3rd Biggleswade (Methodist) Brownies

The Silver Penny, used as the County Emblem, represents the obverse side of the penny piece struck in the reign of Edward the Elder (899-925). It is his name, in Saxon, which it bears: Eadvveard Rex. This brave son of Alfred the Great, with his equally brave sister, Aethelflaeda, widow of Aethelred of Mercia, undertook to rid the East of England of the Danes, who had seized the area from his father and ruled it as the Danelagh. By the treaty made between Alfred and Gunthrum, the Dane, the latter held all of England, East of a line running from the Thames, up the River Lea to its source at Leagrave and, from there, straight to Bedanford, along the River Ouse and so to Watling Street. Therefore most of Bedford lay in the Danish zone and formed a bridge-head on the Ouse. Edward's plan was to make certain strong bases and to strike from these at the enemy's frontier posts and bridge-heads. To this end he constructed ' strong points' along Watling Street and the border of the Danelagh while his sister, the Lady of Mercia, did the same further North. In 919, when Edward was nearing Bedford, the leader of the Danish garrison, the Yarl Thurkitel, sensing that the native Saxons were preparing to go over to their own people, became a quisling. With others, he approached the King secretly and offered to admit him to Bedford without a struggle. Consequently, on November 10th, Edward entered Bedford and occupied it. As he did not trust the quislings, yet did not wish to send them back to the Danes, he shipped them off to France. In the following weeks he prepared Bedford against a counter-attack. He erected fortifications (the tower of St. Peter's Church was possibly a part of these fortifications) and dug a deep moat and earthwork on the South side of the Old Danish suburb of Mikesgate. This moat, known later as the 'King's ditch', can still be seen. It is narrower and shallower, and bereft of its earth wall, but above it remain the last vestiges of Edward's earthworks, commemorating to this day the bravery, military genius and perseverance of the brave son and daughter of Alfred the Great. A well-known writer of English history describes Aethelflaeda as 'one of the few warrior women of the world' The Silver Penny was first used as the County Guide Emblem in 1921, one thousand years after Edward the Elder had defeated the Danes and driven them out of Bedfordshire back towards the Wash.