Tag: The Royal Women Who Made England

Guest Post: “Excerpt from ‘The Royal Women Who Made England’ by MJ Porter

On By hmalagisiIn guest post1 Comment

I am pleased to welcome MJ Porter to my blog to share an excerpt from her nonfiction book, “The Royal Women Who Made England.” I would like to thank MJ Porter and The Coffee Pot Book Club for allowing me to be part of this blog tour.

Ælfthryth, the daughter of King Alfred and Lady Ealhswith – The Continental Connection

The union between Ælfthryth and Count Baldwin II is believed to have taken place sometime between Asser’s writing [of Alfred’s life] and the death of Alfred in 899. As Æthelweard’s Chronicon informs, Ælfthryth was married to Count Baldwin II of Flanders (879–918). Count Baldwin II was the son of Alfred’s stepmother, Judith, through her third marriage to Baldwin, Count of Flanders, with whom she eloped in 860, against her father’s wishes. Perhaps this was a love match that had been denied her before. Judith had previously been married to Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, Alfred’s father, and also to Æthelbald, King of Wessex, Alfred’s brother. There is no record of children born to these unions.

Judith was a daughter of Charles the Bald (823–877), who in turn was the son of Louis the Pious (773–840), a son of Charlemagne (c.742–814). Charles the Bald was king of the Franks from 840–877 and emperor from 875–877.

Blurb:

Throughout the tenth century, England, as it would be recognized today, formed. No longer many Saxon kingdoms, but rather, just England. Yet, this development masks much in the century in which the Viking raiders were seemingly driven from England’s shores by Alfred, his children, and grandchildren, only to return during the reign of his great, great-grandson, the much-maligned Æthelred II.

 Not one but two kings would be murdered, others would die at a young age, and a child would be named king on four occasions. Two kings would never marry, and a third would be forcefully divorced from his wife. Yet, the development of ‘England’ did not stop. At no point did it truly fracture back into its constituent parts. Who then ensured this stability? To whom did the witan turn when kings died, and children were raised to the kingship?

 The royal woman of the House of Wessex came into prominence during the century, perhaps the most well-known being Æthelflæd, daughter of King Alfred. Perhaps the most maligned being Ælfthryth (Elfrida), accused of murdering her stepson to clear the path to the kingdom for her son, Æthelred II, but there were many more women, rich and powerful in their own right, where their names and landholdings can be traced in the scant historical record.

 Using contemporary source material, The Royal Women Who Made England can be plucked from the obscurity that has seen their names and deeds lost, even within a generation of their own lives.

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/TheRoyalWomenWhoMadeEngland

Publisher Link: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Royal-Women-Who-Made-England-Hardback/p/24395

Author Bio:

MJ Porter is the author of over fifty fiction titles set in Saxon England and the era before the tumultuous events 1066. Raised in the shadow of a strange little building and told from a young age that it housed the long-dead bones of Saxon kings, it’s little wonder that the study of the era was undertaken at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Royal Women of the Tenth Century is the first non-fiction title. It explores this period’s ‘lost’ women through the surviving contemporary source material. It stemmed from a frustration with how difficult it was to find a single volume dedicated to these ‘lost’ women and hopes to make it much easier for others to understand the prestige, wealth, and influence of the women of the royal House of Wessex.

Author Links:

Website: www.mjporterauthor.com/ or www.mjporterauthor.blog

Twitter: www.twitter.com/coloursofunison

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MJPorterauthor/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mj-porterauthor/

Instagram: instagram.com/m_j_porter/

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@m_j_porter

Bluesky: mjporterauthor.bsky.social

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/coloursofunison/

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mj-porter

Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/MJ-Porter/e/B006N8K6X4

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163404.M_J_Porter

TikTok: tiktok.com/@mjporterauthor

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/MJPorterauthor

Book Review: “The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England” by M.J. Porter

On By hmalagisiIn Book ReviewsLeave a comment

royal womenWhen we think about England, we often think about a unified country with an illustrious history of wars and triumphs. However, England in the 10th century was drastically different. It was barely a country as it was newly formed through politics, but it faced the risk of elimination with a carousel of kings and Viking raiders. Some of the most notable kings of this era include Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edward the Martyr, and Aethelred II, but the most fascinating figures of this time were the women who were hidden in the shadows of the past. M.J. Porter uses the written record from the 10th and 11th centuries to tell the tales of these remarkable women in her book, “The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England.”

I would like to thank Pen and Sword Books and Net Galley for sending me a copy of this book. I have heard of M.J. Porter and her historical fiction novels ( I even hosted her for a guest post on my blog), but I had never read her books. I saw this particular title and I was curious as the history of 10th century England is a weak area in my historical research and I wanted to know more about the royal women who lived during this era.

Porter begins by explaining the concept of the long 10th century in England, which starts with the death of King Alfred in 899 to the death of Lady Elfrida in 1001/1002. In that span, ten kings reigned: Alfred, Edward the Elder, Aethelweard, Athelstan, Edmund, Eadred, Eadwig, Edgar, Edward the Martyr, and Aethelred II the Unready. Although this was a turbulent time, it was the women who kept England together. Women like Lady Aethelflaed Lady of the Mercians and Elfrida, the first crowned Queen of England, were not afraid to get their hands dirty whether that meant fighting off Viking invaders or potentially killing off her stepson so her son could be king. Some less famous women were daughters, sisters, mothers, saints, and abbesses/nuns who saw England transformed and whose stories survived through wills, charters, and chronicles.

While I did find the information in this book fascinating as I did take copious notes while reading, I have to be a bit critical of the actual structure of this book. The structure as it was published made it a bit difficult to follow along and I was struggling to keep track of who was who as some women shared the same name. I feel like Porter should have done an introduction to the events of the period in the beginning, then dived into what sources she will use in the book, and then gone into the more minutiae details of the lives of the royal women in chronological order.

Overall, it was a decent read that was extremely informative, but it could have been structured differently to make it even better and a more enjoyable read. Porter’s passion for this period of the past is evident on every page and I wonder how it translates to her historical fiction novels. If you want to learn more about the royal house of Wessex and the women who were close to the throne, I would recommend you read, “The Royal Women Who Made England: The Tenth Century in Saxon England” by M.J. Porter.