Æthelred (/ˈæθəlrɛd/; died after 704) was king of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died from an illness. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the Kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain.
He was known as a pious and devout Christian king, and he made many grants of land to the church. It was during his reign that Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, reorganized the church's diocesan structure, creating several new sees in Mercia and Northumbria. Æthelred befriended Bishop Wilfrid of York when Wilfrid was expelled from his see in Northumbria; Æthelred made Wilfrid Bishop of the Middle Angles during his exile and supported him at the synod of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case for the return of the ecclesiastical lands he had been deprived of in Northumbria.
Æthelred's wife, Osthryth, was a daughter of King Oswiu, one of the dominant 7th-century Northumbrian kings. Osthryth was murdered in unknown circumstances in 697, and in 704 Æthelred abdicated, leaving the throne to Wulfhere's son Coenred. Æthelred became a monk at Bardney, a monastery which he had founded with his wife, and was buried there. Ceolred, who was Æthelred's son (though apparently not by Osthryth), became king after Coenred; it is also possible that Æthelred had another son named Ceolwald who was briefly king before Ceolred.
Mercia in the seventh century
The kingdoms of England and Wales in the late 7th century
By the 7th century, England was almost entirely divided into kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxons who had come to Britain two hundred years before. The kingdom of Mercia occupied what is now the English midlands. The origin of the kingdom is not recorded, but royal genealogies preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglian collection agree that the royal houses were descended from a founder named Icel; the Mercian royal house is hence known as the Iclingas.[1] The earliest Mercian king about whom definite historical information has survived is Penda of Mercia, Æthelred's father.[2] The larger neighbouring kingdoms included Northumbria to the north, recently united from its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, East Anglia to the east, and Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, to the south.
According to Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a history of the English church written by the 8th-century monk Bede, there were seven early Anglo-Saxon rulers who held imperium, or overlordship, over the other kingdoms.[3] The fifth of these was Edwin of Northumbria, who was killed at the battle of Hatfield Chase by a combined force including Cadwallon, a British king of Gwynedd, and Penda.[4][5] After Edwin's death, Northumbria briefly fell apart into its two subkingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. Within a year Oswald, Edwin's nephew, killed Cadwallon and reunited the kingdoms, subsequently re-establishing Northumbrian hegemony over the south of England.[5] In 642 Penda killed Oswald at the battle of Maserfield,[6] and Northumbria was again divided. Oswald's son Oswiu succeeded to the throne of Bernicia, and Osric's son Oswine to Deira, the southern of the two kingdoms.[7]
In 655, Oswiu defeated and killed Penda at the Battle of the Winwaed.[4] Oswiu installed Peada, a son of Penda, as king of southern Mercia and ruled the northern half himself; after Peada was murdered in 656 Oswiu took direct control of all of Mercia. A coup in 658 threw off Northumbrian overlordship and established Wulfhere as king.[8] By the early 670s, Wulfhere had become the most powerful king in southern Britain, with an effective hegemony over all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms except for Northumbria.[9]
The main source for this period is Bede's History, completed in about 731. Despite its focus on the history of the church, this work also provides valuable information about the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For Wessex and Kent, Bede had informants who supplied him with details of the church's history in each province, but he appears to have had no such contact in Mercia, about which he is less well-informed.[10] A further source for this period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, compiled at the end of the 9th century in Wessex. The Chronicle's anonymous scribe appears to have incorporated much information recorded in earlier periods.[11]
Ancestry and early reign
Æthelred's immediate relations
Æthelred was the son of Penda of Mercia. Penda's queen, Cynewise, is named by Bede, who does not mention her children; no other wives of Penda are known and so it is likely but not certain that she was Æthelred's mother.[12][13] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives Penda's age as fifty in 626, and credits him with a thirty-year reign, but this would put Penda at eighty years old at the time of his death, which is generally thought unlikely as two of his sons (Wulfhere and Æthelred) were young when he was killed. At least as likely is that Penda was fifty years old at his death, rather than at his accession.[4][14] Æthelred's date of birth is unknown, but Bede describes Wulfhere as a youth at the time of his accession in 658, so it is likely he and Æthelred were in their middle teens at that time.[15] The early sources do not say whether Æthelred was older or younger than Wulfhere.
Nothing is known of Æthelred's childhood. He had another brother, Peada, and two sisters, Cyneburh and Cyneswith;[16][17] it is also possible that Merewalh, king of the Magonsæte, was Æthelred's brother.[18]
In 674, according to Stephen of Ripon, Wulfhere "stirred up all the southern nations against [Northumbria]",[19] but he was defeated by Oswiu's son Ecgfrith who forced him to surrender Lindsey, and to pay tribute.[20] Wulfhere survived the defeat, but died in 675, possibly of disease,[21] and Æthelred became king.[22][23]
The first recorded act of Æthelred's reign is in 676, when his armies ravaged Kent, destroying Rochester, the seat of the bishops of West Kent.[24] The reason for his attack is not recorded, but he may have wished to prevent King Hlothhere of Kent from regaining control of Surrey, which had been recently brought into the Mercian orbit by Wulfhere.[25] It may also be that Æthelred sought revenge for the murder of the sons of Eormenred of Kent; the murders had been instigated by Ecgberht of Kent, Hlothhere's brother, and it is possible that Æthelred was the uncle of the murdered princes.[26] A third suggestion is that the kings of Essex solicited the invasion, in response to recent Kentish attempts to gain dominance over the East Saxons.[27] Regardless of the reason, Hlothhere was likely then forced to accept Æthelred's overlordship.[27] The damage to the see of Rochester was so great that the incumbent bishop, Putta, retired from his diocese; his appointed successor, Cwichhelm, also gave up the see "because of its poverty".[24][28]
Early in Æthelred's reign, Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, began a substantial reorganization of the church in Mercia. In 675 he removed Winfred from his position as Bishop of Lichfield, and over the next four years he divided the vast Mercian see into the five dioceses of Leicester, Lichfield, Worcester, Dorchester and Hereford.[29] Æthelred was a devout king, "more famed for his pious disposition than his skill in war",[30] and he made several gifts of land to the expanding church, including grants at Tetbury, Long Newnton, and Somerford Keynes. There is also a tradition that Æthelred was associated with the founding of Abingdon Abbey, in southern Oxfordshire.[31]
Relations with Northumbria
Mercia had been in conflict with Northumbria since at least 633, when Penda of Mercia defeated and killed Edwin of Northumbria at the Battle of Hatfield Chase.[7] However, there were diplomatic marriages between the two kingdoms: Æthelred's sister Cyneburh married Alhfrith, a son of Oswiu of Northumbria, and both Æthelred and his brother Peada married daughters of Oswiu. Cyneburh's marriage to Alhfrith took place in the early 650s, and Peada's marriage, to Ealhflæd, followed shortly afterwards; Æthelred's marriage, to Osthryth, is of unknown date but must have occurred before 679, since Bede mentions it in describing the Battle of the Trent, which took place that year.[16][25][32]
Bede does not mention the cause of the battle, simply saying that it occurred in the ninth year of Ecgfrith's reign. He is more informative on the outcome. Ælfwine, the young subking of Deira, was killed; Ælfwine was brother to Osthryth and Ecgfrith, and was well liked in both Mercia and Northumbria since Æthelred's marriage to Osthryth. According to Bede, his death threatened to cause further strife between the two kingdoms, but Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, intervened:[33]
Theodore, the beloved of God, enlisting God's help, smothered the flames of this awful peril by his wholesome advice. As a result, peace was restored between the kings and peoples, and in lieu of further bloodshed the customary compensation was paid to King Ecgfrith for his brother's death.
Æthelred took possession of Lindsey again after the battle; the change in control this time was lasting, and Lindsey remained part of Mercia until the Viking invasion of the 9th century remade the map of England.[25][34] Conflict between Northumbria and Mercia did not completely cease after this date: Scottish annals record that Æthelbald, an 8th-century Mercian king, ravaged Northumbrian territory in 740 while King Eadberht of Northumbria was absent fighting the Picts.[35] However, the Battle of the Trent effectively ended Northumbrian involvement in southern Britain.[36]
A conflict between Bishop Wilfrid of York and the church and secular establishment led to Wilfrid's expulsion from Northumbria and the division of his vast diocese, and Æthelred sided with Ecgfrith against Wilfrid. After Ecgfrith's death in 685, Archbishop Theodore arranged a reconciliation between Wilfrid and Aldfrith, Ecgfrith's successor, but in 692 Aldfrith and Wilfrid fell out and Wilfrid went into exile in Mercia.[37][38] Æthelred now supported Wilfrid, making him bishop of the Middle Angles, and defending him at the Council of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case before an assembly of bishops led by Archbishop Berhtwald of Canterbury.[39][40] Æthelred's support for Wilfrid embroiled him in dispute with both Canterbury and Northumbria, and it is not clear what his motive was, though it may be relevant that some of Wilfrid's monasteries were in Mercian territory.[39]
The southern kingdoms
Two charters of 681 show Æthelred granting land near Tetbury, on what is now the border between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.[25][41][42] This may indicate that Æthelred was able to extend Mercian influence further into the territory of the West Saxons, as Wulfhere had done before him.[9][25] The West Saxons managed a significant military resurgence under Cædwalla, king of Wessex from about 685 to 688, but when Cædwalla departed for Rome on pilgrimage there may have been internal strife before Ine, his successor, took the throne. Cædwalla had successfully conquered the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent, and his abdication may have contributed to the unsettled history of the southeast over the next few years.[43] In Kent, Oswine emerged as king, though only in eastern Kent; the western half of the kingdom was ruled by Swæfheard, son of Sæbbi, the king of Essex. It is possible that Æthelred provided support to both Swæfheard and Oswine; for each king a charter survives in which Æthelred confirms land grants they made in Kent, and Æthelred's invasion of Kent in 676 indicates his opposition to the traditional Kentish royal house.[43][44][45][46] A charter of Swæfheard's dated 691 is also of interest as it indicates that Æthelred had invaded Kent; it has been suggested that Æthelred intended to place Wilfrid in the Archbishop's seat at Canterbury, but if so he was unsuccessful.[39][47] Alternatively, Æthelred may have needed assistance in Kent from the East Saxons who may have been independent of Mercia for a decade or more by that time.[48] The East Saxons did return to the Mercian orbit over the next few years: a charter of Æthelred's, dated between 693 and 704, shows him granting land to Wealdhere, the bishop of London, and in 704 Æthelred consented to a grant made by Swæfheard.[48][49][50] The latter charter also appears to show that a comes, or local official, was put in place by the Mercians to protect their interests.[50][51]
Despite this evidence of Mercian involvement in the southeast there is very little indication that Æthelred had expansionist ambitions to the south.[39] The increasing strength of the West Saxons under Cædwalla and Ine would have limited Mercian opportunities in that direction.[22] The Northumbrians were no longer a distraction; they had been contained north of the Humber since the Battle of the Trent, and became even less of a threat after their disastrous defeat in 685 at the hands of the Picts. A possible explanation is that Æthelred was preoccupied with war with the Welsh. It was also at this time that the Hwicce came more definitely into the Mercian orbit. The last Hwiccean ruler to take the title of king was Oshere, who died in 685; but from the mid-670s he sought Æthelred's consent for his grants, and Æthelred regarded him as a subking. Further evidence of Æthelred's involvement among the Hwicce comes from a charter in which he grants land for a minster in Gloucestershire, in Hwiccean territory; the charter is generally thought to be a fabrication, but it appears to be based on an authentic earlier source.[39][52]
Abdication and final years
Osthryth was murdered in 697, for reasons unknown; according to Bede the murderers were "her own people, the Mercian chieftains".[53] Bede records that Peada's death, forty years earlier, stemmed from "the treachery, it is said, of his own wife";[54] Peada's wife was Ealhflæd, Osthryth's sister. Hence Osthryth's murder may have been in revenge for Peada's assassination,[39] though it has also been interpreted more directly as a sign of continuing hostility between Northumbria and Mercia.[38][55] Osthryth was buried at Bardney in Lindsey, the monastery where, at her urging, the relics of her uncle, Oswald of Northumbria, were kept and revered,[39][56] though evidence of resistance at Bardney to the cult of Oswald is also indicative of the poor relations between the two kingdoms.[55]
In 704, Æthelred abdicated to become a monk and abbot at Bardney, leaving the kingship to his nephew Coenred.[57] Seventh century Mercian rulers often patronised religious establishments outside the Mercian heartlands, perhaps as a way of gaining support in outlying provinces. Æthelred's and Osthryth's interest in Bardney is consistent with this pattern. The encouragement of the cult of royal saints in areas beyond the central Mercian lands also seems to have been a deliberate policy, and both Æthelred and Osthryth were later revered as saints at Bardney.[58] It appears that Æthelred continued to have influence in the kingdom after his abdication: a passage in Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid shows Æthelred summoning Coenred to him and advising him to make peace with Wilfrid.[57][59] The date of Æthelred's death is not recorded; though it is known that he was buried at Bardney.[60]
Æthelred had at least one son, Ceolred. According to the thirteenth-century Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, Ceolred was not the son of Osthryth, although it does not name Ceolred's mother, and in the view of the historian Ann Williams this may mean that Æthelred remarried after Osthryth's death. However, Susan Kelly states that Osthryth was "most likely (though not certainly)" Ceolred's mother. Ceolred succeeded to the throne in 709, after Coenred abdicated in 709 to go to Rome on pilgrimage.[38][61][62] One version of the regnal lists for Mercia shows a king named Ceolwald reigning after Ceolred, and it is possible that Ceolwald, if he existed, was also a son of Æthelred's.[57]
Notes
↑ Yorke, Barbara, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, Mercia, pp.15–16.
↑ Barbara Yorke, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, Mercia, pp.18–19.
↑ Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 656, p.29
↑ Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p.107, accepts the account in the Life of St Mildburh, which makes Merewalh and Æthelred brothers, as genuine. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p.93, expresses doubts.
↑ Eddius Stephanus, Life of Wilfrid, 20, in Age of Bede, pp.126–127.
↑ Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p.116; Williams, Kingship and Government, p.23.
↑ This translation is by Leo Sherley-Price, from Bede, Ecclesiastical History, IV, 21, p.240; except that "Ecgfrith" has been substituted for "Egfrid" to keep the spelling consistent within this article.
Mercia was one of the three main Anglic kingdoms founded after Sub-Roman Britain was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlands of England.
Æthelbald was the King of Mercia, in what is now the English Midlands from 716 until he was killed in 757. Æthelbald was the son of Alweo and thus a grandson of King Eowa. Æthelbald came to the throne after the death of his cousin, King Ceolred, who had driven him into exile. During his long reign, Mercia became the dominant kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, and recovered the position of pre-eminence it had enjoyed during the strong reigns of Mercian kings Penda and Wulfhere between about 628 and 675.
Oswiu, also known as Oswy or Oswig, was King of Bernicia from 642 and of Northumbria from 654 until his death. He is notable for his role at the Synod of Whitby in 664, which ultimately brought the church in Northumbria into conformity with the wider Catholic Church.
Ecgfrith was the King of Deira from 664 until 670, and then King of Northumbria from 670 until his death in 20 May 685 possibly at age of 31. He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Nechtansmere against the Picts of Fortriu in which he lost his life.
Wulfhere or Wulfar was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere extended his influence over much of that region. His campaigns against the West Saxons led to Mercian control of much of the Thames valley. He conquered the Isle of Wight and the Meon valley and gave them to King Æthelwealh of the South Saxons. He also had influence in Surrey, Essex, and Kent. He married Eormenhild, the daughter of King Eorcenberht of Kent.
Penda was a 7th-century king of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
Eanflæd was a Deiran princess, queen of Northumbria and later, the abbess of an influential Christian monastery in Whitby, England. She was the daughter of King Edwin of Northumbria and Æthelburg, who in turn was the daughter of King Æthelberht of Kent. In or shortly after 642 Eanflæd became the second wife of King Oswiu of Northumbria. After Oswiu's death in 670, she retired to Whitby Abbey, which had been founded by Hilda of Whitby. Eanflæd became the abbess around 680 and remained there until her death. The monastery had strong association with members of the Northumbrian royal family and played an important role in the establishment of Roman Christianity in England.
The Battle of the Winwaed was fought on 15 November 655 between King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death. According to Bede, the battle marked the effective demise of Anglo-Saxon paganism.
Coenred was king of Mercia from 704 to 709. Mercia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the English Midlands. He was a son of the Mercian king Wulfhere, whose brother Æthelred succeeded to the throne in 675 on Wulfhere's death. In 704, Æthelred abdicated in favour of Coenred to become a monk.
Ceolred was king of Mercia from 709 to 716.
Aldfrith was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning. Some of his works and some letters written to him survive. His reign was relatively peaceful, marred only by disputes with Bishop Wilfrid, a major figure in the early Northumbrian church.
Osthryth, queen of the Mercians, was the wife of King Æthelred and daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria and his second wife Eanflæd. She probably married Æthelred before 679 and was murdered by the nobles of Mercia.
Cenwalh, also Cenwealh or Coenwalh, was King of Wessex from c. 642 to c. 645 and from c. 648 until his death, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in c. 672.
Alhfrith or Ealhfrith was King of Deira under his father Oswiu, King of Bernicia, from 655 until sometime after 664. Appointed by Oswiu as a subordinate ruler, Alhfrith apparently clashed with his father over religious policy, which came to a head at the Synod of Whitby in 664. After this, Alhfrith disappears from the historical record.
Æthelwold, also known as Æthelwald or Æþelwald, was a 7th-century king of East Anglia, the long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a member of the Wuffingas dynasty, which ruled East Anglia from their regio at Rendlesham. The two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Sutton Hoo, the monastery at Iken, the East Anglian see at Dommoc and the emerging port of Ipswich were all in the vicinity of Rendlesham.
The Middle Angles were an important ethnic or cultural group within the larger kingdom of Mercia in England in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Diuma was the first Bishop of Mercia in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, during the Early Middle Ages.
Events from the 7th century in England.
Throughout its history the Kingdom of Mercia was a battleground between conflicting religious ideologies.
Urbs Iudeu was a city, whose location is now unknown, which according to the ninth-century Historia Brittonum was besieged in 655 AD by Penda, King of Mercia, and Cadafael, King of Gwynedd.
Forrester, Thomas (1991). The Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon. Felinfach: Llanerch Press. ISBN0-947992-55-3.
Swanton, Michael (1996). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-92129-5.
Secondary sources
Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN0-7185-0041-5.
Thacker, Alan, "St Wilfrid", in Lapidge, Michael (1999). The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN0-631-22492-0.
Williams, Ann, Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England, c. 500–1066. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999. ISBN0-333-56798-6
Yorke, Barbara, "The Origins of Mercia", in Brown, Michelle P.; Farr, Carole A. (2001). Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Europe. Continuum. ISBN0-8264-7765-8.
Yorke, Barbara, Kings and Kingdoms in Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Seaby, 1990. ISBN1-85264-027-8
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
