c.615-54. Early history of the East Angles
Sources for East Anglian narrative history really begin in the first half of the 7th century with King Rædwald, though reign-dates remain vague until the middle of the century. There is a surviving royal genealogy which extends behind Rædwald: Bede notes that the East Anglian kings are called "Wuffings" after Rædwald's grandfather Wuffa (HE, ii.15), and the later Historia Brittonum suggests that Wuffa's father Wehha was the first of the line to rule the East Angles (?59), but this could just be copied from the Kentish origin model (an initial ruler, Hengest, followed by a son, Æsc, from whom the ruling dynasty is named; see entry on c.450 to 512).
It is uncertain when Rædwald came to power, but he was king by 616 when he raised a large army and fought the battle of the river Idle (see entry on 616) which put Edwin on the Northumbrian throne. Since this campaign not only demonstrated Rædwald acting beyond the East Anglian borders, but also showed him helping to his throne the king under whom the Northumbrians would be converted, it is small wonder that Bede puts Rædwald in his list of kings with wide powers over the southern English kingdoms (HE, ii.5). Rædwald had accepted Christianity in Kent (probably at Æthelberht's court), but was seduced back to his old pagan faith by his wife and some of his counsellors, so that he had in the same temple an altar to Christ and also an altar for offering victims to devils (Bede, HE, ii.15). The date of Rædwald's death is as uncertain as the date of his accession: his son Eorpwald had succeeded him as king when he was converted by Edwin (HE, ii.15), so Rædwald must have died between the battle of the river Idle in 616 and Edwin's death in 633. The 12th-century Liber Eliensis pushes the closing date back to 627 (see Keynes, p.104), but this may be simply based on an assumption from the order of events in Bede that Edwin converted Eorpwald immediately after his own conversion in 627.
Eorpwald succeeded Rædwald then some time 616?633, and received the faith from Edwin some time 627?633. Shortly after becoming Christian, Eorpwald was killed by a heathen called Ricbert (HE, ii.15). Bede notes that the kingdom stayed in error for three years, which may imply that it was under Ricbert's pagan rule.
Then Eorpwald's brother Sigeberht came to the throne (early in the 630s?); Sigeberht had been in exile in Gaul for fear of Rædwald's enmity, and had become a Christian there. (On Sigeberht's reign, see HE, ii.15 and iii.18.) He established a school in East Anglia to teach letters with the help of the Burgundian bishop Felix, whom he gave a bishopric at Dommoc (Dunwich?) . Sigeberht eventually resigned and entrusted the rule of the whole kingdom to his kinsman Ecgric, who had previously ruled part of the kingdom. Bede gives no indication of the line of the division, but it might have followed the river Waveney, which was the dividing line between the two sees of East Anglia when a second see was established by Theodore (at North Elmham) and remains today the dividing line between Norfolk and Suffolk (see Yorke, p.69). Some time later, the East Angles were under attack from the Mercian king Penda, a battle which can be roughly dated as between c.635 and 645, and in which both Sigeberht and Ecgric were killed (see entry on c.635?645).
The next known king of East Anglia was Anna, son of Rædwald's brother Eni (HE, iii.18 and genealogy). He was king by 645, when he sheltered the exiled Cenwealh of Wessex (see entry on 645). Like his cousin Sigeberht, he was killed by Penda of Mercia, and this event is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 654. Anna had three daughters. The eldest, Seaxburh, married King Eorcenberht of Kent (640-64), while another, Æthelburh, became abbess of the Continental monastery of Brie (HE, iii.8). Anna's most famous daughter, Æthelthryth, was married to Tondberht of the South Gyrwe and later to Ecgfrith of Northumbria, maintained her virginity through both marriages (in spite of Ecgfrith's entreaties and promises of rich gifts to Bishop Wilfrid if he could convince her to consummate the marriage), and went on to found the abbey of Ely (HE, iv.19).
No entry on the early history of the East Angles would be complete without mentioning the burial ground of Sutton Hoo, a few miles from what was in Bede's day the East Anglian royal centre of Rendlesham (HE, iii.22). There are several mounds over burials, two of which included large ships among their grave goods. The richest collection of goods, that in the ship buried beneath Mound 1, contained treasures from the Scandinavian, Merovingian, and Mediterannean worlds, as well as from farther afield -- a silver dish from Byzantium and a yellow cloak from Syria. Other items, such as an iron "standard" and whetstone "sceptre", have been interpreted as royal regalia, and the temptation to see this as the burial of a great king leads to the assumption that this is a commemoration to King Rædwald, the only great East Anglian king we know much about. However, a recent study has suggested the site should rather be identified as East Saxon, and has suggested the East Saxon Sæberht as the most likely candidate for Mound 1 (see Pearson, van de Noort, and Woolf), and the latest word of the most recent excavator of the site, Martin Carver, is that such attributions should be seen as possible but unproven (see Carver's article on Sutton Hoo in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England).
M. Carver (ed.), The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North-Western Europe (Woodbridge: 1992)
D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50
S. Keynes, "Rædwald the Bretwalda", Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo (Minneapolis: 1992), pp.103-23
M. Parker Pearson, R. van de Noort and A. Woolf, "Three men and a boat: Sutton Hoo and the East Saxon kingdom", Anglo-Saxon England 22 (1993), pp.27-50
B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)