Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 187, The Queen

of Wessex, also known as The Worst Midlife Crisis Ever.

This show is free and independent due to member support and as thanks for helping keep

the community going, I offer members only content such as extra episodes and rough transcripts.

If you're interested in supporting the show and helping us out, you can do so over at

the British History Podcast.com and thank you very much to Kate, Earl and Finn for

contributing already.

Okay, I'm back! Thank you so much for being patient while I took a week off for the holiday

season. I hope you all had a great holiday. I certainly did. And those of you who followed

me on Twitter, know why.

But now that I'm back with only one soul and bag, thanks for that random thief, let's

get back to our story.

It's Christmas Day 854. King Athe Weird of East Anglia, a king who we know almost nothing

about, is dead. The only evidence we really have that he was alive in the first place

are his coins. And that's likely due to the fact that throughout the Viking Age, succeeding

bands of Scandinavian pyromaniacs were destroying the East Anglia in written records. But coins

don't burn all that well, so at least we have that.

So on this Christmas Day in 854, Prince Aidman, who was Athe Weird's 14 year old son, succeeded

to his father's throne. East Anglia, once the home to mighty king Raidwold, Brett Walda,

had suffered through succession issues, conquest, civil war, and now a child king. More importantly,

so is that they had a child king at a time where they were under siege by seemingly

endless armies of Scandinavians. Things for East Anglia were bad, and they just kept

...