Note (43) — Chapter I
Reading edition
The best instance in English History of the process by which a kingdom changed into a province, by going through the intermediate stage of a half-independent Ealdormanship, is to be found in the history of South-Western Mercia under its Ealdorman Æthelred and the Lady Æthelflæd, in the reigns of Ælfred and Eadward the Elder. See Norman Conquest, i. 563.