Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

by David Mitchell

In the chapter heading, I’ve referred to Aethelflaed as a queen, which isn’t strictly true. But, as the daughter and sister of kings and the effective ruler of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, she deserves the title, tonally speaking. Also I’m bitterly aware that this is the first mention of a woman in this narrative, apart from a brief one for Queen Bertha of Kent and an adjectival contribution from Queen Victoria. And actually I think my daughter got a nod, but that’s really just nepotism as her impact on early medieval English history is tiny. I’m sorry about that. It is one of the boring things about a lot of history. The towering sexism of many ages, and of many subsequent ages which have spearheaded the analysis of those earlier ages, has left the specifics of all the brilliant or shitty things women were doing largely unrecorded. You’d think that all they were doing was marrying kings, which the overwhelming majority were not.