee of ships she increases speed and heads straight for them. If a collision was inevitable, it will be on her terms. She lines up the ship of her hated enemy, King Clamasithymus who, while nominally on the Persian side, was the one who aided her stepson and gave him refuge. At full speed she smashes into the King’s vessel, her trireme’s underwater ram punching a hole in it below the waterline. The trireme backs off and as its victim sinks, Artemisia notices with some satisfaction that her stepson is on board. Convinced that the Queen has changed sides, the Greeks let her withdraw her squadron from the battle.

It has been recorded that Xerxes watched from the beach and when Artemisia rammed her rival exclaimed, “The men behaved like women, and the women like heroes.” It has been suggested that Xerxes was unaware of who she rammed, but I don’t buy this. Calling it a Persian fleet is done as a convenience, because describing it as a combined Phoenician, Egyptian, Cypriot, Cilician and Ionian-Greek fleet, is so cumbersome. Persia was a land empire and called on its allies and vassal states to provide ships. These were peoples who were natural rivals most of the time and would need little incentive to start fighting each other, especially as they try and escape the Greek trap. Artemisia only did what everyone else was trying to do – she just did it with style. The recognised facts support this view: after the battle, she remained on good terms with Xerxes while most of the fleet, and Xerxes himself, returned to their home countries

Meanwhile, back at the movies, how should the character of Artemisia be played? I see a beautiful lady who exudes an air of quiet dignity when required for ceremonial purposes, but is firm and decisive when decisions need to be made. In council she would command respect with her delivery of articulate intelligent argument. In battle she would be tough and ruthless, but fair and willing to give credit where it is due. The sort of commander men will follow into the jaws of hell. There may well be others that could do justice to the role, but if it was up to me, I would give it to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Although it has been suggested, I’d prefer not to include a full-blown relationship between Xerxes and Artemisia. Xerxes was a man who would not have been short of mistresses, but would never dream of bringing one to a war council. It is quite possible that he liked the idea of putting Artemisia to the sword (so to speak!), leading to some unresolved sexual tension, but I much prefer the idea that she was there entirely on her own merits. Someone like John Rhys-Davies, might make a good Xerxes.

Since Artemisia was fighting on what is historically regarded as “the wrong side,” some time will have to be spent on her motivation. I think it reasonable that she believes that the Greeks and Persians should be united – she was after all a Greek living under Persian rule. At the end of the film, a narrator could mention that it was 150 years later that this happened, but not in the way that Artemisia expected. Oliver Stone notwithstanding, it took the genius of Alexander the Great to conquer both Persia and Greece, bringing them together at last.

Further reading: Herodotus on Artemisia