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William III of England

William III (William Henry; Willem Hendrik; 4 November 1650 –8 March 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He ruled Britain and Ireland alongside his wife, Queen Mary II, and their joint reign is known as that of William and Mary.

William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal, the daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His father died a week before his birth, making William III the prince of Orange from birth. In 1677, he married his first cousin Mary, the eldest daughter of his maternal uncle James, Duke of York, the younger brother and later successor of King Charles II.

A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic French ruler Louis XIV in coalition with both Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded William as a champion of their faith. In 1685, his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, James, became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. James's reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, who feared a revival of Catholicism. Supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, William invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, he landed at the south-western English port of Brixham; James was deposed shortly afterward.

William's reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him and his wife to take power. During the early years of his reign, William was occupied abroad with the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), leaving Mary to govern Britain alone. She died in 1694. In 1696 the Jacobites, a faction loyal to the deposed James, plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William and restore James to the throne. William's lack of children and the death in 1700 of his nephew the Duke of Gloucester, the son of his sister-in-law Anne, threatened the Protestant succession. The danger was averted by placing William and Mary's cousins, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne after Anne with the Act of Settlement 1701. Upon his death in 1702, William was succeeded in Britain by Anne and as titular Prince of Orange by his cousin John William Friso.

Birth and family

William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650. Baptised William Henry (Willem Hendrik), he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal, and stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange. Mary was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and sister of kings Charles II and James II and VII.

Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox; thus, William was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth. Immediately, a conflict arose between his mother and his paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William (Willem) to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had intended to appoint his wife as their son's guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at William II's death and was therefore void. On 13 August 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his grandmother and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, husband of his paternal aunt Louise Henriette.

Childhood and education
William's mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society. William's education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard and the Scottish noblewoman Lady Anna Mackenzie. From April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius.

The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange, a short treatise, perhaps by one of William's tutors, Constantijn Huygens. In these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange-Nassau. William was seen, despite his youth, as the leader of the "Orangist" party, heir to the stadholderships of several provinces and the office of Captain-General of the Union (see Politics and government of the Dutch Republic). He was viewed as the leader of the nation in its independence movement and its protector from foreign threats. This was in the tradition of the princes of Orange before him: his great-grandfather William the Silent, his grand-uncle Maurice, his grandfather Frederick Henry, and his father William II.

From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius (though never officially enrolling as a student). While residing in the Prinsenhof at Delft, William had a small personal retinue including Hans Willem Bentinck, and a new governor, Frederick Nassau de Zuylenstein, who (as an illegitimate son of stadtholder Frederick Henry of Orange) was his paternal uncle.

Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his uncle Cornelis de Graeff pushed the States of Holland to take charge of William's education and ensure that he would acquire the skills to serve in a future—though undetermined—state function; the States acted on 25 September 1660. Around this time, the young prince played with De Graeff's sons Pieter and Jacob de Graeff in the park of the country house in Soestdijk. In 1674 Wilhelm bought the estate from Jacob de Graeff, which was later converted into Soestdijk Palace. This first involvement of the authorities did not last long. On 23 December 1660, when William was ten years old, his mother died of smallpox at Whitehall Palace, London, while visiting her brother, the recently restored King Charles II. In her will, Mary requested that Charles look after William's interests, and Charles now demanded that the States of Holland end their interference. To appease Charles, they complied on 30 September 1661. That year, Zuylenstein began to work for Charles and induced William to write letters to his uncle asking him to help William become stadtholder someday. After his mother's death, William's education and guardianship became a point of contention between his dynasty's supporters and the advocates of a more republican Netherlands.

The Dutch authorities did their best at first to ignore these intrigues, but in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, one of Charles's peace conditions was the improvement of the position of his nephew. As a countermeasure in 1666, when William was sixteen, the States officially made him a ward of the government, or a "Child of State". All pro-English courtiers, including Zuylenstein, were removed from William's company. William begged De Witt to allow Zuylenstein to stay, but he refused. De Witt, the leading politician of the Republic, took William's education into his own hands, instructing him weekly in state matters and joining him for regular games of real tennis.

Exclusion from stadtholdership

After the death of William's father, most provinces had left the office of stadtholder vacant. At the demand of Oliver Cromwell, the Treaty of Westminster, which ended the First Anglo-Dutch War, had a secret annexe that required the Act of Seclusion, which forbade the province of Holland from appointing a member of the House of Orange as stadtholder. After the English Restoration, the Act of Seclusion, which had not remained a secret for long, was declared void as the English Commonwealth (with which the treaty had been concluded) no longer existed. In 1660, William's mother Mary and grandmother Amalia tried to persuade several provincial States to designate William as their future stadtholder, but they all initially refused.

In 1667, as William III approached the age of 18, the Orangist party again attempted to bring him to power by securing for him the offices of stadtholder and Captain-General. To prevent the restoration of the influence of the House of Orange, De Witt, the leader of the States Party, allowed the pensionary of Haarlem, Gaspar Fagel, to induce the States of Holland to issue the Perpetual Edict. The Edict, supported by the important Amsterdam politicians Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier, declared that the Captain-General or Admiral-General of the Netherlands could not serve as stadtholder in any province. Even so, William's supporters sought ways to enhance his prestige and, on 19 September 1668, the States of Zeeland appointed him as First Noble. To receive this honour, William had to escape the attention of his state tutors and travel secretly to Middelburg. A month later, Amalia allowed William to manage his own household and declared him to be of majority age.

The province of Holland, the centre of anti-Orangism, abolished the office of stadtholder, and four other provinces followed suit in March 1670, establishing the so-called "Harmony". De Witt demanded an oath from each Holland regent (city council member) to uphold the Edict; all but one complied. William saw all this as a defeat, but the arrangement was a compromise: De Witt would have preferred to ignore the prince completely, but now his eventual rise to the office of supreme army commander was implicit. De Witt further conceded that William would be admitted as a member of the Raad van State, the Council of State, then the generality organ administering the defence budget. William was introduced to the council on 31 May 1670 with full voting rights, despite De Witt's attempts to limit his role to that of an advisor.

Conflict with republicans
In November 1670, William obtained permission to travel to England to urge Charles to pay back at least a part of the 2,797,859 guilder debt the House of Stuart owed the House of Orange. Charles was unable to pay, but William agreed to reduce the amount owed to 1,800,000 guilders. Charles found his nephew to be a dedicated Calvinist and patriotic Dutchman and reconsidered his desire to show him the Secret Treaty of Dover with France, directed at destroying the Dutch Republic and installing William as "sovereign" of a Dutch rump state. In addition to differing political outlooks, William found that his lifestyle differed from his uncles Charles and James, who were more concerned with drinking, gambling, and cavorting with mistresses.

The following year, the Republic's security deteriorated quickly as an Anglo-French attack became imminent. In view of the threat, the States of Gelderland wanted William to be appointed Captain-General of the Dutch States Army as soon as possible, despite his youth and inexperience. On 15 December 1671, the States of Utrecht made this their official policy. On 19 January 1672, the States of Holland made a counterproposal: to appoint William for just a single campaign. The prince refused this and on 25 February a compromise was reached: an appointment by the States General for one summer, followed by a permanent appointment on his 22nd birthday.

Meanwhile, William had written a secret letter to Charles in January 1672 asking his uncle to exploit the situation by exerting pressure on the States to appoint William stadtholder. In return, William would ally the Republic with England and serve Charles's interests as much as his "honour and the loyalty due to this state" allowed. Charles took no action on the proposal, and continued his war plans with his French ally.

"Disaster year" and Franco-Dutch War

For the Dutch Republic, 1672 proved calamitous. It became known as the Rampjaar ("disaster year") because in the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Netherlands was invaded by France and its allies: England, Münster, and Cologne. Although the Anglo-French fleet was disabled by the Battle of Solebay, in June the French army quickly overran the provinces of Gelderland and Utrecht. On 14 June, William withdrew with the remnants of his field army into Holland, where the States had ordered the flooding of the Dutch Waterline on 8 June. Louis XIV of France, believing the war was over, began negotiations to extract as large a sum of money from the Dutch as possible. The presence of a large French army in the heart of the Republic caused a general panic, and the people turned against De Witt and his allies.

On 4 July, the States of Holland appointed William stadtholder, and he took the oath five days later. The next day, a special envoy from Charles II, Lord Arlington, met William in Nieuwerbrug and presented a proposal from Charles. In return for William's capitulation to England and France, Charles would make William Sovereign Prince of Holland, instead of stadtholder (a mere civil servant). When William refused, Arlington threatened that William would witness the end of the Republic's existence. William answered famously: "There is one way to avoid this: to die defending it in the last ditch." On 7 July, the inundations were complete and the further advance of the French army was effectively blocked. On 16 July, Zeeland offered the stadtholdership to William.

Johan de Witt had been unable to function as Grand Pensionary after being wounded by an attempt on his life on 21 June. On 15 August, William published a letter from Charles, in which the English king stated that he had made war because of the aggression of the De Witt faction. The people thus incited, De Witt and his brother, Cornelis, were brutally murdered by an Orangist civil militia in The Hague on 20 August. Subsequently, William replaced many of the Dutch regents with his followers.

Though William's complicity in the lynching has never been proved (and some 19th-century Dutch historians have made an effort to disprove that he was an accessory), he thwarted attempts to prosecute the ringleaders, and even rewarded some, like Hendrik Verhoeff, with money, and others, like Johan van Banchem and Johan Kievit, with high offices. This damaged his reputation in the same fashion as his later actions at Glencoe.

William continued to fight against the invaders from England and France, allying himself with Spain, Brandenburg, and Emperor Leopold I. In November 1672, he took his army to Maastricht to threaten the French supply lines. In September 1673, the Dutch situation further improved. The resolute defence by John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen and Hans Willem van Aylva in the north of the Dutch Republic finally forced the troops of Münster and Cologne to withdraw, while William crossed the Dutch Waterline and recaptured Naarden. In November, a 30,000-strong Dutch-Spanish army, under William's command, marched into the lands of the Bishops of Münster and Cologne. The Dutch troops took revenge and carried out many atrocities. Together with 35,000 Imperial troops, they then captured Bonn, an important magazine in the long logistical lines between France and the Dutch Republic. The French position in the Netherlands became untenable and Louis was forced to evacuate French troops. This deeply shocked Louis and he retreated to Saint Germain where no one, except a few intimates, were allowed to disturb him. The next year only Grave and Maastricht remained in French hands.

Fagel now proposed to treat the liberated provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel as conquered territory (Generality Lands), as punishment for their quick surrender to the enemy. William refused but obtained a special mandate from the States General to appoint all delegates in the States of these provinces anew. William's followers in the States of Utrecht on 26 April 1674 appointed him hereditary stadtholder. On 30 January 1675, the States of Gelderland offered him the titles of Duke of Guelders and Count of Zutphen. The negative reactions to this from Zeeland and the city of Amsterdam made William ultimately decide to decline these honours; he was instead appointed stadtholder of Gelderland and Overijssel. Baruch Spinoza's warning in his Political Treatise of 1677 of the need to organize the state so that the citizens maintain control over the sovereign was an influential expression of this unease with the concentration of power in one person.

Meanwhile, the front of the war against France had shifted to the Spanish Netherlands. In 1674, Allied forces in the Netherlands were numerically superior to the French army under Condé, which was based along the Piéton river near Charleroi. William took the offensive and sought to bring on a battle by outflanking the French positions but the broken ground forced him to divide his army into three separate columns. At Seneffe, Condé led a cavalry attack against the Allied vanguard and by midday on 11 August had halted their advance. Against the advice of his subordinates, he then ordered a series of frontal assaults which led to very heavy casualties on both sides with no concrete result. William and the Dutch blamed the Imperial commander, de Souches, and after a failed attempt to capture Oudenaarde, largely due to obstructionism from de Souches, he was relieved of command. Frustrated, William joined the army under Rabenhaupt with 10,000 troops instead of campaigning further in the Spanish Netherlands. He assumed command of operations at Grave, which had been besieged since 28 June. Grave surrendered on 27 October. The Dutch were split by internal disputes; the powerful Amsterdam mercantile body was anxious to end an expensive war once their commercial interests were secured, while William saw France as a long-term threat that had to be defeated. This conflict increased once ending the war became a distinct possibility when Grave was captured in October 1674, leaving only Maastricht.

On both sides, the last years of the war saw minimal return for their investment of men and money. The French were preparing a major offensive, however, at the end of 1676. Intended to capture Valenciennes, Cambrai and Saint-Omer in the Spanish Netherlands. Louis believed this would deprive the Dutch regents of the courage to continue the war any longer. In this, however, he was mistaken. The impending French offensive actually led to an intensification of Dutch-Spanish cooperation. Still, the French offensive of 1677 was a success. The Spaniards found it difficult to raise enough troops due to financial constraints and the Allies were defeated in the Battle of Cassel. This meant that they could not prevent the cities from falling into French hands. The French then took a defensive posture, afraid that more success would force England to intervene on the side of the Allies.

The peace talks that began at Nijmegen in 1676 were given a greater sense of urgency in November 1677 when William married his cousin Mary, Charles II of England's niece. An Anglo-Dutch defensive alliance followed in March 1678, although English troops did not arrive in significant numbers until late May. Louis seized this opportunity to improve his negotiating position and captured Ypres and Ghent in early March, before signing a peace treaty with the Dutch on 10 August.

The Battle of Saint-Denis was fought three days later on 13 August, when a combined Dutch-Spanish force under William attacked the French army under Luxembourg. Luxembourg withdrew and William thus ensured Mons would remain in Spanish hands. On 19 August, Spain and France agreed an armistice, followed by a formal peace treaty on 17 September.

The war had seen the rebirth of the Dutch States Army as one of the most disciplined and best-trained European armed forces. This had not been enough to keep France from making conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, which William and the regents blamed mainly on the Spaniards; the Dutch expected the once powerful Spanish Empire to have more military strength.

Marriage

During the war with France, William tried to improve his position by marrying, in 1677, his first cousin Mary, elder surviving daughter of the Duke of York, later King James II of England (James VII of Scotland). Mary was eleven years his junior and he anticipated resistance to a Stuart match from the Amsterdam merchants who had disliked his mother (another Mary Stuart), but William believed that marrying Mary would increase his chances of succeeding to Charles's kingdoms, and would draw England's monarch away from his pro-French policies. James was not inclined to consent, but Charles II pressured his brother to agree. Charles wanted to use the possibility of marriage to gain leverage in negotiations relating to the war, but William insisted that the two issues be decided separately. Charles relented, and Bishop Henry Compton married the couple on 4 November 1677. Mary became pregnant soon after the marriage, but miscarried. After a further illness later in 1678, she never conceived again.

Throughout William and Mary's marriage, William had only one reputed mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, in contrast to the many mistresses his uncles openly kept.

Tensions with France, intrigue with England
By 1678, Louis XIV sought peace with the Dutch Republic. Even so, tensions remained: William remained suspicious of Louis, thinking that the French king desired "universal kingship" over Europe; Louis described William as "my mortal enemy" and saw him as an obnoxious warmonger. France's annexations in the Southern Netherlands and Germany (the Réunion policy) and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, caused a surge of Huguenot refugees to the Republic. This led William III to join various anti-French alliances, such as the Association League, and ultimately the League of Augsburg (an anti-French coalition that also included the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Spain and several German states) in 1686.

After his marriage in November 1677, William became a strong candidate for the English throne should his father-in-law (and uncle) James be excluded because of his Catholicism. During the crisis concerning the Exclusion Bill in 1680, Charles at first invited William to come to England to bolster the king's position against the exclusionists, then withdrew his invitation—after which Lord Sunderland also tried unsuccessfully to bring William over, but now to put pressure on Charles. Nevertheless, William secretly induced the States General to send Charles the "Insinuation", a plea beseeching the king to prevent any Catholics from succeeding him, without explicitly naming James. After receiving indignant reactions from Charles and James, William denied any involvement.

In 1685, when James II succeeded Charles, William at first attempted a conciliatory approach, at the same time trying not to offend the Protestants in England. William, ever looking for ways to diminish the power of France, hoped that James would join the League of Augsburg, but by 1687 it became clear that James would not join the anti-French alliance. Relations worsened between William and James thereafter. In November, James's second wife, Mary of Modena, was announced to be pregnant. That month, to gain the favour of English Protestants, William wrote an open letter to the English people in which he disapproved of James's pro-Roman Catholic policy of religious toleration. Seeing him as a friend, and often having maintained secret contacts with him for years, many English politicians began to urge an armed invasion of England.

Invasion of England

William at first opposed the prospect of invasion, but most historians now agree that he began to assemble an expeditionary force in April 1688, as it became increasingly clear that France would remain occupied by campaigns in Germany and Italy, and thus unable to mount an attack while William's troops would be occupied in Britain. Believing that the English people would not react well to a foreign invader, he demanded in a letter to Rear-Admiral Arthur Herbert that the most eminent English Protestants first invite him to invade. In June, Mary of Modena, after a string of miscarriages, gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward Stuart, who displaced William's Protestant wife to become first in the line of succession and raised the prospect of an ongoing Catholic monarchy. Public anger also increased because of the trial of seven bishops who had publicly opposed James's Declaration of Indulgence granting religious liberty to his subjects, a policy which appeared to threaten the establishment of the Anglican Church.

On 30 June 1688—the same day the bishops were acquitted—a group of political figures, known afterward as the "Immortal Seven", sent William a formal invitation. William's intentions to invade were public knowledge by September 1688. With a Dutch army, William landed at Brixham in southwest England on 5 November 1688. He came ashore from the ship Den Briel, proclaiming "the liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain". William's fleet was vastly larger than the Spanish Armada 100 years earlier: approximately consisting of 463 ships with 40,000 men on board, including 9,500 sailors, 11,000 foot soldiers, 4,000 cavalry and 5,000 English and Huguenot volunteers. James's support began to dissolve almost immediately upon William's arrival; Protestant officers defected from the English army (the most notable of whom was Lord Churchill of Eyemouth, James's most able commander), and influential noblemen across the country declared their support for the invader.

James at first attempted to resist William, but saw that his efforts would prove futile. He sent representatives to negotiate with William, but secretly attempted to flee on 11 December, throwing the Great Seal into the Thames on his way. He was discovered and brought back to London by a group of fishermen. He was allowed to leave for France in a second escape attempt on 23 December. William permitted James to leave the country, not wanting to make him a martyr for the Roman Catholic cause; it was in his interests for James to be perceived as having left the country of his own accord, rather than having been forced or frightened into fleeing. William is the last person to successfully invade England by force of arms.

Proclaimed king

William summoned a Convention Parliament in England, which met on 22 January 1689, to discuss the appropriate course of action following James's flight. William felt insecure about his position; though his wife preceded him in the line of succession to the throne, he wished to reign as king in his own right, rather than as a mere consort. The only precedent for a joint monarchy in England dated from the 16th century, when Queen Mary I married Philip of Spain. Philip remained king only during his wife's lifetime, and restrictions were placed on his power. William, on the other hand, demanded that he remain as king even after his wife's death. When the majority of Tory Lords proposed to acclaim her as sole ruler, William threatened to leave the country immediately. Furthermore, she, remaining loyal to her husband, refused.

The House of Commons, with a Whig majority, quickly resolved that the throne was vacant, and that it was safer if the ruler were Protestant. There were more Tories in the House of Lords, which would not initially agree, but after William refused to be a regent or to agree to remain king only in his wife's lifetime, there were negotiations between the two houses and the Lords agreed by a narrow majority that the throne was vacant. On 13 February 1689, Parliament passed the Bill of Rights 1689, in which it deemed that James, by attempting to flee, had abdicated the government of the realm, thereby leaving the throne vacant.

The Crown was not offered to James's infant son, who would have been the heir apparent under normal circumstances, but to William and Mary as joint sovereigns. It was, however, provided that "the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their joint lives".

William and Mary were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689 by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Normally, the coronation is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Archbishop at the time, William Sancroft, refused to recognise James's removal.

William also summoned a Convention of the Estates of Scotland, which met on 14 March 1689. He sent it a conciliatory letter, while James sent haughty uncompromising orders, swaying a majority in favour of William. On 11 April, the day of the English coronation, the Convention finally declared that James was no longer King of Scotland. William and Mary were offered the Scottish Crown; they accepted on 11 May.

Revolution settlement
William encouraged the passage of the Toleration Act 1689, which guaranteed religious toleration to Protestant nonconformists. It did not, however, extend toleration as far as he wished, still restricting the religious liberty of Roman Catholics, non-trinitarians, and those of non-Christian faiths. In December 1689, one of the most important constitutional documents in English history, the Bill of Rights, was passed. The Act, which restated and confirmed many provisions of the earlier Declaration of Right, established restrictions on the royal prerogative. It provided, amongst other things, that the Sovereign could not suspend laws passed by Parliament, levy taxes without parliamentary consent, infringe the right to petition, raise a standing army during peacetime without parliamentary consent, deny the right to bear arms to Protestant subjects, unduly interfere with parliamentary elections, punish members of either House of Parliament for anything said during debates, require excessive bail or inflict cruel and unusual punishments. William was opposed to the imposition of such constraints, but he chose not to engage in a conflict with Parliament and agreed to abide by the statute.

The Bill of Rights also settled the question of succession to the Crown. After the death of either William or Mary, the other would continue to reign. Next in the line of succession was Mary II's sister, Anne, and her issue, followed by any children William might have had by a subsequent marriage. Roman Catholics, as well as those who married Catholics, were excluded.

Jacobite resistance

Although most in Britain accepted William and Mary as sovereigns, a significant minority refused to acknowledge their claim to the throne, instead believing in the divine right of kings, which held that the monarch's authority derived directly from God rather than being delegated to the monarch by Parliament. Over the next 57 years Jacobites pressed for restoration of James and his heirs. Nonjurors in England and Scotland, including over 400 clergy and several bishops of the Church of England and Scottish Episcopal Church as well as numerous laymen, refused to take oaths of allegiance to William.

Ireland was controlled by Roman Catholics loyal to James, and Franco-Irish Jacobites arrived from France with French forces in March 1689 to join the war in Ireland and contest Protestant resistance at the Siege of Derry. William sent his navy to the city in July, and his army landed in August. After progress stalled, William personally intervened to lead his armies to victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690, after which James fled back to France.

Upon William's return to England, his close friend Dutch General Godert de Ginkell, who had accompanied William to Ireland and had commanded a body of Dutch cavalry at the Battle of the Boyne, was named Commander in Chief of William's forces in Ireland and entrusted with further conduct of the war there. Ginkell took command in Ireland in the spring of 1691, and following the Battle of Aughrim, succeeded in capturing both Galway and Limerick, thereby effectively suppressing the Jacobite forces in Ireland within a few more months. After difficult negotiations a capitulation was signed on 3 October 1691—the Treaty of Limerick. Thus concluded the Williamite pacification of Ireland, and for his services, the Dutch general received the formal thanks of the House of Commons and was awarded the title of Earl of Athlone by the king.

A series of Jacobite risings also took place in Scotland, where Viscount Dundee raised Highland forces and won a victory on 27 July 1689 at the Battle of Killiecrankie, but he died in the fight and a month later Scottish Cameronian forces subdued the rising at the Battle of Dunkeld. William offered Scottish clans that had taken part in the rising a pardon provided that they signed allegiance by a deadline, and his government in Scotland punished a delay with the 1692 Massacre of Glencoe, which became infamous in Jacobite propaganda as William had countersigned the orders. Bowing to public opinion, William dismissed those responsible for the massacre, though they still remained in his favour; in the words of the historian John Dalberg-Acton, "one became a colonel, another a knight, a third a peer, and a fourth an earl."

William's reputation in Scotland suffered further damage when he refused English assistance to the Darien scheme, a Scottish colony (1698–1700) that failed disastrously.

Parliament and faction

Although the Whigs were William's strongest supporters, he initially favoured a policy of balance between the Whigs and Tories. The Marquess of Halifax, a man known for his ability to chart a moderate political course, gained William's confidence early in his reign. The Whigs, a majority in Parliament, had expected to dominate the government, and were disappointed that William denied them this chance. This "balanced" approach to governance did not last beyond 1690, as the conflicting factions made it impossible for the government to pursue effective policy, and William called for new elections early that year.

After the Parliamentary elections of 1690, William began to favour the Tories, led by Danby and Nottingham. While the Tories favoured preserving the king's prerogatives, William found them unaccommodating when he asked Parliament to support his continuing war with France. As a result, William began to prefer the Whig faction known as the Junto. The Whig government was responsible for the creation of the Bank of England following the example of the Bank of Amsterdam. William's decision to grant the Royal Charter in 1694 to the Bank of England, a private institution owned by bankers, is his most relevant economic legacy. It laid the financial foundation of the English takeover of the central role of the Dutch Republic and Bank of Amsterdam in global commerce in the 18th century.

William dissolved Parliament in 1695, and the new Parliament that assembled that year was led by the Whigs. The following year Parliament passed a colonial trade bill.

War in Europe
William continued to absent himself from Britain for extended periods during his Nine Years' War (1688–1697) against France, leaving each spring and returning to England each autumn. England joined the League of Augsburg, which then became known as the Grand Alliance. Whilst William was away fighting, his wife, Mary II, governed the realm, but acted on his advice. Each time he returned to England, Mary gave up her power to him without reservation, an arrangement that lasted for the rest of Mary's life.

After the Anglo-Dutch fleet defeated a French fleet at La Hogue in 1692, the allies controlled the seas for the rest of the conflict, and the Treaty of Limerick (1691) pacified Ireland. At the same time, the Grand Alliance fared poorly in Europe, as William lost Namur in the Spanish Netherlands in 1692. A surprise attack on the French under the command of the Duke of Luxembourg at Steenkerke was repulsed and the French defeated the allies at the Battle of Landen in 1693. However, William managed to inflict such damage on the French in these battles that further major French offensives were ruled out. The following year, the Allies possessed the numerical upper hand in the Low Countries. This enabled William to recapture Huy in 1694. A year later, the Allies achieved their grand success and recaptured Namur from the French. The fortress was considered one of the strongest fortresses in Europe and the conquest was a major blow to Louis XIV's reputation.

Economic crisis
William's rule led to rapid inflation in England, which caused widespread hunger from 1693 onwards. The Nine Years' War damaged English maritime trade and led to a doubling in taxation. These factors coupled with government mismanagement caused a currency crisis 1695–1697 and a run on the recently created Bank of England.

Later years
Mary II died of smallpox on 28 December 1694, aged only 32, leaving William III to rule alone. William deeply mourned his wife's death. Despite his conversion to Anglicanism, William's popularity in England plummeted during his reign as a sole monarch.

Rumours of homosexuality
During the 1690s, rumours grew of William's alleged homosexual inclinations and led to the publication of many satirical pamphlets by his Jacobite detractors. He did have several close male associates, including two Dutch courtiers to whom he granted English titles: Hans Willem Bentinck became Earl of Portland, and Arnold Joost van Keppel was created Earl of Albemarle. These relationships with male friends, and his apparent lack of mistresses, led William's enemies to suggest that he might prefer homosexual relationships. William's modern biographers disagree on the veracity of these allegations. Some believe there may have been truth to the rumours, while others affirm that they were no more than figments of his enemies' imaginations, as it was common for someone childless like William to adopt, or evince paternal affections for, a younger man.

Whatever the case, Bentinck's closeness to William did arouse jealousies at the royal court. William's young protégé, Keppel, aroused more gossip and suspicion, being 20 years William's junior, strikingly handsome, and having risen from the post of a royal page to an earldom with some ease. Portland wrote to William in 1697 that "the kindness which your Majesty has for a young man, and the way in which you seem to authorise his liberties ... make the world say things I am ashamed to hear." This, he said, was "tarnishing a reputation which has never before been subject to such accusations". William tersely dismissed these suggestions, however, saying, "It seems to me very extraordinary that it should be impossible to have esteem and regard for a young man without it being criminal."

Peace with France
In 1696, the Dutch territory of Drenthe made William its Stadtholder. In the same year, Jacobites plotted to assassinate William in an attempt to restore James to the English throne. The plan failed and support for William surged. Parliament passed a bill of attainder against the ringleader, John Fenwick, and he was beheaded in 1697. In accordance with the Treaty of Rijswijk (20 September 1697), which ended the Nine Years' War, King Louis XIV recognised William III as King of England, and undertook to give no further assistance to James II. Thus deprived of French dynastic backing after 1697, Jacobites posed no further serious threats during William's reign.

As his life drew towards its conclusion, William, like many other contemporary European rulers, felt concern over the question of succession to the throne of Spain, which brought with it vast territories in Italy, the Low Countries and the New World. Charles II of Spain was an invalid with no prospect of having children; some of his closest relatives included Louis XIV of France and Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. William sought to prevent the Spanish inheritance from going to either monarch, for he feared that such a calamity would upset the balance of power. William and Louis agreed to the First Partition Treaty (1698), which provided for the division of the Spanish Empire: Joseph Ferdinand, Electoral Prince of Bavaria, would obtain Spain, while France and the Holy Roman Emperor would divide the remaining territories between them. Charles II accepted the nomination of Joseph Ferdinand as his heir, and war appeared to be averted.

When, however, Joseph Ferdinand died of smallpox in February 1699, the issue re-opened. In 1700, William and Louis agreed to the Second Partition Treaty (also called the Treaty of London), under which the territories in Italy would pass to a son of the King of France, and the other Spanish territories would be inherited by a son of the Holy Roman Emperor. This arrangement infuriated both the Spanish, who still sought to prevent the dissolution of their empire, and the Holy Roman Emperor, who regarded the Italian territories as much more useful than the other lands. Unexpectedly, Charles II of Spain interfered as he lay dying in late 1700. Unilaterally, he willed all Spanish territories to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV. The French conveniently ignored the Second Partition Treaty and claimed the entire Spanish inheritance. Furthermore, Louis alienated William III by recognising James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of the former King James II (who died in September 1701), as de jure King of England. The subsequent conflict, known as the War of the Spanish Succession, broke out in July 1701 and continued until 1713/1714.

English royal succession
Another royal inheritance, apart from that of Spain, also concerned William. His marriage with Mary had not produced any children, and he did not seem likely to remarry. Mary's sister, Anne, had borne numerous children, all of whom died during childhood. The death of her last surviving child (Prince William, Duke of Gloucester) in 1700 left her as the only individual in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights. As the complete exhaustion of the defined line of succession would have encouraged a restoration of James II's line, the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that if Anne died without surviving issue and William failed to have surviving issue by any subsequent marriage, the Crown would pass to a distant relative, Sophia, Electress of Hanover (a granddaughter of James I), and to her Protestant heirs. The Act debarred Roman Catholics from the throne, thereby excluding the candidacy of several dozen people more closely related to Mary and Anne than Sophia. The Act extended to England and Ireland, but not to Scotland, whose Estates had not been consulted before the selection of Sophia.

Death
In 1702, William died of pneumonia, a complication from a broken collarbone following a fall from his horse, Sorrel. It was rumoured that the horse had been confiscated from Sir John Fenwick, one of the Jacobites who had conspired against William. Because his horse had stumbled into a mole's burrow, many Jacobites toasted "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat". Years later, Winston Churchill, in his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, stated that the fall "opened the door to a troop of lurking foes". William was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife. His sister-in-law and cousin, Anne, became queen regnant of England, Scotland and Ireland.

William's death meant that he would remain the only member of the Dutch House of Orange to reign over England. Members of this House had served as stadtholder of Holland and the majority of the other provinces of the Dutch Republic since the time of William the Silent (William I). The five provinces of which William III was stadtholder—Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overijssel—all suspended the office after his death. Thus, he was the last patrilineal descendant of William I to be named stadtholder for the majority of the provinces. Under William III's will, John William Friso stood to inherit the Principality of Orange as well as several lordships in the Netherlands. He was William's closest agnatic relative, as well as grandson of William's aunt Henriette Catherine. However, Frederick I of Prussia also claimed the Principality as the senior cognatic heir, his mother Louise Henriette being Henriette Catherine's older sister. Under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Frederick I's successor, Frederick William I of Prussia, ceded his territorial claim to Louis XIV, keeping only a claim to the title. Friso's posthumous son, William IV, succeeded to the title at his birth in 1711; in the Treaty of Partition (1732), William IV agreed to share the title "Prince of Orange" with Frederick William.

Legacy
"He was a great man, an enemy of France, to which he did a great deal of harm, but we owe him our esteem."

William's primary achievement was to contain France when it was in a position to impose its will across much of Europe. His life's aim was largely to oppose Louis XIV of France. This effort continued after his death during the War of the Spanish Succession. Another important consequence of William's reign in England involved the ending of a bitter conflict between Crown and Parliament that had lasted since the accession of the first English monarch of the House of Stuart, James I, in 1603. The conflict over royal and parliamentary power had led to the English Civil War during the 1640s and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. During William's reign, however, the conflict was settled in Parliament's favour by the Bill of Rights 1689, the Triennial Act 1694 and the Act of Settlement 1701.

The historical verdict on William's qualities as an army commander is mixed. Many contemporaries agreed that he was a great field commander. Even his enemies spoke highly of him. The Marquis de Quincy, for example, wrote that it was due to William's insight and personal courage that the Allies held out at the Battle of Seneffe, while he also praises how William led his troops to safety during the battles of Steenkerque and Landen. Still, William has been blamed by French and British historians for his impatience and recklessness, and for treating lightly his life and the lives of his soldiers. British historian John Childs acknowledges William's great qualities, but feels that he fell short as a field commander because, by often throwing himself into the fray, he no longer had the complete oversight. William commanded several field battles; Battle of Seneffe (1674), Battle of Cassel (1677), Battle of Saint-Denis (1678), Battle of the Boyne (1690), Battle of Steenkerque (1692) and the Battle of Landen. While most of these were defeats, it would be wrong to place the responsibility solely on him. He was up against a strong uniformly organised army with a coalition army. Many of the coalition troops were not as practised and disciplined as the Dutch troops, and it took time to incorporate them into the Dutch system. William did not attach much value to traditional victory signs either. He considered himself a winner if he managed to inflate French losses to the point where French offensive plans had to be abandoned. The battles he fought were almost all ones of attrition. That the Allies also suffered many casualties he took for granted. The Dutch army organisation was prepared for that; and, from 1689, so was England's.

William endowed the College of William and Mary (in present-day Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1693. Nassau County, New York, a county on Long Island, is a namesake. Long Island itself was also known as Nassau during early Dutch rule. Though many alumni of Princeton University think that the town of Princeton, New Jersey (and hence the university), were named in his honour, this is probably untrue, although Nassau Hall, the college's first building, is named for him. New York City was briefly renamed New Orange for him in 1673 after the Dutch recaptured the city, which had been renamed New York by the British in 1665. His name was applied to the fort and administrative centre for the city on two separate occasions reflecting his different sovereign status—first as Fort Willem Hendrick in 1673, and then as Fort William in 1691 when the English evicted Colonists who had seized the fort and city. Nassau, the capital of The Bahamas, is named after Fort Nassau, which was renamed in 1695 in his honour. The Dutch East India Company built a military fort in Cape Town, South Africa, in the 17th century, naming it the Castle of Good Hope. The five bastions were named after William III's titles: Orange, Nassau, Catzenellenbogen, Buuren and Leerdam.

Titles and styles

 * 4 November 1650 – 9 July 1672: His Highness The Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau
 * 9–16 July 1672: His Highness The Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland
 * 16 July 1672 – 26 April 1674: His Highness The Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland
 * 26 April 1674 – 13 February 1689: His Highness The Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel
 * 13 February 1689 – 8 March 1702: His Majesty The King

By 1674, William was fully styled as "Willem III, by God's grace Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau etc., Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht etc., Captain- and Admiral-General of the United Netherlands". After their accession in Great Britain in 1689, William and Mary used the titles "King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, etc."

Arms
As Prince of Orange, William's coat of arms was: Quarterly, I Azure billetty a lion rampant Or (for Nassau); II Or a lion rampant guardant Gules crowned Azure (Katzenelnbogen); III Gules a fess Argent (Vianden), IV Gules two lions passant guardant Or, armed and langued azure (Dietz); between the I and II quarters an inescutcheon, Or a fess Sable (Moers); at the fess point an inescutcheon, quarterly I and IV Gules, a bend Or (Châlons); II and III Or a bugle horn Azure, stringed Gules Orange) with an inescutcheon, Nine pieces Or and Azure (Geneva); between the III and IV quarters, an inescutcheon, Gules a fess counter embattled Argent (Buren).

The coat of arms used by the king and queen was: Quarterly, I and IV Grand quarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland); over all an escutcheon Azure billetty a lion rampant Or.

title: William III of England


text:
309

Year 309 (CCCIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Licinianus and Constantius (or, less frequently, year 1062 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 309 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * Gaius Ceionius Rufius Volusianus, the Praetorian Prefect of Emperor Maxentius, defeats the usurper Domitius Alexander and purges Africa of his supporters.

Persia

 * King Hormizd II, ruler of the Sassanid Empire, demands that the king of the Ghassanids pays tribute. After the king refuses, Hormizd invades Ghassanid territory. The Ghassanids seek aid from Maximinus Daza, but before a Roman army can arrive, Hormizd defeats the Ghassanid army and kills their king. A Ghassanid force then ambushes Hormizd's small retinue while the latter is on a hunting trip, and the Sasanian king is mortally wounded. He dies after a 7-year reign.
 * Hormizd is succeeded by his infant son Shapur II following the brief reign and murder of Adur Narseh.

Religion

 * Pope Marcellus I is banished from Rome by Emperor Maxentius.
 * April 18 – Eusebius succeeds Marcellus I as the 31st pope, but is himself banished on August 17 to Sicily (these events may have also taken place in 310).

Births

 * Shapur II (the Great), king of the Sassanid Empire (d. 379)

Deaths

 * January 16 – Marcellus I, bishop of Rome (b. 255)
 * Adur Narseh, king of the Sassanid Empire
 * Elias and companions, Christian martyrs
 * Hormizd II, king of the Sassanid Empire

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: 309


text:
307

Year 307 (CCCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Maximinus (or, less frequently, year 1060 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 307 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * Winter: Emperor Galerius wins his second victory over the Sarmatians.
 * Galerius sends Valerius Severus with the army of northern Italy, to suppress the rebellion in Rome. However, faced with their former emperor Maximian, the soldiers desert him, and Severus flees to Ravenna. Maximian besieges Severus in Ravenna, who then surrenders. Maxentius makes Severus a hostage, in an attempt to keep Galerius at bay.
 * Summer: Anticipating an offensive by Galerius, Maximian travels to Gaul to make an alliance with Constantine I.
 * Late summer or autumn: Galerius invades Italy but Maxentius remains behind the walls of Rome. Galerius finds he cannot besiege the city, and the image of an emperor making efforts against Rome hurts Galerius' image among the troops. The fact that Maxentius is his son-in-law does not help, and Maxentius makes an effort to bribe Galerius' troops. Galerius unsuccessfully attempts to negotiate, and recognizing Maxentius' attempts at bribery and the danger of being trapped in Italy by Maximian and Constantine, Galerius chooses to withdraw from Italy. To satiate his troops during the withdrawal, he pillages the Italian countryside. Meanwhile, Maxentius executes Severus.
 * December: Constantine marries Maximian's daughter Fausta, and is promoted to Augustus by Maximian.
 * Near the end of the year, Galerius gives his wife (Diocletian's daughter) Galeria Valeria the title of Augusta.

China

 * January 8 – Emperor Hui of Jin dies after a 16-year reign, in which eight dukes of the imperial family have conducted a civil war (War of the Eight Princes) against each other in a struggle for power. Huai of Jin, age 23, succeeds his father and becomes the third ruler of the Jin Dynasty.

Births

 * Zhang Jun, Chinese prince of the Jin Dynasty (d. 346)

Deaths

 * January 8 – Hui of Jin, Chinese emperor of the Jin Dynasty (b. 259)
 * September 16 – Severus II, Roman emperor (murdered)
 * Septimius of Iesi, German bishop, martyr and saint
 * Tuoba Luguan, Chinese chieftain of the Tuoba clan

title: 307


text:
310

Year 310 (CCCX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Andronicus and Probus (or, less frequently, year 1063 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 310 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * Maximian, retired emperor, rebels against Constantine I in Arles while the latter is campaigning against the Franks.
 * Maximinus Daza, caesar under Emperor Galerius, is acclaimed augustus by his troops. Galerius is forced to recognize him as co-ruler of the East. The Roman Empire is thus divided between seven simultaneous emperors: Galerius (East), Maximinus II (East), Licinius (Middle), Constantine I (West), Maximian (West), Maxentius (Italy), and Domitius Alexander (Africa).
 * July – Maximian flees to Marseille where he is besieged and surrenders. Constantine encourages his suicide and Maximian, age 60, hangs himself. Emperor Maxentius condemns the killing of his father.
 * Licinius campaigns with success against the Carpi.

Asia

 * Haelhae becomes the king of the Korean kingdom of Silla.

Commerce

 * At Trier, Constantine orders the minting of a new coin, the solidus, in an effort to offset the declining value of the denarius and bring stability to the imperial currency by restoring a gold standard. The solidus (later known as the bezant) will be minted in the Byzantine Empire without change in weight or purity until the 10th century.

Religion

 * April 18 – Pope Eusebius succeeds Pope Marcellus I as the 31st pope, but is banished on August 17 by the Emperor Maxentius to Sicily, where he dies, perhaps from a hunger strike.

Births

 * Ausonius, Roman poet and rhetorician (d. 395)
 * Epiphanius of Salamis, Church Father (d. 403)
 * Wulfila, Gothic bishop and missionary (d. 383)

Deaths

 * August 17 – Eusebius, bishop of Rome
 * July – Maximian, Roman emperor (b. c. 250)
 * Dan, Chinese empress of Xiongnu (or Han-Zhao)
 * Domnina, Berenice, and Prosdoce, Christian martyrs
 * Liu He, Chinese emperor of Xiongnu (or Han-Zhao)
 * Liu Yuan, Chinese emperor of Xiongnu (or Han-Zhao)
 * Luo Shang, Chinese general of the Jin dynasty (266–420)
 * Emperor Ōjin of Japan, according to legend.

title: 310


text:
AD 311

Year 311 (CCCXI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Valerius and Maximinus (or, less frequently, year 1064 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 311 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * April 30 – Emperor Galerius declares on his deathbed religious freedom, and issues his Edict of Serdica, ending the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire.
 * May 5 – Galerius dies, age 51, from a gruesome disease, possibly colorectal cancer or Fournier gangrene.
 * Maximinus Daza and Licinius divide the Eastern Empire between themselves.
 * Maximinus recommences the persecution of Christians, having encouraged his subjects to petition him to do so.
 * Fearing an alliance between Licinius and Constantine I, Maximinus forges a secret alliance with Emperor Maxentius.

China

 * July 13 – Huai of Jin, emperor of the Jin dynasty, is captured at Luoyang. The capital city is pillaged by Liu Cong, ruler of the Xiongnu state; the invaders slaughter 30,000 citizens.

Religion

 * July 2 – Pope Miltiades succeeds Eusebius as the 32nd pope of Rome.
 * The Donatist schism occurs in the African Church.

Deaths

 * April 23 – Sima Yue (or Yuanchao), Chinese prince and regent
 * May 5
 * Galerius, Roman emperor (b. c.258)
 * Wang Yan, Chinese official and politician (b. 256)
 * October 7 – Gou Xi (or Daojiang), Chinese inspector and general
 * November 25 – Peter I, patriarch of Alexandria
 * December 3 – Diocletian, Roman emperor (b. 244)
 * Domitius Alexander, Roman emperor and usuper
 * Wang Mi (or Zigu), Chinese general and rebel leader

title: AD 311


text:
327

Year 327 (CCCXXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Maximus (or, less frequently, year 1080 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 327 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * Emperor Constantine the Great decrees that rural slaves can only be sold in the province where they reside, in order to resolve the shortage of labour in the Roman Empire.

Religion

 * Construction begins on the Great Church of Antioch, which was completed in 341.
 * Approximate traditional date – Helena, mother of Constantine, returning from her pilgrimage to the Holy Land, founds Stavrovouni Monastery on Cyprus.

Births

 * Urban of Langres, French bishop and saint
 * Zhang Chonghua, Chinese ruler of Han-Zhao (d. 353)

Deaths

 * June 3 – Awtel, Eastern Christian monk and saint
 * Cleopatra, Christian martyr and saint (or 319)
 * Jonas and Barachisius, Persian martyrs
 * Melitius of Lycopolis, Christian bishop

title: 327


text:
328

Year 328 (CCCXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Ianuarinus and Iustus (or, less frequently, year 1081 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 328 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Roman Empire

 * July 5 – Constantine's Bridge, built over the Danube between Sucidava (Corabia, Romania) and Oescus (Gigen, Bulgaria), is officially opened by the Roman architect Theophilus Patricius.
 * December 7 – Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr dies. His epitaph, the Namara inscription, is an important source for the Arabic Language.

Religion

 * May 9 – Athanasius is elected pope of Alexandria following the death of Alexander I.

Births

 * Flavius Julius Valens, Roman emperor (d. 378)
 * Huan Chong, Chinese general and governor (d. 384)
 * Yuan Hong, Chinese historian and politician (d. 376)

Deaths

 * Alexander I, pope and patriarch of Alexandria
 * Papa (or Papa bar Aggai), Sassanid bishop
 * Su Jun, Chinese general and politician
 * Yu Wenjun, Chinese empress (b. 297)

title: 328


text:
Æthelflæd

Æthelflæd (c. 870 – 12 June 918) ruled as Lady of the Mercians in the English Midlands from 911 until her death in 918. She was the eldest child of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his wife Ealhswith.

Æthelflæd was born around 870 at the height of the Viking invasions of England. By 878, most of England was under Danish Viking rule – East Anglia and Northumbria having been conquered, and Mercia partitioned between the English and the Vikings – but in that year Alfred won a crucial victory at the Battle of Edington. Soon afterwards the English-controlled western half of Mercia came under the rule of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, who accepted Alfred's overlordship. Alfred adopted the title King of the Anglo-Saxons (previously he was titled King of the West Saxons like his predecessors) claiming to rule all Anglo-Saxon people not living in areas under Viking control. In the mid-880s, Alfred sealed the strategic alliance between the surviving English kingdoms by marrying Æthelflæd to Æthelred.

Æthelred played a major role in fighting off renewed Viking attacks in the 890s, together with Æthelflæd's brother, the future King Edward the Elder. Æthelred and Æthelflæd fortified Worcester, gave generous donations to Mercian churches and built a new minster in Gloucester. Æthelred's health probably declined early in the next decade, after which it is likely that Æthelflæd was mainly responsible for the government of Mercia. Edward had succeeded as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 899, and in 909 he sent a West Saxon and Mercian force to raid the northern Danelaw. They returned with the remains of the royal Northumbrian saint Oswald, which were translated to the new Gloucester minster. Æthelred died in 911 and Æthelflæd then ruled Mercia as Lady of the Mercians. The accession of a female ruler in Mercia is described by the historian Ian Walker as "one of the most unique events in early medieval history".

Alfred had built a network of fortified burhs and in the 910s Edward and Æthelflæd embarked on a programme of extending them. Among the towns where she built defences were Wednesbury, Bridgnorth, Tamworth, Stafford, Warwick, Chirbury and Runcorn. In 917 she sent an army to capture Derby, the first of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw to fall to the English, a victory described by Tim Clarkson as "her greatest triumph". In 918 Leicester surrendered without a fight. Shortly afterwards the Viking leaders of York offered her their loyalty, but she died on 12June 918 before she could take advantage of the offer, and a few months later Edward completed the conquest of Mercia. Æthelflæd was succeeded by her daughter Ælfwynn, but in December Edward took personal control of Mercia and carried Ælfwynn off to Wessex.

Historians disagree whether Mercia was an independent kingdom under Æthelred and Æthelflæd but they agree that Æthelflæd was a great ruler who played an important part in the conquest of the Danelaw. She was praised by Anglo-Norman chroniclers such as William of Malmesbury, who described her as "a powerful accession to [Edward's] party, the delight of his subjects, the dread of his enemies, a woman of enlarged soul". According to Pauline Stafford, "like ... ElizabethI she became a wonder to later ages". In Nick Higham's view, medieval and modern writers have been so captivated by her that Edward's reputation has suffered unfairly in comparison.

Background
Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century and maintained its position until it suffered a decisive defeat by Wessex at the Battle of Ellendun in 825. Thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings.

In 865 the Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and used this as a starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. King Burgred of Mercia was joined by King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, who refused an engagement; in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Vikings conquered East Anglia. In 874 the Vikings expelled King Burgred and Ceolwulf became the last King of Mercia with their support. In 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. He was described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a foolish king's thegn" who was a puppet of the Vikings. The historian Ann Williams regards this view as partial and distorted, that he was accepted as a true king by the Mercians and by King Alfred. The situation was transformed the following year when Alfred won a decisive victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington.

Ceolwulf is not recorded after 879. His successor as the ruler of the English western half of Mercia, Æthelflæd's husband Æthelred, is first seen in 881 when, according to the historian of medieval Wales, Thomas Charles-Edwards, he led an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of the north Welsh Kingdom of Gwynedd. In 883, he made a grant with the consent of King Alfred, thus acknowledging Alfred's lordship. In 886 Alfred occupied the Mercian town of London, which had been in Viking hands. He then received the submission of all English not under Viking control and handed control of London over to Æthelred. In the 890s, Æthelred and Edward, Alfred's son and future successor, fought off more Viking attacks. Alfred died in 899 and Edward's claim to the throne was disputed by Æthelwold, son of Alfred's elder brother. Æthelwold joined forces with the Vikings when he was unable to get sufficient support in Wessex, and his rebellion only ended with his death in battle in December 902.

Family
Æthelflæd was born around 870, the oldest child of King Alfred the Great and his Mercian wife, Ealhswith, who was a daughter of Æthelred Mucel, ealdorman of the Gaini, one of the tribes of Mercia. Ealhswith's mother, Eadburh, was a member of the Mercian royal house, probably a descendant of King Coenwulf (796–821). Æthelflæd was thus half-Mercian and the alliance between Wessex and Mercia was sealed by her marriage to Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians. They are mentioned in Alfred's will, which probably dates to the 880s. Æthelflæd, described only as "my eldest daughter", received an estate and 100 mancuses, while Æthelred, the only ealdorman to be mentioned by name, received a sword worth 100 mancuses. Æthelflæd was first recorded as Æthelred's wife in a charter of 887, when he granted two estates to the see of Worcester "with the permission and sign-manual of King Alfred" and the attestors included "Æthelflæd conjux". The marriage may have taken place earlier, perhaps when he submitted to Alfred following the recovery of London in 886. Æthelred was much older than Æthelflæd and they had one known child, a daughter called Ælfwynn. Æthelstan, the eldest son of Edward the Elder and future king of England, was brought up in their court and, in the view of Martin Ryan, certainly joined their campaigns against the Vikings.

Æthelred's descent is unknown. Richard Abels describes him as "somewhat of a mysterious character", who may have claimed royal blood and been related to Æthelred Mucel. In the view of Ian Walker: "He was a royal ealdorman whose power base lay in the south-west of Mercia in the former kingdom of the Hwicce around Gloucester". Alex Woolf suggests that he was probably the son of King Burgred of Mercia and King Alfred's sister Æthelswith, although that would mean that the marriage between Æthelflæd and Æthelred was uncanonical, because Rome then forbade marriage between first cousins.

Æthelflæd and Æthelred
Compared to the rest of England, much of English Mercia —Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Shropshire —was unusually stable in the Viking age. It did not suffer major attacks and it did not come under great pressure from Wessex. Mercian scholarship had high prestige at the courts of Alfred and Edward. Worcester was able to preserve considerable intellectual and liturgical continuity and, with Gloucester, became the centre of a Mercian revival under Æthelred and Æthelflæd that extended into the more unstable areas of Staffordshire and Cheshire. Charters show the Mercian leaders supporting the revival by their generosity to monastic communities. In 883 Æthelred granted privileges to Berkeley Abbey and in the 890s he and Æthelflæd issued a charter in favour of the church of Worcester. This was the only occasion in Alfred's lifetime when they are known to have acted jointly; generally Æthelred acted on his own, usually acknowledging the permission of King Alfred. Æthelflæd witnessed charters of Æthelred in 888, 889 and 896. In 901 Æthelflæd and Æthelred gave land and a golden chalice weighing thirty mancuses to the shrine of Saint Mildburg at Much Wenlock church.

At the end of the ninth century, Æthelred and Æthelflæd fortified Worcester, with the permission of King Alfred and at the request of Bishop Werferth, described in the charter as "their friend". They granted the church of Worcester a half share of the rights of lordship over the city, covering land rents and the proceeds of justice, and in return the cathedral community agreed in perpetuity to dedicate a psalm to them three times a day and a mass and thirty psalms every Saturday. As the rights of lordship had previously belonged fully to the church, this represented the beginning of transfer from episcopal to secular control of the city. In 904 Bishop Werferth granted a lease of land in the city to Æthelred and Æthelflæd, to be held for the duration of their lives and that of their daughter Ælfwynn. The land was valuable, including most of the city's usable river frontage, and control of it enabled the Mercian rulers to dominate over and profit from the city.

Æthelred's health probably declined several years before his death in 911, with the result that Æthelflæd became the de facto ruler of Mercia, perhaps as early as 902, although he witnessed charters at a meeting attended by the king in 903. According to the Three Fragments, the Norse (Norwegian) Vikings were expelled from Dublin and then made an abortive attack on Wales. When this failed they applied to Æthelflæd for permission to settle near Chester. Æthelflæd agreed, perhaps in the hope that they would provide protection against attack by other Vikings. These events probably date to 902-903. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in 907 Chester was "restored". Æthelflæd was probably responsible for restoriation of the town's Roman defences by running walls from the north-west and south-east corners of the fort to the River Dee. The Norse Vikings later joined with the Danes in an attack on Chester, but this failed because Æthelflæd had fortified the town, and she persuaded the Irish among the attackers to change sides. Most historians date the attack on Chester to 907, but Matthew Firth argues that 910 is more likely and that it may have been part of the invasion which ended in Viking defeat at the Battle of Tettenhall. Simon Ward, who excavated an Anglo-Saxon site in Chester, sees the later prosperity of the town as owing much to the planning of Æthelflæd and Edward. After Æthelflæd's death, Edward encountered fierce resistance to his efforts to consolidate his control of the north-west and he died there in 924, shortly after suppressing a local rebellion.

In 909 Edward sent a West Saxon and Mercian force to the northern Danelaw, where it raided for five weeks. The remains of the royal Northumbrian saint Oswald were seized and taken from his resting place in Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire to Gloucester. In the late ninth century Gloucester had become a burh with a street plan similar to Winchester, and Æthelred and Æthelflæd had repaired its ancient Roman defences. In 896 a meeting of the Mercian witan was held in the royal hall at Kingsholm, just outside the town. The Mercian rulers built a new minster in Gloucester and, although the building was small, it was embellished on a grand scale, with rich sculpture. The church appears to have been an exact copy of the Old Minster, Winchester. It was initially dedicated to St Peter but when Oswald's remains were brought to Gloucester in 909, Æthelflæd had them translated from Bardney to the new minster, which was renamed St Oswald's in his honour. The relics gave the church great prestige as Oswald had been one of the most important founding saints of Anglo-Saxon Christianity as well as a ruling monarch, and the decision to translate his relics to Gloucester shows the importance of the town to Æthelred and Æthelflæd, who were buried in St Oswald's Minster. Simon Keynes describes the town as "the main seat of their power" and Carolyn Heighway believes that the foundation of the church was probably a family and dynastic enterprise, encouraged by Alfred and supported by Edward and Bishop Werferth. Heighway and Michael Hare wrote:

"In the age when English scholarship and religion reached their lowest ebb, Mercia and in particular the lower Severn valley seem to have maintained traditional standards of learning. It is in this context that the establishment of a new minster at Gloucester by Æthelred and Æthelflæd is to be seen."

Mercia had a long tradition of venerating royal saints and this was enthusiastically supported by Æthelred and Æthelflæd. Saintly relics were believed to give supernatural legitimacy to rulers' authority, and Æthelflæd was probably responsible for the foundation or re-foundation of Chester Minster and the transfer to it of the remains of the seventh-century Mercian princess Saint Werburgh from Hanbury in Staffordshire. She may also have translated the relics of the martyred Northumbrian prince Ealhmund from Derby to Shrewsbury. In 910 the Danes retaliated against the English attack of the previous year by invading Mercia, raiding as far as Bridgnorth in Shropshire. On their way back they were caught by an English army in Staffordshire and their army was destroyed at the Battle of Tettenhall, opening the way for the recovery of the Danish Midlands and East Anglia over the next decade.

Lady of the Mercians

On her husband's death in 911, Æthelflæd became Myrcna hlædige, "Lady of the Mercians". Ian Walker describes her succession as the only case of a female ruler of a kingdom in Anglo-Saxon history and "one of the most unique events in early medieval history". In Wessex, royal women were not allowed to play any political role; Alfred's wife was not granted the title of queen and was never a witness to charters. In Mercia, Alfred's sister Æthelswith had been the wife of King Burgred of Mercia; she had witnessed charters as queen and had made grants jointly with her husband and in her own name. Æthelflæd benefited from a Mercian tradition of queenly importance, and was able to play a key role in the history of the early tenth century as Lady of the Mercians, which would not have been possible in Wessex.

When Æthelred died, Edward took control of the Mercian towns of London and Oxford and their hinterlands, which Alfred had put under Mercian control. Ian Walker suggests that Æthelflæd accepted this loss of territory in return for recognition by her brother of her position in Mercia. Alfred had constructed a network of fortified burhs in Wessex, and Edward and Æthelflæd now embarked on a programme of extending them to consolidate their defences and provide bases for attacks on the Vikings. According to Frank Stenton, Æthelflæd led Mercian armies on expeditions, which she planned. He commented: "It was through reliance on her guardianship of Mercia that her brother was enabled to begin the forward movement against the southern Danes which is the outstanding feature of his reign".

Æthelflæd had already fortified an unknown location called Bremesburh in 910 and in 912 she built defences at Bridgnorth to cover a crossing of the River Severn. In 913 she built forts at Tamworth to guard against the Danes in Leicester, and in Stafford to cover access from the Trent Valley. In 914 a Mercian army drawn from Gloucester and Hereford repelled a Viking invasion from Brittany, and the Iron Age Eddisbury hill fort was repaired to protect against invasion from Northumbria or Cheshire, while Warwick was fortified as further protection against the Leicester Danes. In 915 Chirbury was fortified to guard a route from Wales and Runcorn on the River Mersey. Defences were built before 914 at Hereford, and probably Shrewsbury and two other fortresses, at Scergeat and Weardbyrig, which have not been located.

In 917 invasions by three Viking armies failed as Æthelflæd sent an army which captured Derby and the territory around it. The town was one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, together with Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford. Derby was the first to fall to the English; she lost "four of her thegns who were dear to her" in the battle. Tim Clarkson, who describes Æthelflæd as "renowned as a competent war-leader", regards the victory at Derby as "her greatest triumph". At the end of the year, the East Anglian Danes submitted to Edward. In early 918, Æthelflæd gained possession of Leicester without opposition and most of the local Danish army submitted to her. A few months later, the leading men of Danish-ruled York offered to pledge their loyalty to Æthelflæd, probably to secure her support against Norse raiders from Ireland, but she died on 12 June 918, before she could take advantage of the offer. No similar offer is known to have been made to Edward. According to the Three Fragments, in 918 Æthelflæd led an army of Scots and Northumbrian English against forces led by the Norse Viking leader Ragnall at the Battle of Corbridge in Northumbria. Historians consider this unlikely, but she may have sent a contingent to the battle. Both sides claimed victory but Ragnall was able to establish himself as ruler of Northumbria. In the Three Fragments, Æthelflæd also formed a defensive alliance with the Scots and the Strathclyde British, a claim accepted by Clarkson.

Little is known of Æthelflæd's relations with the Welsh. The only recorded event took place in 916, when she sent an expedition to avenge the murder of a Mercian abbot and his companions; her men destroyed the royal crannog of Brycheiniog on Llangorse Lake and captured the queen and thirty-three of her companions. According to a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle strongly sympathetic to Edward the Elder, after Æthelflæd's death "the kings among the Welsh, Hywel and Clydog and Idwal, and all the Welsh people sought to have [Edward] as their lord". Hywel Dda was king of Dyfed in south-west Wales, Clydog ap Cadell probably king of Powys in the north-east, and Idwal ab Anarawd king of Gwynedd in the north-west. Gwent in south-east Wales was already under West Saxon lordship but, in the view of Charles-Edwards, this passage shows that the other Welsh kingdoms were under Mercian lordship until Edward took direct power over Mercia.

No coins were issued with the name of Æthelred or Æthelflæd on them, but in the 910s silver pennies were minted in west Mercian towns with unusual ornamental designs on the reverse and this may have reflected Æthelflæd's desire to distinguish specie issued under her control from that of her brother. After her death, west Mercian coin reverses were again the same as those on coins produced in Wessex. No charters of Edward survive for the period between 910 and his death in 924, whereas two survive in Æthelflæd's sole name, S 224, possibly dating to 914 and S 225, dated 9 September 915, issued at Weardbyrig, one of the burhs she built at an unidentified location.

Death and aftermath

Æthelflæd died at Tamworth on 12June 918 and her body was carried 75 mi to Gloucester, where she was buried with her husband in their foundation, St Oswald's Minster. According to the Mercian Register, Æthelflæd was buried in the east porticus. A building suitable for a royal mausoleum has been found by archaeological investigation at the east end of the church and this may have been St Oswald's burial place. Placement next to the saint would have been a prestigious burial location for Æthelred and Æthelflæd. William of Malmesbury wrote that their burial places were found in the south porticus during building works in the early twelfth century. He may have been misinformed about the position but it is also possible that the tombs were moved from their prestigious position next to the saint, when the couple became less known over time or when tenth-century kings acted to minimise the honour paid to their Mercian predecessors.

The choice of burial place was symbolic. Victoria Thompson argues that if Æthelflæd had chosen Edward's royal mausoleum in Winchester as the burial place for her husband and herself, that would have emphasised Mercia's subordinate status, whereas a traditional Mercian royal burial place such as Repton would have been a provocative declaration of independence; Gloucester, near the border with Wessex, was a compromise between the two. Martin Ryan sees the foundation as "something like a royal mausoleum, intended to replace the one at Repton (Derbyshire) that had been destroyed by the Vikings". Æthelflæd died a few months too early to see the final conquest of the southern Danelaw by Edward. She was succeeded as Lady of the Mercians by her daughter, Ælfwynn, but in early December 918 Edward deposed her and took Mercia under his control. Many Mercians disliked the subordination of their ancient kingdom to Wessex, and Wainwright describes the Mercian annalist's description of the deposition of Ælfwynn as "heavy with resentment". Edward died in 924 at Farndon in Cheshire a few days after putting down a rebellion by Mercians and Welshmen at Chester.

Legacy
To the West Saxon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelflæd was merely King Edward's sister, whereas for the Mercian Register she was Lady of the Mercians. Irish and Welsh annals described her as a queen and the Annals of Ulster, which ignore the deaths of Alfred and Edward, described her as famosissima regina Saxonum (renowned Saxon queen). She was also praised by Anglo-Norman historians such as John of Worcester and William of Malmesbury, who described her as "a powerful accession to [Edward's] party, the delight of his subjects, the dread of his enemies, a woman of enlarged soul". He claimed that she declined to have sex after the birth of her only child because it was "unbecoming of the daughter of a king to give way to a delight which, after a time, produced such painful consequences". According to Nick Higham, "successive medieval and modern writers were quite captivated by her" and her brother's reputation has suffered unfairly in comparison. In the twelfth century, Henry of Huntingdon paid her his own tribute:
 * Heroic Elflede! great in martial fame,
 * A man in valour, woman though in name:
 * Thee warlike hosts, thee, nature too obey'd,
 * Conqu'ror o'er both, though born by sex a maid.
 * Chang'd be thy name, such honour triumphs bring.
 * A queen by title, but in deeds a king.
 * Heroes before the Mercian heroine quail'd:
 * Caesar himself to win such glory fail'd.

Some historians believe that Æthelred and Æthelflæd were independent rulers. In the Handbook of British Chronology, David Dumville refers to "Q. Æthelflæd" and comments, "The titles given her by all sources (hlæfdige, regina) imply that she wielded royal power and authority". Alex Woolf concurs and Pauline Stafford describes Æthelflæd as "the last Mercian queen", referred to in charters in such terms as "by the gift of Christ's mercy ruling the government of the Mercians". Stafford argues that Æthelred and Æthelflæd exercised most or all of the powers of a monarch after Alfred's death but it would have been a provocative act formally to claim regality, especially after Æthelwold's rebellion. Stafford sees her as a "warrior queen", "Like ... ElizabethI she became a wonder to later ages." According to Charles Insley,

"The assumption that Mercia was in some sort of limbo in this period, subordinate to Wessex and waiting to be incorporated into "England" cannot be sustained ... Æthelred's death in 911 changed little, for his formidable wife carried on as sole ruler of Mercia until her death in 918. Only then did Mercia's independent existence come to an end."

Wainwright sees Æthelflæd as willingly accepting a subordinate role in a partnership with her brother and agreeing to his plan of unification of Wessex and Mercia under his rule. Wainwright argues that he probably sent his oldest son Æthelstan to be brought up in Mercia, to make him more acceptable to the Mercians as king; Æthelflæd does not appear to have tried to find a husband for her daughter, who must have been nearly thirty by 918. In Wainwright's view, she was ignored in West Saxon sources for fear that recognition of her achievements would encourage Mercian separatism:

"[Æthelflæd] played a vital role in England in the first quarter of the tenth century. The success of Edward's campaigns against the Danes depended to a great extent upon her cooperation. In the Midlands and the North she came to dominate the political scene. And the way in which she used her influence helped to make possible the unification of England under kings of the West Saxon royal house. But her reputation has suffered from bad publicity, or rather from a conspiracy of silence among her West Saxon contemporaries."

Simon Keynes points out that all coins were issued in Edward's name, and while the Mercian rulers were able to issue some charters on their own authority, others acknowledged Edward's lordship. In 903 a Mercian ealdorman "petitioned King Edward, and also Æthelred and Æthelflæd, who then held rulership and power over the race of the Mercians under the aforesaid king". Keynes argues that a new polity was created when Æthelred submitted to Alfred in the 880s, covering Wessex and English (western) Mercia. In Keynes's view, "the conclusion seems inescapable that the Alfredian polity of the kingship 'of the Anglo-Saxons' persisted in the first quarter of the tenth century, and that the Mercians were thus under Edward's rule from the beginning of his reign". Ryan believes that the Mercian rulers "had a considerable but ultimately subordinate share of royal authority".

In Higham's view, Keynes makes a strong case that Edward ruled over an Anglo-Saxon state with a developing administrative and ideological unity but that Æthelflæd and Æthelred did much to encourage a separate Mercian identity, such as establishing cults of Mercian saints at their new burhs, as well as reverence for their great Northumbrian royal saint at Gloucester:

"There must remain some doubt as to the extent to which Edward's intentions for the future were shared in all respects by his sister and brother-in-law, and one is left to wonder what might have occurred had their sole offspring been male rather than female. Celtic visions of Æthelred and Æthelflæd as king and queen certainly offer a different, and equally valid, contemporary take on the complex politics of this transition to a new English state."

Commemoration
In June 2018, Æthelflæd's funeral was re-enacted in front of a crowd of 10,000 people in Gloucester, as part of a series of living history events marking the 1,100th anniversary of her death.

The 1,100th anniversary of the death of Æthelflaed was marked throughout 2018 in Tamworth with a number of major events, including the unveiling of a new six-metre statue, the creation of the town's biggest ever piece of community art, a major commemorative church service, talks, a special guided walk, commemorative ale and an academic conference weekend drawing academics and delegates from all over the world.

title: Æthelflæd