Penda of Mercia

Penda (died November 15, 655¹) was a 7th-century King of Mercia, a kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda participated in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the battle of Hatfield Chase in 633;² nine years later, he defeated and killed Edwin's eventual successor, Oswald, at the battle of Maserfield. From this point he was probably the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time; he defeated the East Angles, drove the king of Wessex into exile for three years, and continued to wage war against the Bernicians of Northumbria. Thirteen years after Maserfield, he suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of the Winwaed in the course of a final campaign against the Bernicians and was killed.

Contents

1 Descent, beginning of reign, and battle with the West Saxons 2 Alliance with Cadwallon and the battle of Hatfield Chase 3 During the reign of Oswald 4 Maserfield 5 Campaigns between Maserfield and the Winwaed 6 Relations with Bernicia; Christianity and Middle Anglia 7 Final campaign and the battle of the Winwaed 8 Aftermath and historical appraisal 9 Notes 10 References

Descent, beginning of reign, and battle with the West Saxons

Penda was a son of Pybba and said to be a descendant of Icel, with a lineage purportedly extending back to Woden. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives his descent as follows:

Penda was Pybba's offspring, Pybba was Cryda's offspring, Cryda Cynewald's offspring, Cynewald Cnebba's offspring, Cnebba Icel's offspring, Icel Eomer's offspring, Eomer Angeltheow's offspring, Angeltheow Offa's offspring, Offa Wermund's offspring, Wermund Wihtaeg's offspring, Wihtlaeg Woden's offspring.³

The Historia Brittonum says that Pybba had 12 sons, including Penda, but that Penda and Eowa were those best known to its author.⁴ (Many of these 12 sons of Pybba may in fact merely represent later attempts to claim descent from him.⁵) Besides Eowa, apparently Penda also had a brother named Coenwalh, from whom two later kings were descended.

The time at which Penda became king is uncertain, as are the circumstances. Another king, Cearl, is said to have ruled during the early part of the 7th century; whether Penda immediately succeeded him is unknown. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Penda became king in 626, ruled for 30 years, and was 50 years old at the time of his accession.³ That he ruled for 30 years should perhaps not be taken as an exact figure,⁶ since the same source says he died in 655, which would not exactly correspond to the year it gives for the beginning of his reign unless it is considering him to have died in the thirtieth year of his reign.⁷ Furthermore, that Penda was truly 50 years old at the beginning of his reign has generally been considered doubtful by historians, mainly because of the ages of his children—the idea that Penda, at about 80 years of age, would have left behind children who were still young (his son Wulfhere was still young three years after Penda's death, according to Bede) has been widely considered implausible.⁸ The possibility has been suggested that the Chronicle actually meant to say that Penda was 50 years old at the time of his death, and therefore about 20 in 626.⁹

Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, says of Penda that he was "a most warlike man of the royal race of the Mercians" and that, following Edwin of Northumbria's defeat in 633 (see below), he ruled the Mercians for twenty-two years with varying fortune.¹⁰ The noted 20th century historian Frank Stenton was of the opinion that the language used by Bede "leaves no doubt that ... Penda, though descended from the royal family of the Mercians, only became their king after Edwin's defeat".¹¹ The Historia Brittonum accords Penda a reign of only ten years,¹² perhaps dating it from the time of the Battle of Maserfield (see below) around 642, although according to the generally accepted chronology this would still be more than ten years.⁷ Given the apparent problems with the dates given by the Chronicle and the Historia, Bede's account of the length of Penda's reign is generally considered the most plausible by historians. Nicholas Brooks noted that, since these three accounts of the length of Penda's reign come from three different sources, and none of them are Mercian (they are West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Welsh), they may merely reflect the times at which their respective peoples first had military involvement with Penda.⁶

The question of whether or not Penda was already king during the late 620s assumes greater significance in light of the Chronicle's record of a battle between Penda and the West Saxons under their kings Cynegils and Cwichelm taking place at Cirencester in 628.¹³ If he was not yet king, then his involvement in this conflict might indicate that he was fighting as an independent warlord during this period—as Stenton put it, "a landless noble of the Mercian royal house fighting for his own hand."¹⁴ On the other hand, he might have been one of multiple rulers among the Mercians at the time, ruling only a part of their territory. The Chronicle says that after the battle, Penda and the West Saxons "came to an agreement."¹⁵ It has been speculated that this agreement marked a victory for Penda, ceding to him Cirencester and the areas along the lower River Severn.¹⁴ These lands, to the southwest of Mercia, had apparently been taken by the West Saxons from the British in 577,¹⁶ and the territory eventually became part of the subkingdom of the Hwicce. Given Penda's role in the area at this time and his apparent success there, it has been argued that the subkingdom of the Hwicce was established by him; evidence to support this is lacking, although the subkingdom is known to have existed later in the century.¹⁷

Alliance with Cadwallon and the battle of Hatfield Chase

Main article: Battle of Hatfield Chase

At some point in the late 620s or early 630s, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, the British king of Gwynedd, became involved in a war with Edwin of Northumbria, the most powerful king in Britain at the time. Cadwallon apparently was initially unsuccessful, but he joined with Penda to defeat the Northumbrians in October 633² at Hatfield Chase. Penda was probably not yet king of the Mercians at this time, but he is thought to have become king soon afterwards, based on Bede's characterization of his position. Edwin was killed in the battle, and one of his sons, Eadfrith, fell into Penda's hands.⁹ Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his semi-legendary History of the Kings of Britain, gives a fuller account of the events leading up to the battle, although his history is to a great extent mythological and inaccurate. He says that Penda was conducting a siege of Exeter when he was defeated by the exiled king Cadwallon, who forced him into an alliance.¹⁸ Regardless of the accuracy of Geoffrey's account—which should not be taken too seriously considering that Geoffrey also makes the certainly false claim that Cadwallon outlived Penda—Penda is thought to have been the lesser partner in the alliance.¹⁹

One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that, following the victory at Hatfield Chase, Cadwallon and Penda went on to ravage "the whole land" of the Northumbrians.²⁰ Certainly Cadwallon continued the war, and according to Bede, he brutally ravaged Northumbrian lands, but the extent of Penda's further participation in the war in uncertain. Bede says that the pagans who had slain Edwin—presumably a reference to the Mercians under Penda, although conceivably it could be a derisive misnomer meant to refer to the Christian British—burned a church and town at Campodonum,²¹ although the time at which this occurred is uncertain. It may be presumed that Penda withdrew from the war at some point before the defeat and death of Cadwallon at the Battle of Heavenfield, about a year after Hatfield Chase, since he was not present at this battle. Penda's early, successful participation in the war against the Northumbrians may have elevated his status among the Mercians and enabled him to become king, and he may have withdrawn from the war prior to Heavenfield in order to secure or consolidate his position in Mercia. Referring to Penda's successes against the West Saxons and the Northumbrians, D. P. Kirby wrote of Penda's emergence in these years as "a Mercian leader whose military exploits far transcended those of his obscure predecessors."⁷

During the reign of Oswald

Oswald of Bernicia became king of Northumbria after his victory over Cadwallon at Heavenfield.⁹ Penda's status and activities during the years of Oswald's reign are obscure. It has been presumed that Penda acknowledged Oswald's authority in some sense after Heavenfield,²² although Penda probably remained an obstacle to Northumbrian supremacy south of the Humber.²³ At some point during Oswald's reign, Penda had Edwin's son Eadfrith killed, "contrary to his oath".⁹ The possibility that his killing was the result of pressure from Oswald—Eadfrith being a dynastic rival of Oswald—has been suggested;²² since the potential existed for Eadfrith to be put to use in Mercia's favor in Northumbrian power struggles while he was alive, it may not have been to Penda's advantage to have him killed.²⁴

It was probably at some point during Oswald's reign that Penda fought with the East Angles and defeated them, killing their king Egric and the former king Sigebert, who had been brought out of retirement in a monastery against his will in the belief that his presence would motivate the soldiers.²⁵ The time at which the battle occurred is uncertain; it may have been as early as 635, but there is also evidence to suggest it could not have been before 640 or 641.²⁶ Presuming that this battle took place before the battle of Maserfield, it may have been that such an expression of Penda's ambition and emerging power made Oswald feel that Penda had to be defeated in order for Northumbrian dominance of southern England to be secured or consolidated.²⁷

Penda's brother Eowa was also said by the Historia Brittonum¹¹ and the Annales Cambriae to have been a king of the Mercians at the time of Maserfield. The question of what sort of relationship of power existed between the brothers prior to the battle is a matter of speculation. Eowa may have simply been a sub-king under Penda; the possibility also exists that Penda and Eowa ruled jointly during the 630s and early 640s, and joint kingships were not uncommon among Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the period. They may have ruled the southern and northern Mercians respectively.²⁴ That Penda ruled the southern part is a possibility suggested by his early involvement in the area of the Hwicce, to the south of Mercia, as well as by the fact that, after Penda's death, his son Peada was allowed to rule southern Mercia while the northern part was placed under direct Northumbrian control—this may indicate a special hereditary claim over southern Mercia by Penda's line that it did not have over the north.

Another possibility was suggested by Nicholas Brooks: Penda might have lost power at some point after Heavenfield, and Eowa may have actually been ruling the Mercians for at least some of the period as a subject ally or puppet of Oswald. Brooks cited Bede's statement implying that Penda's fortunes were mixed during his 22 years in power and noted the possibility that Penda's fortunes were low at this time.²⁸ Thus it may be that Penda was not consistently the dominant figure in Mercia during the years between Hatfield and Maserfield.

Maserfield

Main article: Battle of Maserfield

On August 5, 642,²⁹ Penda defeated the Northumbrians at the battle of Maserfield, which was fought near the lands of the Welsh, and Oswald was killed. Surviving Welsh poetry suggests that Penda fought in alliance with the men of Powys—apparently he was consistently allied with some of the Welsh—perhaps including Cynddylan ap Cyndrwyn, of whom it was said that "when the son of Pyb desired, how ready he was", presumably meaning that he was an ally of Penda, the son of Pybba.³⁰ The site of the battle, traditionally identified with Oswestry, may indicate that it was Oswald who had taken the offensive against Penda.³¹ According to Bede, Penda had Oswald's body dismembered, with his head, hands and arms being placed onto stakes;³² Oswald was thereafter popularly revered as a saint, with his death in battle as a Christian king against pagans leading him to be regarded as a martyr.

Eowa was killed at Maserfield along with Oswald,¹¹ although on which side he was fighting is unknown. It may well be that he was fighting as a dependent ally of Oswald against Penda. If Eowa was in fact dominant among the Mercians during the period leading up the battle, then his death could have marked what the author of the Historia Brittonum regarded as the beginning of Penda's ten-year reign.⁸ Thus it may be that Penda prevailed not only over the Northumbrians but also over his rivals among the Mercians.

The Historia Brittonum may also be referring to this battle when it says that Penda first freed (separavit) the Mercians from the Northumbrians, although this is unlikely to have truly been the first instance of their separation.⁸ The battle left Penda with a degree of power unprecedented for a Mercian king—D. P. Kirby called him "without question the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to have emerged in the midlands" after Maserfield²³—and the prestige and status associated with defeating the powerful Oswald must have been very significant. Northumbria was greatly weakened as a consequence of the battle; the kingdom became fractured to some degree between Deira in its southern part and Bernicia in the north, with the Deirans acquiring a king of their own, Oswine, while in Bernicia, Oswald was succeeded by his brother, Oswiu. Mercia thus enjoyed a greatly enhanced position of strength relative to the surrounding kingdoms, and Frank Stenton wrote that the battle left Penda as "the most formidable king in England".³³

Campaigns between Maserfield and the Winwaed

Defeat at Maserfield must have weakened Northumbrian influence over the West Saxons, and the new West Saxon king Cenwealh—who was still pagan at this time—was married to Penda's sister. It may be surmised that this meant he was to some extent within what Kirby called a "Mercian orbit".³⁴ However, when Cenwealh (according to Bede) "repudiated" Penda's sister in favor of another wife, Penda drove Cenwealh into exile in East Anglia in 645, where he remained for three years before regaining power.³⁵ Who governed the West Saxons during the years of Cenwealh's exile is unknown; Kirby considered it reasonable to conclude that whoever ruled was subject to Penda.³⁴

In 654,³ the East Anglian king Anna, who had harbored the exiled Cenwealh, was killed by Penda. He was succeeded by a brother, Aethelhere; since Aethelhere was subsequently a participant in Penda's doomed invasion of Bernicia in 655 (see below), it may be that Penda installed Aethelhere in power.⁵ It has been suggested that Penda's wars against the East Angles "should be seen in the light of interfactional struggles within East Anglia."³⁶ It may also be that Penda made war against the East Angles with the intention of securing Mercian dominance over the area of Middle Anglia, where Penda established his son Peada as ruler.

In the years after Maserfield, Penda also destructively waged war against Oswiu of Bernicia on his own territory. At one point prior to the death of Bishop Aidan (August 31, 651), Bede says that Penda "cruelly ravaged the country of the Northumbrians far and near" and besieged the royal Bernician stronghold of Bamburgh. When the Mercians were unable to capture it—"not being able to enter it by force, or by a long siege"—Bede reports that they attempted to set the city ablaze, but that it was saved by a sacred wind supposedly sent in response to a plea from the saintly Aidan: "Behold, Lord, how great mischief Penda does!" The wind is said to have blown the fire back towards the Mercians, deterring them from further attempts to capture the city.³⁷ At another point, some years after Aidan's death, Bede records another attack: he says that Penda led an army in devastating the area where Aidan died—he "destroyed all he could with fire and sword"—but that when the Mercians burned down the church where Aidan died, the post against which he was leaning at the time of his death was undamaged; this was taken to be a miracle.³⁸ No open battles are recorded as being fought between the two sides prior to the Winwaed in 655 (see below), however, and this may mean that Oswiu deliberately avoided battle due to a feeling of weakness relative to Penda. This feeling may have been in religious as well as military terms: N. J. Higham wrote of Penda acquiring "a pre-eminent reputation as a god-protected, warrior–king", whose victories may have led to a belief that his pagan gods were more effective for protection in war than the Christian God.²²

Relations with Bernicia; Christianity and Middle Anglia

Despite these apparent instances of warfare, relations between Penda and Oswiu were probably not entirely hostile during this period, since Penda's daughter Cyneburh married Alhfrith, Oswiu's son, and Penda's son Peada married Alhflaed, Oswiu's daughter. According to Bede, who dates the events to 653, the latter marriage was made contingent upon the baptism and conversion to Christianity of Peada; Peada accepted this, and the preaching of Christianity began among the Middle Angles, whom he ruled. Bede wrote that Penda tolerated the preaching of Christianity in Mercia itself, despite his own beliefs:

Nor did King Penda obstruct the preaching of the word among his people, the Mercians, if any were willing to hear it; but, on the contrary, he hated and despised those whom he perceived not to perform the works of faith, when they had once received the faith, saying, "They were contemptible and wretched who did not obey their God, in whom they believed." This was begun two years before the death of King Penda.³⁹

Peada's conversion and the introduction of priests into Middle Anglia could be seen as evidence of Penda's tolerance of Christianity, given the absence of evidence that he sought to interfere.⁴⁰ On the other hand, an interpretation is also possible whereby the marriage and conversion could be seen as corresponding to a successful attempt on Oswiu's part to expand Bernician influence at Penda's expense; Higham saw Peada's conversion more in terms of political maneovering on both sides than religious zeal.⁴¹

Middle Anglia as a political entity may have been created by Penda as an expression of Mercian power in the area following his victories over the East Angles. Previously there seem to have been a number of small peoples inhabiting the region, and Penda's establishment of Peada as a subking there may have marked their initial union under one ruler. The districts corresponding to Shropshire and Herefordshire, along Mercia's western frontier near Wales, probably also fell under Mercian domination at this time. Here a king called Merewalh ruled over the Magonsaete; in later centuries it was said that Merewalh was a son of Penda, but this is considered uncertain. Stenton, for example, considered it likely that Merewalh was a representative of a local dynasty that continued to rule under Mercian domination.⁴²

Final campaign and the battle of the Winwaed

Main article: Battle of the Winwaed

In 655,¹ Penda invaded Bernicia with a large army, reported to have been thirty legions strong, with thirty royal or noble commanders (duces regii, as Bede called them), including rulers such as Cadfael ap Cynfeddw of Gwynedd and Aethelhere of East Anglia. Penda also enjoyed the support of Aethelwald, the king of Deira and the successor of Oswine, who had been murdered on Oswiu's orders in 651; Bede says Aethelwald acted as Penda's guide during his invasion.

The cause of this war is uncertain. There is a passage in Bede's Ecclesiastical History that suggests Aethelhere of East Anglia was the cause of the war, but it has been argued that an issue of punctuation in later manuscripts confused Bede's meaning on this point, and that he in fact meant to refer to Penda as being responsible for the war.⁴³ Although, according to Bede, Penda tolerated some Christian preaching in Mercia, it has been suggested that he perceived Bernician sponsorship of Christianity in Mercia and Middle Anglia as a form of "religious colonialism" that undermined his power, and that this may have provoked the war.⁴⁴ Elsewhere the possibility has been suggested that Penda sought to prevent Oswiu from reunifying Northumbria,³¹ not wanting Oswiu to restore the kingdom to the power it had enjoyed under Edwin and Oswald; a perception of the conflict in terms of the political situation between Bernicia and Deira could help to explain the role of Aethelwald of Deira in the war, since Aethelwald was the son of Oswald and might not ordinarily be expected to ally with those who had killed his father. Perhaps, as the son of Oswald, he sought to obtain the Bernician kingship for himself.⁴⁴

According to the Historia Brittonum, Penda besieged Oswiu at Iudeu;¹¹ this site has been identified with Stirling, in the north of Oswiu's kingdom.⁴⁵ Oswiu tried to buy peace: in the Historia Brittonum, it is said that Oswiu offered treasure, which Penda distributed among his British allies;¹¹ Bede states that the offer was simply rejected by Penda, who "resolved to extirpate all of [Oswiu's] nation, from the highest to the lowest". Additionally, according to Bede, Oswiu's son Ecgfrith was being held hostage "at the court of Queen Cynwise, in the province of the Mercians"⁴⁶—perhaps surrendered by Oswiu as part of some negotiations or arrangement. It would seem that Penda's army then moved back south, perhaps returning home,⁴⁷ but a great battle was fought near the river Winwaed (the identification of the Winwaed with a modern river is uncertain, although the River Went is a possibility) on a date given by Bede as November 15. It may be that Penda's army was attacked by Oswiu at a point of strategic vulnerability, which would help explain Oswiu's victory over forces that were, according to Bede, much larger than his own.⁴⁸

The Mercian force was also weakened by desertions: according to the Historia Brittonum, Cadfael of Gwynedd, "rising up in the night, escaped together with his army" (thus earning him the name Cadomedd, or "battle-shirker"),¹¹ and Bede says that at the time of the battle, Aethelwald of Deira withdrew and "awaited the outcome from a place of safety".⁴⁶ If Penda's army was marching home, it may have been for this reason that some of his allies were unwilling to fight, according to Kirby; it may also be that the allies had different purposes in the war, and Kirby suggested that Penda's deserting allies may have been dissatisfied "with what had been achieved at Iudeu".⁴⁷ At a time when the Winwaed was swollen with heavy rains, the Mercians were badly defeated and Penda was killed, along with the East Anglian king Aethelhere. Bede says that Penda's "thirty commanders, and those who had come to his assistance were put to flight, and almost all of them slain," and that more drowned while fleeing than were killed in the actual battle. He also says that Penda's head was cut off; a connection between this and the treatment of Oswald's body at Maserfield is possible.⁴⁷

Aftermath and historical appraisal

With the defeat at the Winwaed, Oswiu came to briefly dominate Mercia, permitting Penda's son Peada to rule its southern portion. Two of Penda's other sons, Wulfhere and Aethelred, later ruled Mercia in succession after the overthrow of Northumbrian control in the late 650s. The period of rule by Penda's descendants came to an end with his grandson Ceolred's death in 716, after which power passed to descendants of Eowa for most of the remainder of the 8th century. Penda's name is considered a possible origin for the word "penny". [1] (http://www.24carat.co.uk/pennystoryframe.html)

Penda was the last great pagan warrior-king among the Anglo-Saxons. N. J. Higham wrote that "his destruction sounded the death-knell of English paganism as a political ideology and public religion."²² After Penda's death, the Mercians were converted to Christianity, and all three of Penda's reigning sons ruled as Christians. His daughters Cyneburh and Cyneswith became Christian and were saintly figures who according to some accounts retained their virginity through their marriages. There was purportedly even an infant grandson of Penda named Rumwold who lived a saintly three-day life of fervent preaching. What is known about Penda is primarily derived from the history written by the Northumbrian Bede, a priest not inclined to objectively portray a pagan Mercian who engaged in fierce conflict with Christian kings, and in particular with Northumbrian rulers. From the perspective of the Christians who later wrote about Penda, the important theme that dominates their descriptions is the religious context of his wars—the Historia Brittonum says that Penda prevailed at Maserfield through "diabolical agency"—but Penda's greatest importance was perhaps in his opposition to the supremacy of the Northumbrians. According to Stenton, had it not been for Penda's resistance, "a loosely compacted kingdom of England under Northumbrian rule would probably have been established by the middle of the seventh century."⁴⁹ In summarizing Penda, he wrote the following:

He was himself a great fighting king of the kind most honoured in Germanic saga; the lord of many princes, and the leader of a vast retinue attracted to his service by his success and generosity. Many stories must have been told about his dealings with other kings, but none of them have survived; his wars can only be described from the standpoint of his enemies...⁵⁰

Notes

• Note 1: Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, November 15. R. L. Poole (Studies in Chronology and History, 1934) put forward the theory that Bede began his year in September, and consequently November 655 would actually fall in 654; Frank Stenton also dated events accordingly in his Anglo-Saxon England (1943).¹ Others have accepted Bede's given dates as meaning what they appear to mean, considering Bede's year to have begun on December 25 or January 1 (see S. Wood, 1983: "Bede's Northumbrian dates again"). The historian D. P. Kirby suggested the year 656 as a possibility, alongside 655, in case the dates given by Bede are off by one year (see Kirby's "Bede and Northumbrian Chronology", 1963). The Annales Cambriae gives the year as 657. [2] (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/annalescambriae.html)
• Note 2: Bede gives the year of Hatfield as 633 (along with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle); if the theory that Bede's years began in September is employed (see Note 1), then October 633 would actually be in 632, and this dating has sometimes been observed by modern historians such as Stenton (see Note 8). Kirby suggested that the year may have actually been 634, accounting for the possibility that Bede's dates are one year early (see Note 1). Bede gives the specific date of Hatfield as October 12; Manuscript E of the Chronicle (see Note 10) gives it as October 14.
• Note 3: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Manuscript A (ASC A), 626.²
• Note 4: Historia Brittonum (HB), Chapter 60.³
• Note 5: Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, page 57.⁴
• Note 6: Brooks, page 165.⁵
• Note 7: Kirby, page 67.⁴
• Note 8: Kirby, page 68.⁴
• Note 9: Brooks, "The Formation of the Mercian Kingdom", page 166.⁵
• Note 10: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book II, Chapter XX.⁶
• Note 11: Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, page 81.¹
• Note 12: HB, Chapter 65.³
• Note 13: Kirby was of the opinion that the battle "almost certainly" occurred a few years later than 628, but wrote that the battle "still reveals the wide-ranging character of Penda's early activities." (page 68)⁴
• Note 14: Stenton, page 45.¹
• Note 15: ASC A, 628.²
• Note 16: ASC A, 577.²
• Note 17: Stenton argues (page 45) for the likelihood that the subkingdom of the Hwicce was Penda's creation;¹ Bassett ("In search of the origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms", page 6⁵) is more cautious, noting the lack of evidence.
• Note 18: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, page 276.⁷
• Note 19: Brooks, page 167.⁵
• Note 20: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Manuscript E, 633.²
• Note 21: Bede, B. II, Ch. XIV.⁶
• Note 22: Higham, The Convert Kings, page 218.⁸
• Note 23: Higham⁸ pointed to what he called "the apparent failure of Bernician Christianity to penetrate the central Midlands" as evidence against assuming a great deal of authority exercised by Oswald over the Mercians during this period. (page 219)
• Note 24: Kirby, page 77.⁴
• Note 25: Bede, B. III, Ch. XVIII.⁶
• Note 26: Kirby (Ch. 5, Note 26, page 207)⁴ explains some of the uncertainty surrounding the time of this battle: one source says that Anna died in the 19th year of his reign, in which case his reign would have begun around 635 and therefore the battle that killed his predecessor would also have been at about the same time; however, another source indicates that the ex-king Sigebert was still alive at least in 640 or 641.
• Note 27: Kirby, page 74.⁴
• Note 28: Brooks, pages 166–67,⁵ argues against the idea that Penda and Eowa were co-rulers, and favors the idea that Eowa was ruling Mercia from c. 635 until 642.
• Note 29: The date of Maserfield is subject to a similar sort of uncertainty as that which surrounds the dates of the battles of Hatfield Chase and the Winwaed. Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see Note 1) gives the year as 642, as does Bede; however, if Hatfield actually occurred in 632 (see Note 2), then that would mean Maserfield occurred in 641. D. P. Kirby has suggested 643 as a possibility, allowing for Bede's chronology being one year early (see Note 1). The Annales Cambriae give the year as 644. Bede and the Chronicle (Manuscript E) agree that the date was August 5.
• Note 30: Brooks, page 168.⁵
• Note 31: Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age, pages 117–18.⁹
• Note 32: Bede, B. III, Ch. XII.⁶
• Note 33: Stenton, page 83.¹
• Note 34: Kirby, page 48.⁴
• Note 35: Bede (B. III, Ch. VII⁶) and the ASC agree that the exile was for three years; the ASC A says that it began in 645.
• Note 36: Carver, "Kingship and material culture in early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia", page 155.⁵
• Note 37: Bede, B. III, Ch. XVI.⁶
• Note 38: Bede, B. III, Ch. XVII.⁶
• Note 39: Bede, B. III, Ch. XXI.⁶
• Note 40: For an example of this interpretation, see Fisher, page 66.⁹
• Note 41: Higham, page 232.⁸
• Note 42: Stenton, page 47.¹
• Note 43: J. O. Prestwich¹⁰ cites the punctuation of an early version of Bede's history, the Leningrad manuscript (c. 746); he argues that it is more true to Bede's original meaning than the Moore manuscript (c. 737), which he believes was written in a hurried and careless fashion, but which has greatly influenced interpretations of the text.
• Note 44: Higham, page 240.⁸
• Note 45: Kirby, page 80.⁴
• Note 46: Bede, B. III, Ch. XXIV.⁶
• Note 47: Kirby, page 81.⁴
• Note 48: Breeze, "The Battle of the Uinued and the River Went, Yorkshire", pages 381–82.¹¹
• Note 49: Stenton, pages 81–82.¹
• Note 50: Stenton, page 39.¹

References

1. F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (1943), third edition (1971), Oxford University Press, paperback (1989, reissued 1998), ISBN 0-19-282237-3.
2. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and edited by M. J. Swanson (1996), paperback, ISBN 0-415-92129-5.
3. The Historia Brittonum, Chapters 60 and 65. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html)
4. D. P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (1991), second edition (2000), Routledge, paperback, ISBN 0-415-24211-8.
5. S. Bassett, M. Carver, N. Brooks, in S. Bassett, The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (1989).
6. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731), Book II (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book2.html) and Book III. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book3.html)
7. Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), translated by L. Thorpe (1966), paperback, Penguin, ISBN 0140441700.
8. N. J. Higham, The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England (1997), pages 219, 240 and 241.
9. D. J. V. Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age (1973), Longman, hardback, ISBN 0582482771, pages 66 and 117–118.
10. J. O. Prestwich, "King Æthelhere and the battle of the Winwaed," The English Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 326 (January 1968), pages 89–95.
11. A. Breeze, "The Battle of the Uinued and the River Went, Yorkshire", Northern History, Vol. 41, Issue 2 (September 2004), pages 377–83.

Preceded by: Cearl

King of Mercia c. 633–655

Succeeded by: Peada Template:End boxno:Penda av Mercia