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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians

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Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the TFAR nomination of the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add {{collapse top|Previous nomination}} to the top of the discussion and {{collapse bottom}} at the bottom, then complete a new {{TFAR nom}} underneath.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 3, 2014 by BencherliteTalk 07:07, 20 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ruins of St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester, where Æthelred and Æthelflæd were buried

Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, was the ruler of western Mercia in the English midlands at the end of the ninth century. Eastern Mercia at this time was part of the Viking conquered Danelaw. Æthelred’s origin is unknown, and he was first recorded as the probable leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881. Shortly afterwards, he married Æthelflæd, a daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex, and submitted to Alfred’s lordship, an important step towards the unification of England in the next century. In the 890s the Vikings renewed their attacks, and in 893 Æthelred led a joint force of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to a decisive victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Buttington. He spent much of the decade fighting the Vikings in cooperation with Alfred’s son, the future Edward the Elder. His health may have deteriorated shortly after Alfred’s death in 899, and Mercia may then have been ruled by Æthelflæd. Historians disagree whether he governed Mercia as Alfred’s deputy or whether he was a ruler of a semi-independent territory. He died in 911 and was succeeded his widow, and then briefly by his daughter, before Mercia was annexed by Edward the Elder in 918. (Full article...)