She wielded it well, but it usually meant the choice was never really hers.
As guardian of Henry's infant son, and adviser of the empress Agnes, Victor now wielded enormous power, which he began to use with much tact for the maintenance of peace throughout the empire and for strengthening the papacy against the aggressions of the barons.
Historically, husbands have often wielded great power over their wives.
For some eighteen months Ælfwyn seems to have wielded her mother's authority, and then, just before the Christmas of 919, Edward took Mercia into his own hands, and Ælfwyn was "led away" into Wessex.
That such a man would ever have used the unparalleled powers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction with which he had been entrusted for a genuine reformation of the church is only a pious opinion cherished by those who regret that the Reformation was left for the secular arm to achieve; and it is useless to plead lack of opportunity on behalf of a man who for sixteen years had enjoyed an authority never before or since wielded by an English subject.
