Eliza Butterworth
Eliza Butterworth (born 24 July 1993) is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Queen Aelswith of Wessex in the series "The Last Kingdom". Early life and education. Butterworth was born and raised in Lincoln, England on July 24, 1993 to an English father from Lancashire and an Italian American mother from Iowa. Her parents met in Nebraska where her mother was training to be a nurse and her father, in the Royal Air Force, was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. She has dual citizenship. From the age of 4 to 18, Butterworth  attended Lincoln Minster School. She discovered acting through a school play and was Head Girl. She went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2014. Whilst training at RADA, Butterworth performed lead roles in "The Daughter in Law" and "The Witch of Edmonton". Career. Butterworth made guest appearances as Holly in "DCI Banks" and Lucy Hamilton in "WPC 56", both in 2015. That same year, she began playing Aelswith, the wife of King Alfred the Great (David Dawson), in the BBC and later Netflix adaptation of "The Last  Kingdom". She started off in a recurring role for the first series before being promoted to the main cast for the subsequent four series. In 2020, Butterworth appeared as Heston in the BBC Two miniseries "The North Water" alongside Colin Farrell and Stephen Graham. She made her West End debut as Princess Eugenie in the 2021 comedy play "" at the Prince of Wales Theatre. Butterworth has an upcoming role in the Sky Max series "A Town Called Malice", as announced in January 2022. Butterworth began filming in January 2022 of the film "Seven Kings Must Die" a feature length movie  involving the surviving members of the television series "The Last Kingdom", due for release in 2023. Personal life. As of 2019, Butterworth is based in London. She is also an alto and mezzo-soprano singer, ballroom and flamenco dancer, and plays percussion.