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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Great Lives

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Great Lives: Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, chosen by Tom Holland

Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, chosen by Tom Holland

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, chosen by Tom Holland

Tom Holland chooses Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians

Historian Tom Holland chooses the daughter of Alfred the Great, Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians. With Matthew Parris. From 2019.

She's the most influential woman that English history forgot, says Tom Holland - Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred the Great. 

Living and ruling at a time when the Anglo-Saxons were fighting back against the Vikings, Aethelflaed became a key figure in the construction of what we know today as England. 

But how much do we actually know?

Joining Tom and Matthew Parris in the studio is Sarah Foot, the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical history. 

Together they pick though the life of an astonishing character recently recreated in Bernard Cornwell's series 'The Last Kingdom' and played by Millie Brady; and who also might have inspired Eowyn in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Producer: Miles Warde

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2019.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, chosen by Tom Holland

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