Who plays Judith in Vikings?
Judith is played by Jennie Jacques and Sarah Greene in the original Vikings series.
Explore family, allies and rivals or follow the story sections below.
Cast references: Sarah Greene.
Explore Judith’s story
A marriage between kingdoms
Ælle’s daughter marries Aethelwulf to strengthen the relationship between Northumbria and Wessex. The agreement places her private life inside the calculations of two rulers.
Motherhood and royal protection
Her relationship with Athelstan produces Alfred. Ecbert protects her after the adultery accusation. Later she promotes Alfred’s succession and poisons Aethelred, acting beyond the forgiveness Alfred has offered his brother.
Influence carries responsibility
Judith’s constrained starting position helps explain why influence matters to her, without making every later act defensible. Compare the protection she receives with the protection she claims to provide. Acting in a son’s name is not necessarily acting with his consent; the difference becomes central to her relationship with Alfred.
Relationships & loyalties
Memorable scenes
Naming Alfred’s father
Season 3, episode 6
Facing punishment for adultery, Judith identifies Athelstan as the father of her child. Ecbert intervenes, turning an intimate confession and threatened mutilation into a decision about the royal household’s future.
Why this moment matters
Judith’s body becomes the place where the court attempts to enforce its moral order, until naming Athelstan changes Ecbert’s calculation. Protection arrives through a powerful man’s attachment to the father, not through a general recognition of her freedom. Alfred’s privileged position consequently begins inside a scene that exposes how conditional his mother’s safety remains.
A mother rejects the king’s forgiveness
Season 5, episode 16
Alfred forgives Aethelred, but Judith poisons her son to protect Alfred’s reign. The scene separates her stated intention to secure his future from the authority Alfred has actually given her.
Why this moment matters
The poisoning turns a continuing political anxiety into a permanent family loss. Alfred has already chosen forgiveness, so Judith is not merely carrying out the king’s wishes more forcefully. She substitutes her own assessment of danger for his authority and calls the result protection. That contradiction gives the scene its force beyond the shock of the murder.
Why fans keep talking
Judith’s development can be compelling without becoming a progression toward moral correctness. She gains influence within institutions that once threatened her, then uses that influence to decide another child’s fate. Viewers who value her resourcefulness may see a woman refusing passivity; those repelled by the poisoning see favoritism made lethal. The disagreement turns on whether understanding the constraints that shaped her should also soften judgment of what she chooses to do.
What resonates
Her development and Jennie Jacques’s performance keep her compelling for viewers who appreciate a morally compromised character.
What divides viewers
Favoritism, reliance on Ecbert’s power and the decision to kill Aethelred without Alfred’s agreement make her difficult to defend.
Character gallery
Who plays Judith?
Jennie Jacques portrays Judith.
Jennie Jacques’s work beyond Vikings includes Annie Miller in Desperate Romantics (2009); Ree Ree in Shank (2010); Beth in Cherry Tree Lane (2010); WPC Gina Dawson in WPC 56 (2013); Amber in London Kills (2019).
Judith and the historical evidence
A historical name with a substantially rewritten family story. Do not transfer the show's parentage into a historical family tree. Matching a name or marriage partner is only the beginning of checking identity.
Compare the screen character with the sources