WOMEN OF HISTORY MOVIES
The year 2004 has not been a great vintage for history movies. In contrast films that feature original ideas, even if they are sequels, have done well. There are so many interesting stories contained in history that I see no need to stick with the familiar. To illustrate this point I have compiled a list of successful women from history whose stories would make good movies. They come from six different eras, and vary in their importance as far a s making a difference. I find them all fascinating and feel strongly that they deserve to be better known. I put the reason they are not down to historians, who seem far more interested in women who after a period of success meet with a tragic end. I am referring to the likes of; Cleopatra (suicide), Boudicca (suicide), Joan of Arc (burned at the stake), and Mary Queen of Scots (beheaded). I am sure that many people would appreciate seeing a film that features the story of woman who comes out a winner, and this article will try and generate some interest in such people. It is divided into two parts.
PART ONE – WARRIOR QUEENS
QUEEN ARTEMISIA –Classical 15 minutes of fame.
This lady’s time in the spotlight came during the Battle of Salamis, in the year 480 BC. How she got to be there, leading a squadron of ships, would occupy the bulk of the movie. Artemisia had married the King of Halicarnassus about twenty years earlier and when he died a few years later, took the throne for herself. Not even the King’s name is known but I think portraying him as an older man who takes Artemisia, as a young trophy wife would be a fair assumption. I see him being sick for a time before death so she runs the state in his name, and makes a really good job of it. Most of the nobles, all the people and even the Persian overloads are keen for her to continue, but nothing is ever that easy. There is more speculation involved than historical fact, but since very little is known for sure, and nobody suggested making a documentary, I’ll continue in the same vein.
I see some evil characters in the background. The old King had a son from a previous marriage, real nasty type, with a beautiful but even nastier wife. They think they will rule when the King dies but make no attempt to help Artemisia in running the place, quite the opposite they cause nothing but trouble. With little support at home, nasty stepson gets some from a nearby rival city. The two sides battle for control, Artemisia wins, and her rivals for power flee into exile. There would have been Persian interference in the power struggle but this can be tailored to suit the script. It is safe to assume that she didn’t get the throne without some kind of a fight, and she supported the Persian cause later as a result of their help.
Now back to historical fact. Halicarnassus was one of the Ionian Greek States on the West coast of what is now Turkey. It is known that Artemisia was leading her ships in action against the other Greek city-states long before the main battle. There is nothing unusual in this as the Greek states often fought amongst themselves. She gained enough success to become a military advisor to King Xerxes of Persia, the world superpower of it’s day. The battle itself was of enormous importance and if the Greeks had lost it is quite possible that their civilisation as a separate entity would have been extinguished. The Persian Empire was a huge collection of diverse races united only in the tribute they paid to Xerxes. A select group of these subservient allies plus some of his own officials made up his military council. Artemisia was a member of the council and she alone spoke against taking on the Athenians in a naval battle. She advised him that the fleet would be better employed in supporting the army. The whole of Greece lay open to them, but if the Persian fleet were decisively defeated, most of the army would have to withdraw as it could no longer be suppled from the sea. She wasn’t predicting disaster, but she wasn’t ruling it out either and considered it wasn’t worth the risk.
This would make a very dramatic scene, and would also be historically accurate. Xerxes liked her and listened to what she had to say, but went ahead and tried to smash the Athenian fleet anyway. Over confident to the point that he set up his golden throne to watch the battle, Xerxes was due to be disappointed. Although heavily outnumbered the Greeks; out thought, out manoeuvred and then out fought their foes, gaining in the process one of the most important and decisive navel victories of all time. In the past it has been impossible to do such battles justice, but surely in the era of CGI, it can be done. Artemisia’ part in the battle is well documented, although there does seem to be some minor variations. I have tweaked my favourite version for the purposes of the movie version.
She is in the thick of the battle and her ships have been holding their own. Elsewhere things are going badly for the Persians as the allied fleet, starts to disintegrates. Realising that the cause is lost and that it is now time to abandon her rearguard action and look to her own survival, Artemisia plans her escape. With a Greek trireme bearing down on her ship, and her escape route blocked by the confused melee of ships she increases speed and heads straight for them. If a collision was inevitable, it will be on her terms. She lines up the ship of her hated enemy, King Clamasithymus, the one who aided her stepson and gave him refuge. At full speed she smashes into the King’s vessel, her trireme’s underwater ram punching a hole in it below the waterline. The trireme backs off and as it’s victim sinks Artemisia notices with some satisfaction that her stepson is on board. Convinced that the Queen has changed sides, the Greeks let her withdraw her squadron from the battle.
It has been recorded that Xerxes watched from the beach and when Artemisia rammed her rival exclaimed;
“The men behaved like women, and the women like heroes.”
It has been suggested that Xerxes was unaware of who she rammed, but I don’t buy this. Calling it a Persian fleet is done as a convenience because describing it as a combined Phoenician, Egyptian, Cypriot, Cilician and Ionian Greek fleet, is so cumbersome. Persia was a land empire and called on it’s allies and vassal states to provide ships. These were peoples who were natural rivals most of the time and would need little incentive to start fighting each other as they try and escape the Greek trap. Artemisia only did what everyone else was trying to do, she just did it with style. The recognised facts that after the battle, she remained on good terms with Xerxes while most of the fleet dispersed to their home countries support this view.
Meanwhile, back at the movies, how should the character of Artemisia be played? I see a beautiful lady who exudes an air of quiet dignity when required for ceremonial purposes, but is firm and decisive when decisions need to be made. In council she would command respect with her delivery of articulate intelligent argument. In battle she would be tough and ruthless, but fair and willing to give credit where it is due. The sort of commander men will follow into the jaws of hell. There may well be others that could do justice to the role, but if it was up to me, I would give it to Catharine Zeta-Jones.
Since she was fighting on what we have historically regarded as being “the wrong side,” some time will have to be spent on her motivation. I think it it reasonable that she puts forward the view that the Greeks and Persians should be united. She was after all a Greek living under Persian rule. At the end of the film a narrator could mention that it was 150 years later that this happened, but not in the way that Artemisia expected. It took the genius of Alexander the Great to conquer Persia and bring them together at last. Also in the 4th Century BC another Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus won fame by building a mausoleum to her husband. Such was it’s beauty that it became acknowledged as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
AETHELFLAED - Daughter of Greatness.
This particular lady is one who has come close to being written out of history, and it’s about time she was put back in. It is partly because she is so obscure that I think her movie should be done as a sequel to one on her father, Alfred the Great, who is better known. He also deserves more recognition and is definitely worthy of a movie in his own right.
By the 9th Century AD the southern part of the island of Great Britain had been taken over by the Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons. Missionaries had converted them to Christianity and the original seven kingdoms had merged into three. To the north was Northumbria, to the east and centre was Mercia, which included the area settled by the Angles. Alfred’s kingdom was Wessex, land of the West Saxons, and it covered the area to the west and south. This is during a period often called the Dark Ages, and when the Great Viking Army arrived in must have seemed to many Christians that it was about to get even darker. The invaders still worshipped the old gods such as Tiw(Tyr), Odin (Woden), Thor and Freya who held sway over Germany and Scandinavia for centuries. The spelling varied in the different areas. Good evidence of this and of the influence they once had is given by the days that bear their names; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. From their complex mythology only the Valkyries survive. They were originally the “shield maidens” of Odin who rode into battles to bring the bravest of the fallen to Valhalla. In modern times they are seem in many forms, standard bearers of a near forgotten culture that have been absorbed into our own. Personally I’m glad they are still with us, for I rather like them and would love to see a fantasy sequence involving them included in the movie.
The invaders quickly overran Northumbria but the film would only mention this in passing. It would concentrate on the struggle for survival of the two southern kingdoms against the Danish Vikings, thought of by the monastic chronicles of the time, as the forces of darkness. The Danes also believed in magic, and their mythology was full of tales about rings of power, and rings of doom, such as Andvarinaut. This was a cursed ring that blighted many lives. If all this sounds familiar to Lord of the Rings fans, it is hardly surprising. J.R.R. Tolkien was professor of Anglo Saxon studies at Oxford University.
He got his inspiration from many sources and did not welcome speculation on such matters. It is however hard to ignore certain similarities between Middle Earth and Anglo Saxon England. For example both had; just one woman to fight on horseback, one woman to lead men in battle, one woman to help rule her people when destiny called. Taking everything else into consideration it is quite likely that the legends of Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, inspired Tolkien to crate Eowyn, Lady of the Rohan. This similarity seems to relate more to their character rather than to the lives they led in fact and fiction.
When Aethelflaed was born in 869 her Uncle Aethelred was King. These were troubled times and Alfred was soon helping his brother lead the army of Wessex against the invaders. The Vikings had been raiding Britain for many years but this army was a much more dangerous proposition. They had come to stay. In 871 Aethelred died of wounds received in battle and Alfred became King of Wessex. He fought the Danes to a standstill and kept Wessex as the only area free of them, but at a heavy price. Part of the peace settlement involved paying off the Danes, which Alfred reluctantly did. His little kingdom was exhausted and he knew that if he was killed in battle, there was nobody to follow him. This only bought him five years. The Danes started encroaching on Wessex and in January 878 launched a winter offensive which took the Saxons completely by surprise. The whole of Wessex was overrun and the royal family was forced to flee, fugitives in their own land.
A lesser man would have left the country. The King of Mercia fled to Europe when his Kingdom was overrun. Alfred was made of sterner stuff, and this became his finest hour. He went to the Somerset marshes and four months later had transformed a ragged band of followers into an army which defeated the Danes at the battle of Edington. I don’t think it unreasonable to assume that Aethelflaed would want to help her father in his time of need. A movie about Alfred would pay particular attention to this period. He organised guerrilla warfare against the Danes and I would include a scene in which eight year old Aethelflaed spies on them. She is spotted and chased, but gets away. As they give up the chase our little heroine hears them remark; “These Saxon brats are just like their King, good at running and hiding.” We have a close up of a dirty but fiercely determined little face. “When I am grown up, it is you who will be running and hiding from me,” she says passionately.
When Aethelflaed gets back to camp she finds her mother Ealswyth frantic with worry. Everybody had been out looking for her and she was in big trouble. To fully explain the gravity of her crime, her father was going to personally reprimand her. The scene is set. He towers above her, and demands to know where she has been. When Alfred finds out she has been spying on a group of Danes that where in the marshes he is furious, but when he stops yelling long enough to listen he realises that the information his daughter has brought him is extremely valuable. It is also difficult to stay angry with someone you are very proud of.
After his decisive victory Alfred was able to dictate peace on his terms, which included the partition of Mercia. Alfred achieved a lot as far as reforms go, but I don’t anticipate his movie spending much time on them. There would still have been troubles with the Danes who were a collection of independent bands rather than a true army, as we would understand it.
Aethelflaed married at the age of twenty, Ethelred a powerful noble of Mercia and long tome friend of her father. They ruled together as a joint effort but were never officially known as King and Queen as many of the people were still waiting for the return of the King of Mercia from exile. A scene involving him finding out first hand that she knows how to fight would be a must. I like the idea of them being ambushed while travelling through a forest. Aethelflaed is travelling by wagon but when the Danes attack her husband ignores her protests and gives her his horse. He tells her to ride on and sends half of their bodyguard with her as protection. A short distance away she stops, and notices that the outnumbered Saxons are in trouble. She tries to send the men with her back to help, but reluctantly they refuse. Their orders are to stick with her. Aethelflaed smiles at this, turns her horse and charges into the fight, picking up a sword from a fallen warrior on the way. The men have no alternative but to follow her in. The Danes are taken completely by surprise and after a spirited scrap are beaten off.
Towards the end of the century the Danes attacked again but the combined efforts of Wessex and Mercia drove them back. Alfred was quite sick by this time and although he had organised the defence, such as the creation of a navy, the actual fighting was left to the younger generation. In 899 Alfred died and his son Edward became King of Wessex. The two countries continued to cooperate as before, and together they increased the area of Mercia that was held by the Anglo-Saxons. After her husband died in 911 Aethelflaed ruled alone until she died in 918. He had been sick for some while before this so in reality she had already been ruling alone. In these last few years she is reported to have lead her army in battle, build fortifications and skilfully negotiated treaties with neighbouring countries.
Her daughter briefly ruled after her death, but Edward soon took over when he found she was not up to the job. Edward ruled the two kingdoms as one until his death when his son Aethelstan succeeded him. It is interesting that Mercia proclaimed him king before Wessex. The reason for this was that there is much evidence to show that he was illegitimate. At a very young age Aethelstan was sent to Mercia where his Aunt Aethelflaed raised him. Must be a good movie scene in there somewhere? Mercia became his home and it is only natural that he would become their next king. The two Kingdoms were never to be separate again. Aethelstan continued the family tradition of gaining land from the Danes and finished up controlling the whole country, having taken over the Danish Kingdom centred around York. A good indication of how close he was to his Aunt is the statue of Aethelflaed that stands in the grounds of Tamworth Castle. Her right hand firmly grips a sword, but her left arm is protectively draped around the child Aethelstan.