A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Elfleda
ELFLEDA, eldest Daughter of Alfred the Great, and Wife of Ethelred, Earl of Mercia,
Whom king Edward, her brother, made governor of that province jointly with her. Mercia was then greatly infested with the Danes, as well as other parts of England, and they were very serviceable to the king in his wars with them, especially in making head against, and preventing the Welsh from coming to their aid.
Elfleda wholly devoted herself to arms; and, like a true Amazon, gave proofs of her courage in all her brother's wars with the Danes. She was generally styled, not only Lady and Queen, but King. After the death of Ethelred, she took upon her the government of Mercia, and followed the example of her father and brother, in fortifying towns, to take away from the Danes all hopes of settling there again. Afterwards she carried her arms against the Welsh, and obliged them to become her tributaries. In 918 she took from the Danes Derby; and, in 920, Leicester, York, &c.
Elfleda died during this war with the Danes, leaving only one daughter, named Elswina, then marriageable. Ingulphus, the historian, says, "that, in respect to the cities she built, the castles she fortified, and the armies she managed, she might have been thought a man." She died at Tamworth, in Staffordshire, and was buried in the porch of the monastery of St. Peter, in Gloucester, which she and her husband had built.