Early-Medieval-England.net

c.450. Traditional date for the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain

This date, and the whole idea of a sudden onslaught of "Anglo-Saxons" on post-Roman Britain in the mid-5th century, is a vast oversimplification. Saxon pirates may have been raiding the shores of Britain already by 365; in 367 there was a Roman military officer in charge of a series of fortresses along the south-eastern coast, and by the end of the century the coast itself was called the Saxon Shore. There may also have been Saxons among the defenders of late 4th-century Britain: the German names of two of the Roman commanders (Fullofaudes and Fraomar) make it clear that members of some Germanic tribes were on the Romano-British side.

Information from the 5th century is scarce. Constantius's Life of St Germanus notes that the saint helped the British to win a victory against a combined force of Picts and Saxons, in a visit which Prosper of Aquitaine's Chronicle dates to 429. The Gallic Chronicle, written probably shortly after 452, notes a severe Saxon raid on Britain in about 410, and the fall of Britain to the Saxons, after many troubles, in 441. It would be fascinating to learn what tidings reached the near-contemporary chronicler in the south of France to make him believe that Britain had fallen: the tales of refugees, perhaps, fleeing for their lives, or the sudden cessation of contact or trade with Britain which might result if the Saxons took the coastal settlements and blockaded the Channel. Without more details, though, this source is too far away from events to be more than an index of how widely-known and serious were the Saxon troubles in Britain.

For more discursive accounts of the Anglo-Saxon arrival we must turn to later British and English sources. The earliest source is Gildas, who wrote in the 6th century the De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, "Of the Ruin and Conquest of Britain"; this is primarily a lament for the sins of contemporary British rulers, but it includes some historical background. Gildas says that some time after an unsuccessful appeal for help to the Roman consul "Agitius", the Britons, fearing a return of their old enemies, the Irish and the Picts, agreed to give land to the Saxons on condition that they beat back the raiders. The Saxons came first in three ships, landing on the east side of the island, and later a second and larger group arrived. For a long time they received their wages and did their work, but eventually they demanded greater rewards, and plundered "the whole island" when they were refused. Gildas pictures the Saxon conquest as divine vengeance for earlier sins of the Britons, and is manifestly uninterested in names or dates or historical precision. It is true that the Irish and the Picts, as well as the Saxons, did raid late Roman (and presumably sub-Roman) Britain; it is also plausible that some Saxons may have been employed as defenders of Roman Britain, as we know some other Germanic peoples were. But elsewhere Gildas is clearly rearranging material to suit his polemical ends (we know the Saxons were already raiding Britain in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, but Gildas omits all mention of this to introduce them as agents of divine vengeance in the mid-5th century), or straying into legend (the arrival of the Saxon invaders in three ships parallels origin stories told of the Picts, the Irish, the Goths and the Continental Saxons). His account, though influential as narrative, cannot be trusted as history.

In the 8th century, the English writer Bede added dates to Gildas's account. In his Chronica Maiora of 725 he tried to put Gildas's events into a sequence of Roman imperial reigns, and since Gildas notes that "Agitius" was thrice consul and there was a Roman military leader, Aetius, who received a third consulship in 446, Bede dates the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to the following reign, of Marcian and Valentinian (450-57). Bede was using A.D. dating in his Historia Ecclesiastica of 731, but instead of giving a specific year, he repeats his statement that the coming of the Saxons happened in the seven-year reign of Marcian and Valentinian, which he states (erroneously) began in 449. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at the end of the 9th century repeats Bede's statement under its annal for 449, and it is a simplification of that which has given us the supposed date "449" for the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. But it seems that Bede was only trying to make sense of Gildas, and since the result contradicts a nearly-contemporary source (by which the Saxons had conquered Britain by 441, nearly ten years before they were first "invited"), the date c.450 for the "Coming of the Anglo-Saxons" has no real historical authority. Nonetheless, from the 8th century to the 20th, c.450 was the approximate received date for the invasion. Bede himself is not consistent: elsewhere in his History, he dates events with the phrase "about [x] years after the English came to Britain", and in three cases he seems to be calculating from a date of 446/47 rather than 449-56. The later Historia Brittonum, on uncertain authority, notes that an Irish abbot who visited Ripon in 753 discovered that there they dated the arrival to 453.

A recent and skeptical review of the archaeological evidence (Hines, "Philology, Archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum") notes that while the overall sequence of the transition from Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England is clear, it cannot be dated with the precision historians would desire. It seems that there were only a handful of sites containing "Anglo-Saxon" artefacts datable to before the middle of the 5th century. There was then a considerable expansion in the area covered by Anglo-Saxon sites and in the density of such sites over the second half of the 5th century and the first half of the 6th. In other words, Anglo-Saxon influence became much more visible on the ground in the second half of the 5th century, and if the "Coming of the Anglo-Saxons" is defined as the point where they achieve significant influence rather than their first arrival, c.450 may be as good a date as any. It is still an oversimplification, however, and "the second half of the 5th century" more accurately reflects our current knowledge.

"Saxons", "Anglo-Saxons", and "English" have been used interchangeably for the Germanic invaders of England. In a famous passage towards the beginning of his History (I.xv), Bede states that the people of the Angles or Saxons came from three strong Germanic tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. There were doubtless many other peoples involved: Bede himself gives a longer list towards the end of his History (V.ix), naming the Frisians, the Rugini, the Danes, the Huns, the Old Saxons and the Boructari (probabaly Franks); a 6th-century Byzantine historian, Procopius, thought that Britain was inhabited by Britons, Angles, and Frisians. But the fact that contemporaries tended to refer to them indiscriminately as "the Angles" or "the Saxons" suggests that these two groups were predominant. The compound "Anglo-Saxon" appears in some Continental sources as a vague synonym of "Angles" or "Saxons", or as a term to differentiate the Saxons in Britain from those on the Continent (Pohl pp.21-2), but it is introduced in England as a term meaning "all of the English" at King Alfred's court at the end of the 9th century.

R. Burgess, "The Dark Ages Return to Fifth-Century Britain: The 'Restored' Gallic Chronicle Exploded", Britannia 21 (1990), pp.185-95

J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (London: 1982)

J. Cotterill, "Saxon Raiding and the Role of the Late Roman Coastal Forts of Britain", Britannia 24 (1993), pp.227-39

S. Frere, Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, 3rd edn (London: 1987)

N. Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (Manchester: 1994)

J. Hines, "Philology, Archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum", Britain 400-600: Language and History, edd. A. Bammesberger and A. Wollmann (Heidelberg, 1990), pp.17-36

W. Pohl, "Ethnic Names and Identities in the British Isles: A Comparative Perspective", in J. Hines (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge: 1997), pp.7-32

P. Sims-Williams, "Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons", Cambridge Medieval Celtic Society 6 (1983), pp.1-30

P. Sims-Williams, "The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle", Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983), pp.1-41

F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford: 1971), pp.1-18

c.450 to c.550. Prehistory of Anglo-Saxon England

While it seems clear that there was a strong Anglo-Saxon presence in Britain starting in the second half of the 5th century, for the first hundred years or so it is impossible to put together a detailed and reliable account of what was going on.

Gildas, writing in the mid-6th century, provides a near-contemporary account, but few details. He notes that after the initial Saxon revolt, which rampaged unchecked over the whole island, some of the Britons surrendered, some fled overseas or into the deep forests, and some eventually got together under the leadership of the Roman commander Ambrosius Aurelianus. After this, victories went sometimes to the Saxons, sometimes to the Britons, until the battle of mons Badonicus. This was pretty much the last British victory, and Gildas seems to tell us it took place in the year of his birth, 44 years before he wrote. Elsewhere Gildas tells us that access to many of the shrines of British saints had been cut off by the "partition with the barbarians", so it seems likely that large parts of what would become England were already in Anglo-Saxon hands in his day.

This account is plausible, but it must be remembered that at least in its earlier sections Gildas's history is sometimes wildly inaccurate or deliberately changed to make his polemical points more clearly (see entry on c.450). We have no independent evidence of the existence or nationality of Ambrosius Aurelianus, though he may well be the historical model for the legendary King Arthur. Since we do not know when Gildas was born or when he wrote his De Excidio, we cannot date the battle of Mount Badon, nor can we locate it. Archaeological evidence does however show that Anglo-Saxon artefacts were found over much of England by the early 6th century, and in much greater concentrations by the mid-6th century, which corroborates Gildas's statement that several parts of Britain were inaccessible because of the barbarians. Gildas's statement that some Britons fled overseas is also supported by evidence of British settlers from Holland to Spain, though the densest area of settlement was the peninsula of Armorica, which became Brittany.

Bede, from his vantage point in the 8th century, repeats Gildas's account but otherwise adds very little between the coming of the Anglo-Saxons in the mid-5th century and the coming of the Roman missionaries to convert them at the end of the 6th. We can only imagine what Bede might have told us about the pagan past if he had wished: his focus in his Ecclesiastical History is almost exclusively on the English Church and on Christian English kingdoms.

The 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives more dates, mostly of the arrivals of Saxon war-parties, their fights with the British, and the succession to the new-founded Saxon kingdoms of Kent, the West Saxons, and the South Saxons. While there are details here, they cannot be accepted as reliable: since the Saxons would have been illiterate from the invasions in the 5th century until their conversion in the 7th century, the dates and details are at best a matter of traditions and later guesswork. Very close parallels between the West Saxon and Kentish stories (not only following the same framework, but allowing the same number of years between events) strongly suggest that one was copied from the model of the other, which would mean that almost half of this part of the Chronicle could be dismissed outright. Further problems with the chronology of the West Saxon entries (which suggest that a set of annals originally starting in the mid-6th century was rewritten to begin in the late 5th) and the cast of characters of the Kentish entries (many of whom seem to be semi-divine figures of myth rather than real people) will be dealt with in separate entries on the legendary foundations of these kingdoms (see c.450 to 512 and 495 to 594)..

Some other Chronicle entries, by which arriving Saxons give their names to local settlements, look suspicious for another reason. While it is possible that a chieftain called Port arrived in 501 and landed at Portsmouth which was named after him, it is more likely that the name Portsmouth derives from Latin portus, "harbour", especially since no other Englishman was ever called Port. While there were other people called Wihtgar, the Wihtgar who is said to have arrived in 514 and was eventually buried at Wihtgaraburg on the Isle of Wight is most probably a later invention or misunderstanding, since Wihtgaraburg does not in fact mean "Wihtgar's fortress" but "the fortress of the inhabitants of Wight". A more prosaic explanation probably also lies behind the name of the Netley Marshes, which are said to be called after a British king Natanleod who was killed there in 508: since "Natanleod" bears no relation to any known British personal name, the marshes are probably so named because they are wet (OE næt, "wet" + leah, "meadow"). Such invention of past heroes based on misunderstood place-names is not limited to the Chronicle: Bede claims that Rochester was named for one of its chieftains called Hrof (HE, ii.3), whereas in fact we can see that the English form of the name is derived from the earlier British form which means not "Hrof's settlement" but "the bridges of the stronghold". Not all of the characters in early Chronicle entries can be dismissed as mistaken explanations of place-names, but it is likely that Port and Natanleod and Wihtgar, at least, are figments of later fiction rather than of 6th-century fact.

This leads inevitably to the question of that much more famous shadowy 6th-century character, King Arthur, who is supposed to have led the Britons successfully against the Saxons. His existence also seems to be confirmed by chronicles: the Annales Cambriae state that he fought at Mount Badon in 516 and died with Medraut (Mordred) at Camlann in 537. Further, the 9th-century Historia Brittonum lists twelve of his battles, leading up to his victory at Mount Badon. However, it seems that at least for the 6th century the Annales Cambriae are no more contemporary than the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the two Arthurian entries were probably added in the 9th or 10th centuries. The Mount Badon annal seems to be based on the Historia Brittonum, and both are undermined by the fact that Gildas in the 6th century attributes this victory to Ambrosius Aurelianus rather than to Arthur. Gildas could have been mistaken, but a closer examination of "Arthur's" twelve battles shows good reason to re-attribute another seven to other people or situations, which suggests that famous battles came to be attributed to Arthur regardless of who originally fought them. Two of the remaining four "Arthurian" battles appear from other early sources to be entirely mythical, one a fight against werewolves and one a battle in which trees are magically animated to fight. It may then be that Arthur was originally a legendary hero of folklore who fought supernatural battles, and came to be seen as the greatest of heroes (a reference to a hero who strove valiantly "but was not Arthur" in a poem about a 6th-century battle would make sense in this context), and eventually had various "historical" battles attached to him. The Irish folk-hero Fionn underwent a similar transformation, from a mythical beginning to association with the defence against the Viking invasions of Ireland. [A thorough investigation of the historicity of Arthur, with detailed bibliography up to 1997, appears at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~tomgreen/arthur.htm.]

J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (London: 1982), pp.23-7

O. Padel, "The Nature of Arthur", Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 27 (1994), pp.1-31 [more comments and bibliography up to 1997 appear on Thomas Green's web page at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~tomgreen/arthur.htm]

P. Sims-Williams, "The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle", Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983), pp.1-41

B. Yorke, "The Jutes of Hampshire and Wight and the origins of Wessex", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.84-96

c.450 to 512. Legendary foundation of Kent

Bede names the British ruler who "first" invited the English, Vortigern, and reports that the leaders of the Angles, or Saxons, were called Hengest and Horsa. Bede adds that a monument to Horsa still exists in eastern Kent, and that the kings of Kent were descended from Hengest's son Æsc, from which it is normally deduced that Hengest and Horsa landed in Kent. In fact, Bede does not say what land they held, and if they were imported to deal with Irish and Pictish incursions as Gildas suggests, they might more plausibly have been settled in the north of Britain. But later tradition claimed them as Kentish, and saw them landing at Ebbsfleet in Thanet (so the 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Historia Brittonum).

The Ravenna Cosmographer, writing perhaps at the same time as Bede, says that the Saxons arrived in Britain led by their prince Ansehis. This name looks like a blundered Continental form of Æsc and suggests that in one version of the story it was Æsc, not Hengest and Horsa, who led the Saxons to Britain. This raises the possibility that Hengest and Horsa were mythical founding figures, divine twins like Romulus and Remus, rather than real people. (Pairs of brothers with alliterating names also led migrations in accounts of the Lombards and Vandals; see Turville-Petre, p.274.) The Old English poem Beowulf includes cryptic references to a character called Hengest, perhaps a Jute, who played a key role in a dispute in Frisia between the Danes and the Frisians. This Hengest might afterwards have led his band of followers across the sea to Britain, but the existence of an alternate tradition that the Saxons were led to Britain by Æsc, and the fact that the kings of Kent trace their descent to Æsc, not to his more famous father Hengest, suggests that Hengest and his brother Horsa (who is not named in the Frisian conflict) were added on to the Kentish royal genealogy to give the later Kentish kings a link with the legendary Germanic past. This process of improving the king's pedigree can be seen at work in the West Saxon royal genealogy, which in the 7th century probably went back to Woden (Bede, HE, i.15); but by the 9th century had been extended back from Woden through several other Germanic heroes and then into Biblical figures and finally to Adam (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 855; see further Sisam).

On closer inspection, Æsc seems no more secure as a historical figure than Hengest and Horsa. Jordanes, writing a history of the Goths, notes that the people at the head of the Gothic genealogies are called demigods, that is Ansis, because of their victories. Ansis is another Continental variant of Æsc, and if as seems likely "Æsc" is a word meaning "divine hero" rather than the name of a real person, we are faced with the embarrassing possibility that Æsc might himself have been a later addition to the royal genealogy, and that the first sixty years of Kentish history, from the landing in about 449 to Æsc's death in 512, carefully recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, are completely fictitious.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Hengest and Horsa landed in or shortly after 449, at the invitation of Vortigern. In 455 they fought against Vortigern at Aylesford, and Horsa was killed and Hengest and Æsc succeeded to the kingdom. In 456 Hengest and Æsc fought the Britons at Crayford, and after a great slaughter the Britons deserted Kent and fled to London. In 465 Hengest and Æsc defeated the Britons at Wippedesfleot (unidentified), and in 473 again at an unnamed place. In 488 Æsc succeeded to the kingdom (and presumably therefore Hengest died), and he was king of the people of Kent for 24 years.

It should be noted that Æsc succeeds to the kingdom twice, once in 455 and once in 488: this rouses further suspicions that the account is an attempt to graft together different origin legends. It is also unfortunate that the same pattern, a landing (449) followed six years later by the establishment of a kingdom (455) and almost forty years later by the death of the father and the passing of the kingdom to his son (488), is repeated exactly in the account of the foundation of the West Saxon kingdom (494/5, 500, and 534; for West Saxon complications see entry on 495 to 594). It seems unlikely that the two kingdoms developed at so precisely the same rate, and one or both accounts should probably be dismissed as origin legend instead of sober history. It is worth noting that a similar sequence of four battles (three of them named, and one of these leading to Horsa's death) appears in the account of the foundation of Kent in the Historia Brittonum, but in that case the battles end not with the flight of the Britons but with the defeat and flight of the English. The tradition that there were four battles in the early history of Kent is thus well established, but already in the 9th century it has been taken out of whatever historical context it may have had and used to support opposing pro-English and pro-British views of the past. Eleven hundred years later, we have no means of saying which interpretation is correct, if indeed the four battles were ever part of history and not just part of origin folklore like the arrival in three ships.

The history of Kent that we can actually recover begins not with Hengest and his son Æsc in the mid-5th century, but with Irminric and his son Æthelberht in the mid-6th (see entry on c.575).

N. Brooks, "The creation and early structure of the kingdom of Kent", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.55-74

P. Sims-Williams, "The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle", Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983), pp.1-41

K. Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies", Proceedings of the British Academy 39 (1953), pp.287-348

J.R.R. Tolkien, Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode (London: 1982)

J.E. Turville-Petre, "Hengest and Horsa", Saga-Book of the Viking Society 14 (1953-7), pp.273-90

B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990), pp.25-27

c.450 to 651. Foundation of Northumbria

Bede notes that Northumbria was originally two separate kingdoms (HE, iii.1), Deira (north of the river Humber but south of the Tyne) and Bernicia (north of the Tyne). Genealogies survive for both Deira and Bernicia, taking both royal lines back to Woden. In the first half of the 7th century the two kingdoms became one, ruled by descendents of Ida of Bernicia until the second half of the 8th century (see entry on 759).

In the earliest dated reference to a member of either royal family, Bede notes that Ida took power in 547 and ruled for twelve years (HE, v.24). However, comments attached to earlier members of the genealogies of both Bernicia and Deira suggest at least legendary beginnings back in the 5th century. For the Bernicians, a 9th-century manuscript adds to a report of Ida of Bernicia's accession in 547 that Ida's grandfather Oessa was the first to arrive in Britain (Dumville, "Chronicle-fragment", p.314). A rough guess at two generations back from 547 would put Oessa's arrival towards the end of the 5th century. The Deirans claimed an even earlier beginning: the Historia Brittonum's version of the genealogy of the Deirans (?61) states that Soemel, the great-great-great-grandfather of Ælle of Deira (who was king in 597) separated Deira from Bernicia. Five generations from Soemel to Ælle would probably put this division in the mid-5th century, before the arrival of the English Bernicians, which would mean that Soemel separated Deira from British control (Dumville, "Origins", p.218). Though the exploits of Oessa and Soemel are not recorded before the 9th century and may well be fictitious, archaeological evidence does confirm that there were already Anglo-Saxons in Northumbria by the third quarter of the 5th century, long before Ida began to rule (Hines, pp. 26-7).

Whatever the arrangements were before Ida, he remains the first known Northumbrian king. There is a Bernician regnal list copied into an early manuscript of Bede's History, which lists the kings from Ida to Ceolwulf (729-37), and gives the number of years each reigned (see Hunter Blair). From this list we can deduce the following reigns for the kings from Ida to Æthelfrith, and these reign-dates are almost all that is known of the earliest Bernician kings:

Ida, 547-59
Glappa, 559-60
Adda, 560-8
Æthelric, 568-72
Theodric, 572-9
Frithuwald, 579-85
Hussa, 585-92
Æthelfrith, 592-616

There was probably a similar list for Deira, but since the Deiran line came to an end in the 7th century there would be less cause to preserve it, and all that remains is three entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: that in 560 Ælle succeeded to Northumbria and ruled for 30 years, that in 588 (not 590, as one might expect) Ælle died and Æthelric reigned for 5 years, and that in 593 Æthelfrith succeeded to Northumbria. This is clearly muddled, not only because Ælle should have died in 590 if he ruled for 30 years from 560, but also because Bede states that Ælle and Æthelfrith were both reigning north of the Humber when Æthelberht of Kent greeted the Roman missionaries in 597 (Bede, Chronica Maiora, entry 531, extracted at Miller, p.41). Bede's authority that Ælle was in power in 597 should be preferred over the Chronicle's assertion that Ælle died in 588 (and, implicitly, also in 590). The Chronicle entries are probably based on a regnal list which stated that Ælle reigned for 30 years, and then Æthelric reigned for 5 years, and then Æthelfrith took over Deira, but without knowing the date of Æthelfrith's conquest it is impossible to say when Ælle's reign should begin. (For a likely explanation of how the Chronicle arrived at Æthelfrith's accession in 593, and so put Æthelric's accession in 588 without recognizing the inconsistency with Ælle's accession in 560, see Miller, pp.46-7.) All we can say for certain about the Deiran kings before Edwin is that Ælle (Edwin's father) was ruling c.597.

The political situation in Northumbria was extremely fluid in the first half of the 7th century, with sometimes two separate countries, sometimes a united Northumbria under a Bernician ruler, and once a united Northumbria under a Deiran ruler. Æthelfrith of Bernicia (592-616; q.v.) was the first known ruler of all Northumbria, and Edwin of Deira succeeded him to the whole kingdom (616-33; q.v.). Shortly after the division of the kingdom on Edwin's death (see entry on 633) both kingdoms were reunited under Oswald of Bernicia (634-42); after Oswald's death in 642 there were again separate rulers until Oswiu of Bernicia ordered the killing of Oswine of Deira in 651. While there may have been sub-kings of Deira for the next thirty years or so, Oswine was probably the last independent king of a separate Deira, and so with hindsight we can say that Northumbria became a single kingdom under Bernician control in 651.

Though Northumbria may have been a single country from the mid-7th century, political fluidity remained something of a Northumbrian characteristic, as can be seen in the rapid changes of ruler (and dynasty) in the second half of the 8th century (see entry on 758), and the freedom with which the Northumbrians seemed to choose between English and Viking kings in the mid-10th century (see entry on 947-54).

J. Hines, "Philology, Archaeology and the adventus Saxonum vel Anglorum", Britain 400-600: Language and History, edd. A. Bammesberger and A. Wollmann (Heidelberg, 1990), pp.17-36

P. Hunter Blair, "The Moore Memoranda on Northumbrian History", in C. Fox and B. Dickins (edd.), The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (Cambridge: 1950), pp.245-57

D. Dumville, "A new chronicle-fragment of early British history", English Historical Review 88 (1973), pp.312-4

D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50

D. Dumville, "The origins of Northumbria: some aspects of the British background", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.213-22

M. Miller, "The dates of Deira", Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979), pp.35-61

477 to 491. Legendary foundation of Sussex

The foundation of Sussex is described in the suspect 5th-century section of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, according to which Ælle and his three sons (Cymen, Wlencing, and Cissa) land with three ships in 477 at Cymenesora (near Selsey Bill), and in the same year fight the Britons and kill many of them and drive others into the Weald. In 485 Ælle fights the Britons near the bank of the river Mearcredesburna (unidentified), and in 491 he and his son Cissa besiege the Roman fort near Pevensey and kill all the British inhabitants. Nothing more is told of Ælle or of his sons, though the place-names Lancing and Chichester seem to go back to the names of Ælle's sons Wlencing and Cissa.

The folkloric arrival in three ships, and the inclusion of people whose sole function seems to be to give their names to local settlements, suggest that these Chronicle entries should be treated as later fiction rather than recorded fact (see entry on c.450 to c.550). However, archaeological remains do suggest there were Anglo-Saxons at least in the eastern part of Sussex in the 5th century, and Bede in the 8th century notes "Ælle King of the South Saxons" as the first of a list of powerful English kings (HE, ii.5). It is possible then that Ælle was one of the early leaders of the South Saxons, and remembered as such in Bede's day. However, there is no way of determining when the historical Ælle reigned or what his sphere of influence was. There is no surviving royal genealogy for the South Saxons, and beyond a brief mention of a fight between Ceolwulf of Wessex and the South Saxons in 607 we know nothing of their fortune until their re-emergence into narrative history in the 660s (see entry on 661).

M. Welch, "The kingdom of the South Saxons: the origins", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.75-83

495 to 594. Legendary foundation of Wessex

The very beginnings of the chronology of Wessex present a puzzle, in that key events are recorded twice, under different years. The West Saxons (once called "Cerdic and Cynric" and once "the West Saxons") arrive at Cerdicesora in 495 and in 514. They found the kingdom in 500 and in 519, fight against the Britons in 508 and 527, and Cerdic dies and Cynric succeeds in 516 and 534. These duplicated events are all 18 or 19 years apart, which may be significant because later Christian scribes sometimes recorded annals on Easter tables of 19-year duration, and an obvious way of backdating events would be to put them in an earlier 19-year cycle (see Harrison, pp.127-8). That seems to be what has happened here, perhaps to make the West Saxon line seem older and therefore grander, just as genealogies were sometimes extended backwards by adding more noble ancestors (see entry on c.450 to 512). More recent work by David Dumville, working from all the variants of reign-lengths given in the Chronicle and elsewhere, suggests that immediately behind the sources available to us there is a version which placed the beginning of Cerdic's reign in 527?540, most probably in 537/8 (see Dumville, pp.50-51); since this is another 19 years on from 519, the suspicion must be that the West Saxon entries in the Chronicle were in fact backdated by 19 years twice, and the original dates were probably closer to:

Cerdic: 538-54
Cynric: 554-81
Ceawlin: 581-88
Ceol: 588-94
Ceolwulf: 594-611

After Ceolwulf's reign the variations that exist tend to be limited to a year or two, and this is probably because the next king, Cynegils, was baptized in 635 and after that literate clerics will have been available to keep records from then on.

What with all the chronological dislocation that seems to have gone on, it seems a fairly hopeless task to put the Chronicle's catalogue of battles from 508 to 592 into this revised and shortened framework. In any case, some of them are probably later inventions to explain place-names (such as the 508 battle when "Natanleod" was killed, although Netley Marshes are more likely so named for OE næt, "wet"), and some are at places which can no longer be identified (such as Cerdicesleag, where Cerdic and Cynric are supposed to have fought in 527). Others are fights against the Britons at times and places where the archaeology demonstrates the Anglo-Saxons were already well established (such as Old Sarum, where Cynric is supposed to have defeated the Britons in 552, though Anglo-Saxon material appears in the area at least half a century earlier, see Yorke, p.32). The battles dealing with the Isle of Wight are dealt with separately (see entry on 514 to 544). Of the rest, Cynric and Ceawlin are said to have fought the Britons in 556 at Barbury, Ceawlin and Cutha to have fought Æthelberht of Kent in 568 at Wibbandun (see entry on 581?588), Cuthwulf (Ceawlin's brother) to have fought the Britons in 571 and Ceawlin and Cuthwine (his son) to have fought the Britons in 577 (discussed below), Ceawlin and Cutha (? for Cuthwulf) to have fought the Britons in 584 at Feþanleag (perhaps another battle invented for the place-name, as it means "battle-field" or "troop-field"), and a great (internecine?) battle to have been fought at Woden's Barrow in 592, at which Ceawlin was driven out, a year before his death. Only two of these battles, that between Ceawlin of Wessex and Æthelberht of Kent, and that at Woden's Barrow in which Ceawlin was driven out, emerge unscathed from this sifting, and both should probably be redated (the fight with Æthelberht to 581?588, and that at Woden's Barrow to 587 or 588). (For a later battle at Woden's Barrow, see entry on 715.)

The two battles placed by the Chronicle in the 570s are interesting because they look as though they are deliberate inventions reflecting later political realities. In 571 Cuthwulf fights the Britons at Biedcanford (unidentified), and captures the four towns of Limbury, Aylesbury, Bensington and Eynsham. In 577, Ceawlin and Cuthwine fight the Britons at Dyrham, and kill three British kings, Conmail, Condidan and Farinmail, and capture the cities of Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath. These entries have been used to map the progress of West Saxon advance against the Britons, but this is unsound because archaeological evidence shows that most of these areas were already surrounded by Anglo-Saxons long before the 570s (see Sims-Williams, pp.31-2). Sims-Williams further notes that the use of English (rather than British) names for the four places captured in 571 suggests anachronism, and wonders whether the annal may have been fashioned by a West Saxon chronicler some time after the later battle in 779 between Cynewulf of Wessex and Offa of Mercia in which Offa captured Bensington (see Sims-Williams, pp.32-3). A similar backdated pro-Wessex political statement can be seen in the annals dealing with the Isle of Wight, in which the founders of Wight (Jutes, according to Bede) are said to be nephews of the West Saxon Cerdic, which is extremely unlikely (see entry on 514 to 544). The three British kings supposedly slain in 577 cannot be identified as 6th-century individuals, though Sims-Williams points out that Condidan, probably for Welsh Cynddylan, matches the name of a Welsh ruler in the Wroxeter region who was killed in the mid-7th century, and suggests that behind the 577 annal there might be a Welsh triad naming British kings killed by the English torn out of context (see Sims-Williams, pp.33-4). Gloucester, Bath and Cirencester are in the territory of the Hwicce, which over the 7th and 8th centuries becomes a Mercian province, but in 628 Cynegils and Cwichelm of Wessex fought Penda of Mercia for Cirencester, and seem to have lost. The annal for 577, then, may also reflect a West Saxon chronicler's belief of who should have owned the land at some later point rather than a reflection of who actually held it in the 6th century.

D. Dumville, "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List and the Chronology of Early Wessex", Peritia 4 (1985), pp.21-66

K. Harrison, The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History to AD 900 (Cambridge: 1976)

P. Sims-Williams, "The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle", Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983), pp.1-41

B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London: 1995)

514 to 544. Legendary foundation of the Isle of Wight

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests that Stuf and Wihtgar fight the Britons in 514, that Cerdic and Cynric capture the Isle of Wight in 530 and kill some men at Wihtgaraburg, that Cerdic and Cynric give Wight to their kinsmen Stuf and Wihtgar in 534, and that Wihtgar dies and is buried at Wihtgaraburg in 544. This is almost certainly a tissue of later invention: written sources for the verifiable history of the Isle of Wight only take up the story in the 660s (see entry on 661).

One problem with the story is that the name of the character Wihtgar seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the placename Wihtgaraburg (Wihtgaraburg, perhaps originally Wihtwaraburg, means "fortress of the inhabitants of Wight", not "Wihtgar's fortress": see entry on c.450 to c.550). Another problem is the genetic association of Stuf and Wihtgar (using these probably made-up names as shorthand for "the Anglo-Saxon founders of the Isle of Wight") with the West Saxon royal line, since Bede states that the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight in his day are Jutes. Archaeology confirms this association with Jutish Kent rather than with Saxon areas (see Yorke, pp.88-89), as does the presence of what can only be the Latin name for the Isle of Wight, Uecta, in the Kentish genealogy recorded by Bede (HE, i.15). So we might more readily expect the founders of Wight to be linked with Hengest's line.

It is very likely that the association with the West Saxons arose at some point after King Ceadwalla of Wessex captured the Isle of Wight in 685, which Bede reports somewhat disapprovingly (HE, iv.16, and see Yorke, p.89). The connection had definitely been made by the late 9th century, when Asser notes in his biography of King Alfred (contemporary with the first appearance of the Chronicle) that Alfred's mother traced her descent to Stuf and Wihtgar. Asser (correctly) notes that they are Jutes, but also (implausibly) maintains that they are the nephews of Cerdic. It may be that the Jutish founders of Wight were "attached" to the West Saxon royal house to give Alfred's mother Osburh higher standing, either during the marriage or afterwards when Alfred's father Æthelwulf brought home a Frankish princess as his second wife. The children of the first wife may well have felt a need to bolster their claim by proving that they too were royal on both their father's and their mother's side.

c.548. Frankish embassy to Constantinople claims authority over Anglo-Saxons

Procopius notes that a Frankish embassy to Constantinople of about this time included a number of Angles, as part of the proof that the Franks ruled over Brittia. This is the most explicit evidence of the Frankish claim to overlordship in England to have survived. Earlier, some of the laws of the Frankish king Clovis (481-511) argue at least cooperation between Frankish and Kentish systems, and the Frankish king Theudebert (534-48) claimed jurisdiction over the Eucii (in this context, plausibly the Jutes of Kent) in a letter to the Emperor Justinian. Some poems of Venantius Fortunatus and letters of Pope Gregory suggest that claims continued to be made late into the 6th century. (See Wood, "Before and After", p.47.)

That there was Frankish influence on 6th-century Kent can clearly be seen in the archaeological remains (see Brooks, p.64), and also in the way that one of the kings of Kent was given a decidedly Frankish name, Irminric, and that his son Æthelberht married a Frankish princess (see entry on c.575). Æthelberht's son Eadbald seems to have married another Frankish noblewoman, and Æthelberht's daughter Æthelburh to have sent her children into the protection of the Frankish king Dagobert I (629-39) on the death of her husband Edwin of Northumbria (see Wood, Merovigian Kingdoms, p.177). However, none of this clearly amounts to evidence of Frankish overlordship or control. The fact that Frankish control is omitted from English written sources is irrelevant, because the episode might be considered embarrassing and best forgotten by English historians, but without clearer evidence it must remain an open question whether the Franks actually controlled parts of England or whether they simply claimed to do so.

N. Brooks, "The creation and early structure of the kingdom of Kent", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.55-74

I. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 (London: 1994)

I. Wood, "Before and After the Migration to England", in J. Hines (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge: 1997), pp.41-64

565. St Columba comes to Iona

Bede records (HE, iii.4) that in 565 a priest and abbot called Columba came from Ireland to Britain, in the eighth year of the Pictish king Bridius (Bruide). Columba converted the Picts, and so received from them the island of Iona so that he could found a monastery there.

c.570. Battle at Catraeth (Catterick): Gododdin against Rheged and Deirans (?)

This battle is known only from the Welsh poem Y Gododdin, which commemorates the British heroes of the tribe of Gododdin (centred on Edinburgh), some of whom seem to have died trying to recover Catraeth (probably Catterick in Yorkshire) from a force sometimes identified as Deiran and sometimes as British. The poem is a series of elegies on individual heroes, and since none of these heroes can be dated we cannot say when the battle took place.

The traditional date for the battle is c.600, presumably to fit the reign of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, who was remembered by Bede as the English ruler who ravaged the Britons more extensively than any other (HE, i.34). But there is no clear evidence for dating in the poem itself, and more recent theories have proposed dates of c.540 (Dumville, in Early Welsh Poetry and c.570 (Koch, at p.xxx). Since the arguments revolve around finally unanswerable questions about how much historical accuracy should be read into later Welsh poetry, and whether other poems with clearer historical references are describing the same events, we will probably never know the precise date of the battle.

J. Koch, The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark Age North Britain (Cardiff: 1997)

B. Roberts, ed., Early Welsh Poetry: Studies in the Book of Aneirin (Aberystwyth: 1988)

c.575. Irminric king of Kent
Frankish princess Bertha marries Æthelberht of Kent
580s (?). Æthelberht becomes king of Kent

Little is known of Irminric's reign, indeed his name comes down to us only as that of the father of Æthelberht. The name is interesting because its first element is otherwise almost unheard-of among the Anglo-Saxons, but quite common among the Franks (see Brooks, p.64). This may suggest Frankish influence on Kentish affairs, or at the very least a lively interest in Kent in things Frankish (see entry on c.548).

Though the dates of Irminric's reign are unknown, the contemporary Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours suggests he was ruling in about 575. In book IV, written between 575 and 581, Gregory notes that the Frankish king Charibert (561-7) married Ingoberga, and that they had a daughter who married a man from Kent (HF, IV.26). In book IX, Gregory reports Ingoberga's deathbed will (of 588-9), which states that she had a daughter who married the son of a king in Kent (HF, IX.26). It is normally assumed that this daughter is the Bertha who married Æthelberht of Kent. If so, Æthelberht was presumably not yet king, only a son of a king, at the time of the marriage, which had happened by 575?581 when Gregory mentions it. (Since Bertha can only have been born in 561?568, the marriage probably took place in the second half of the 570s, not long before Gregory recorded it.) It might be assumed from Ingoberga's comment of 588-9 that Æthelberht was still not king at that time, but this would not be a safe assumption because Ingoberga might be referring to Æthelberht's status at the time of the marriage.

This implication of Gregory's that Irminric rather than Æthelberht was ruling in about 575 contradicts Bede's statement that Æthelberht reigned for 56 years, which would place the beginning of his reign in 560. However, Bede was writing over a hundred years later, and the two sources can be reconciled if we assume that Bede misinterpreted a statement that Æthelberht lived for 56 years, in which case we could place his date of birth around 560, and his assumption of the throne between his marriage in about 575 and his reception of Augustine in 597. If we assume that Æthelberht was king of Kent at the time of the battle of Wibbandun (likely, but not explicitly stated in the Chronicle), then he was king by 581?588.

The marriage of Æthelberht and Bertha presumably strengthened the already close links between Kent and the Frankish mainland. The marriage also brought Christian influence to Kent, because Bertha was Christian, and brought a bishop called Liudhard with her (Bede, HE, i.24). We do not know whether Liudhard tried to evangelise in the twenty years between his arrival and the arrival of the Roman missionaries in 597, but it is likely that he and Bertha at least worked to make the king more receptive to the Romans when they did arrive.

Bede names Æthelberht as one of the kings who held wide powers in southern England (HE, ii.5). This list must be treated with caution, as Keynes has shown that in places it is more concerned with kings who supported the conversion than with kings who had wide political powers. However, Æthelberht did have some authority beyond the borders of Kent. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's reference to a battle at Wibbandun (see entry on 581?588) shows Æthelberht and his army beyond the Kentish borders, and Bede's comments on the conversion of the East Saxons (see entry on 604) note that the East Saxon king Sæberht was Æthelberht's nephew and his subject. Bede also notes that the East Anglian king Rædwald received Christianity in Kent: this might suggest Kentish influence over East Anglia, but probably nothing more definite, since on Rædwald's return home he relapsed into paganism, and Æthelberht neither protested nor established a bishopric there (see entry on c.615-54). For the ecclesiastical meeting on the borders of the West Saxons and the Hwicce, which Bede notes was arranged with Æthelberht's help (HE, ii.2, and see entry on c.602), Æthelberht may only have provided an armed escort. If Æthelberht held the effective control over the East Angles and the West Saxons which Bede suggests at HE, ii.5, we would expect bishoprics to be established in those countries in Æthelberht's reign, rather than a few decades later in the 630s. It seems likely that Æthelberht's direct authority outside of Kent was limited to the East Saxon kingdom, though his influence may well have extended further.

N. Brooks, "The creation and early structure of the kingdom of Kent", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.55-74

S. Keynes, "Rædwald the Bretwalda", Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo (Minneapolis: 1992), pp.103-23

581?588. Battle of Wibbandun: King Ceawlin of Wessex and Cutha fight against Æthelberht of Kent

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in 568 the West Saxons fought against Æthelberht and drove him in flight into Kent, and notes further that two ealdormen were killed at Wibbandun (unidentified). Bede names both Ceawlin and Æthelberht in his list of kings who held wide powers in southern England (Bede, HE, ii.5), which fits neatly both with Æthelberht operating beyond the boundaries of Kent and with the West Saxon Ceawlin moving to stop him. So the fact of the battle is entirely plausible, as are the combatants: the date, however, is a problem, as it falls outside the reigns of both Ceawlin and Æthelberht (see entries on 495 to 594 and c.575). The Chronicle is here consistent with itself, in that it states (implausibly) that Ceawlin succeeded in 560 and Æthelberht did in 565, but to match the corrected chronology this battle should be moved to the 580s.

592. Æthelfrith, son of Æthelric, succeeds to Bernicia

That Æthelfrith became king of Bernicia in 592 is based on the premises that he was killed at the battle of the River Idle in 616, and that an 8th-century Bernician regnal list gives him a reign-length of 24 years. His father Æthelric is noted in the royal genealogies, and is presumably the Æthelric who ruled Bernicia c.568-72 according to the regnal list. (For more on the regnal list, see entry on c.450-651; for the apparent confusion in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, see Miller, pp.46-7.)

Bede reports that Æthelfrith had ravaged the Britons and settled previously-British territory more extensively than any other English king (HE, i.34), and specifically mentions his war against Aedan of Dal Riada which ended in 603, and his battle at Chester in c.613.

Æthelfrith also extended his rule over the neighbouring English kingdom of Deira, so that the Deiran heir, Edwin, was in exile until Æthelfrith's death in 616 (Bede, HE, ii.12). Bede remarks that Ælle (Edwin's father) was still ruling north of the Humber in 597 (Bede's Chronica Maiora, cited by Miller, p.41), so although Æthelfrith's conquest of Deira cannot be dated precisely it was presumably after 597.

The 9th-century Historia Brittonum, at ?63, does claim that Æthelfrith ruled 12 years in Bernicia and 12 years in Deira. At first glance this might suggest a possible date for the Deiran take-over of 604 (12 years after 592), but unfortunately the text goes on to say that Æthelfrith ruled for 24 years in both kingdoms, rather than the 12 years we would expect of a precise account of the joint rule of Bernicia and Deira. This vagueness (and the neatness of the two 12-year halves) makes the passage look more like the guesswork of a later scribe who knew Æthelfrith ruled for 24 years in two kingdoms but had no further information than like a genuine survival from the early 7th century, so the date of Æthelfrith's conquest of Deira is best left unresolved.

M. Miller, "The dates of Deira", Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979), pp.35-61

597. Roman missionaries, led by Augustine, arrive in Kent
597?601. Æthelberht of Kent converted to Christianity

The legendary beginning of the Roman mission to England is described in chapter nine of the Life of Gregory the Great (written at Whitby probably 704?714) and in Bede (HE, ii.1). Gregory, before he became Pope, was at the slave market in Rome and discovered some Northumbrians. He asked about their background and made three bilingual puns to show that they were ripe for conversion. (His comment that the Angles were like angels is well-known; the other two are that the kingdom's name Deira showed that they should be saved "from the wrath" (de ira) of the Lord, and that the king's name Ælle showed that Alleluia should be sung in those parts.) The Whitby Life and Bede differ in particulars, and it is likely that the full-grown tale had more to do with English love of wordplay (seen most vividly in Aldhelm, the brilliant contemporary Anglo-Latin poet) than with events in Rome over a century earlier.

One root of the tale may have been a letter of September 595 from Gregory to the priest Candidus who was setting out for Gaul, telling him to use papal revenues to buy English youths in the slave markets and put them into monasteries (see Wood, p.2, and Colgrave, p.145). Gregory may have intended to use these converted natives as missionaries to England. Another root was perhaps Gregory's comment in his Moralia in Iob, also circulating around 595, that the once-barbarous language of Britain was now beginning to sing the Hebrew Alleluia. These are the only contemporary Continental references, and if the similarity between Alleluia and the Deiran king's name was a pun waiting to happen, it probably only happened on English soil.

Bede provides the only early narrative account of Augustine's mission (HE, i.23-33, ii.2-3), though this should be supplemented with Wood's review of the Continental evidence.

In 596, Pope Gregory sent Augustine with almost forty companions to convert the English. The missionaries were sore afraid of a barbarian and heathen country and stopped partway, sending Augustine back to Gregory to ask that they be excused the mission. Gregory instead sent them an encouraging letter, dated 23 July 596, and they continued on their way (HE, i.23). Bede records a letter from Gregory to the Etherius, the bishop of Lyons, wrongly called of Arles (HE, i.24); Wood demonstrates from the register of Gregory's correspondence that this is only one of a thicket of papal letters asking support for Augustine, to bishops of Marseilles, Aix, Arles, Vienne, Autun, Tours -- which would all be on a relatively straight route from Provence to Kent (Wood, p. 5). Although Bede states that Augustine returned to the Continent to be consecrated bishop of the English after the coversion of Æthelberht (HE, i.27), a letter of Pope Gregory to Eulogius of Alexandria makes clear Augustine was consecrated on the way over (Colgrave/Mynors, p. 78 n. 1).

In 597, Augustine arrived at Thanet, where he was received by Æthelberht, and granted a dwelling-place in Canterbury and permission to preach (HE, i.25; date from HE, v.24). As Wood points out, the litany Bede records for this occasion is probably an anachronism (Wood, pp. 3-4). The Roman missionaries began to imitate the life of the apostles in Canterbury, and preached at the church of St Martin's, which was already in use for the Christian observances of the queen, Bertha, and her bishop Liudhard. Some of the people, marvelling at the simplicity of the missionaries and their faith, believed and were baptised, until at last Æthelberht himself was baptised (HE, i.26). In the letter to Eulogius already mentioned, Gregory states that at Christmas 597 over ten thousand people were baptised (Wood, p. 12). The precise date of Æthelberht's own conversion is unknown, but the outer limits seem to be the arrival of the missionaries in 597 and a letter from the Pope to the newly-converted king in 601.

Bede's account leaves out almost all mention of Frankish involvement in Augustine's mission, except for his inclusion of a letter of introduction for Augustine to bishop Etherius of Lyons (HE, i.24) and his comment that when the missionaries arrived at Thanet they had acquired some Frankish interpreters (HE, i.25). In fact, in other letters of Gregory, perhaps not known to Bede but reviewed by Wood, the Pope reports that he has heard good reports of the involvement of several Frankish kings, and especially of the queen-regent Brunhild. Further, Syagrius, bishop of Autun, received a pallium in 599 for his support of the mission. We have no details of this "involvement" and "support" outside of the record of the letters of Gregory, so we cannot say what form it took on the ground. From letters Gregory wrote to Frankish kings in 596, it seems that the English wished to become Christian, but the priests of the neighbourhood (given the context, presumably Frankish priests) had not responded. In a letter to Brunhild of 596, Gregory again makes this complaint, and notes that he wants Augustine to take some priests from the neighbourhood with him. Perhaps the Frankish rulers were thanked later by Gregory for encouraging their clergy to support or participate in Augustine's mission, though they would doubtless also be pursuing their own political aims in doing so (see Wood, p. 9).

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984)

B. Colgrave, The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great (Kansas: 1968)

B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: 1969)

I. Wood, "The Mission of Augustine to Canterbury to the English", Speculum 69 (1994), 1-17

c.600-75. English gold coinage

There is no evidence of coin production in England before the end of the 6th century, in contrast with the Continent where the barbarian invaders were soon issuing imitation Roman coins of their own. Some of these Continental coins from before c.600 are found in England, but since most of these are pierced or have loops attached, they may have been worn as ornaments rather than circulated as money. Most of the imported coins are from Merovingian Francia, with a scattering of other types.

From the end of the 6th century, imported gold coins tend to be unmounted, and were more probably used as money, perhaps the scillingas (shillings) of the early law codes. The earliest surviving English gold coins also date from about this time; one of them, probably struck by a visiting moneyer of the Frankish king Theudebert II (595-612), names the moneyer and the mint-place (Eusebius of Canterbury). Coins tended to follow Merovingian or earlier Roman models, with frequently a bust on one side and a cross on the other. Sometimes the legends are legible, but they seem most often to be a blundered or other incomprehensible assemblage of letters and runes. Some coins name the mint-place as London, others name the moneyer (e.g. Witmen, Pada), and one exceptional issue is made in the name of King Eadbald of Kent.

English minting of gold coin seems to have been mostly limited to Kent and the upper Thames valley, though one issue is associated with York and another seems to be East Anglian. Minting of coin in the first quarter of the 7th century seems to have been a sporadic affair. There was a more sustatined coinage in the 630s and 640s, but the fact that most of the surviving coins seem to be little worn and to have been struck from a small group of dies suggests again a small coinage with a limited circulation. The largest output of gold coin came in the third quarter of the century. The gold content of the coins dropped progressively throughout the century, and in about 675 the gold standard was abandoned altogether in favour of silver. Occasional gold coins were produced until the end of the Anglo-Saxon period (King Eadred's will in the 10th century calls for the minting of 2,000 of them), but they were very much the exception to the standard silver penny.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

601. Augustine sends Laurence and Peter to report to the pope
Pope Gregory sends more helpers and a pallium to Augustine

Bede notes that Augustine sent the priest Laurence (later Archbishop of Canterbury) and the monk Peter (later abbot of St Augustine's) to report on progress and ask a detailed series of questions (HE, i.27); this visit is not dated, but can probably be assigned to 601 since the papal reply, made "without delay", was dated July 601 (Colgrave/Mynors, p. 79 n. 1).

In addition to his detailed replies, Gregory sent more helpers to Augustine, foremost among them Mellitus (later bishop of London), Justus (later bishop of Rochester), Paulinus (later bishop of York), and Rufinianus, as well as many needful goods for the worship and ministry of the church, a pallium for Augustine, and a letter directing how the bishops of Britain should be organized (HE, i.29). The pope also sent letters to Frankish bishops through whose territory the missionaries would travel, of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon, Marseilles, Chalon-sur-Saóne, Metz, Paris, Rouen, Angers, and Gap, and to the three Merovingian royal courts. These were by no means all in a straightforward route back to England, and the party was probably meant to travel around the Frankish territories to gather additional support (see Wood, p. 6, and entry on 597).

With the pallium, a white woollen band worn over the shoulders and signifying papal authority, Gregory enabled Augustine to consecrate other bishops, and in his letter Gregory outlined a plan for the English church. He determined that Augustine, as bishop of London, should ordain twelve bishops in places subject to his jurisdiction, and should also select a bishop for York who should receive his own pallium and also consecrate twelve subordinate bishops. Gregory also noted that Augustine should have under his authority not only all the bishops under York and London, but also the British bishops; it seems quite likely that this would lead to a confrontation between Augustine and the British bishops such as Bede described at "Augustine's Oak" (see entry on c.602).

It is unclear why Gregory, presumably after being briefed by Laurence and Peter on the state of Augustine's mission at Canterbury, stated that Augustine should be established instead at London. London and York were the centres of late Roman administration in Britain, and the scheme may have been a deliberate echo of old Britannia as a compliment to the breadth of rule of Æthelberht, the first converted English king. (In the 10th century, English kings would with much greater justification evoke memories of the rule of all Britannia: see entries on 927 and 973). This may have sounded well in Rome, but the ambit of Æthelberht's rule was much more limited (see entry on c.575) and the plan could not be implemented on the ground. Augustine is only known to have ordained bishops to two other sees (of London and Rochester, in 604), the Northumbrian mission had to wait until 625, and Augustine's see remained at Canterbury.

There were also papal letters in 601 to King Æthelberht (reproduced at HE, i.32) and to Queen Bertha (noted by Wood, p. 10), comparing them in their faith to the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena; Bertha was thanked for her support of Augustine and encouraged to strengthen Æthelberht's faith, while Æthelberht was encouraged to take every opportunity to extend the Christian faith over his subjects. In his letter to Æthelberht Gregory also urged that idols should be suppressed and the shrines overthrown. In another letter, written to Mellitus a month later (HE, i.30), Gregory notes that after long deliberation he prefers a more moderate approach: the idols should still be overthrown, but the shrines and some of the ceremonies should be converted for Christian use, so that the English can feel more familiar with their new religion. The most enduring result of this is that the English name for Easter remains that of a pagan goddess who had earlier given her name to the month of April (Eosturmonath; see Hines, p.379).

After his account of the correspondence of 601, Bede records that Augustine restored a Roman church within Canterbury (on the site of the present cathedral), and also founded a monastery to the east of the city (HE, i.33; the monastery was at first dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, and later to St Augustine). Plummer, following a very late Canterbury tradition, suggests that the cathedral may have been dedicated on 9 June 603 (see Plummer, II.63).

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984)

B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: 1969)

J. Hines, "Religion: The Limits of Knowledge", The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge: 1997), pp.375-410

C. Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum [...] (Oxford: 1896)

I. Wood, "The Mission of Augustine to Canterbury to the English", Speculum 69 (1994), 1-17

c.602. Augustine meets the British bishops (?)

Two meetings between Augustine and the British bishops are described by Bede (HE, ii.2). The meetings are not dated, but since one of the things to which the British object is accepting Augustine as their archbishop, they would probably have taken place shortly after the Pope gave Augustine that authority in a letter of 601.

The first meeting, arranged with King Æthelberht's help, took place at "Augustine's Oak" (unidentified, but said to be on the borders of the Hwicce and the West Saxons). Augustine argued that the British bishops and teachers should conform more closely to catholic doctrine and help to evangelise the English. When argument proved unavailing, the two sides went on to "trial by miracle": a blind Englishman was brought, and where British prayers proved unavailing, Augustine's prayers restored the man's sight. The Britons then confessed that Augustine was right, but that they could not abandon their former beliefs without the consent of their people. A second and larger meeting was arranged.

Before the second meeting, the British sought the advice of a holy hermit, as to whether they should forsake their traditions and follow Augustine. The hermit replied that if Augustine showed himself to be meek and lowly of heart, then he was a man of God and deserved to be followed: if, on the contrary, he was harsh and proud, he was not from God. The hermit further suggested that if, when the British came to meet Augustine, he rose at their approach, that would demonstrate his humility. Most unfortunately, Augustine remained seated when the British arrived, and so no agreement was reached. According to Bede, Augustine then threatened the British that if they refused to accept peace from their brethren, they would suffer war from their enemies, and if they would not preach the way of life to the English, they would be killed by them. Bede saw the fulfillment of this prophecy in the battle of Chester of c.613, in which the prayers of British monks proved ineffective against the wrath of Æthelfrith of Northumbria.

So far the story. With its allegorical miracle (for healing the blind Englishman, read converting him) and soon-fulfilled prophecy (easy enough in hindsight), it reads more like Bede's ideal of how Augustine might have confounded the British than an accurate account of historical events c.602. That there were meetings between Augustine and the British bishops is very likely. That these did not result in a joint plan to convert the English is plausible, and would explain Bede's hostility to the British church a hundred years later.

It should be emphasized though that Bede's information is incomplete, and such evidence as we can gather suggests that while the British church may not have played a top-heavy institutional role, the British were probably much more involved in the conversion of the English than Bede was prepared to admit. Sims-Williams (at pp.75-9) has plausibly suggested that the Hwicce and Magonsætan, English groups on the Welsh borders who are already Christian when Bede first mentions them, were converted unobtrusively by their British neighbours. This fits with Meens's recent demonstration that Augustine's eighth question to the Pope in 601 (reported by Bede at HE, i.27) closely reflects concerns of the contemporary British church, which implies that Augustine sometimes had to deal with English who had already been exposed to (and perhaps converted by) the doctrines of the British Christians.

J. Campbell, "Observations on the Conversion of England", reprinted in his Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp.69-84, at pp.71-3

R. Meens, "A background to Augustine's mission to Anglo-Saxon England", in Anglo-Saxon England, 23 (1994), pp.5-17

P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800 (Cambridge: 1990)

603. Battle at Degsastan: between the Northumbrians and the Scots

Bede records that in 603 Æthelfrith defeated Aedan, king of the Irish living in Britain (HE, i.34; Aedan was king of the Dal Riada in Scotland). Aedan had marched against Æthelfrith with a very strong army, but the British king was defeated and his army cut to pieces at "Degsa's Stone" (perhaps Dawston Rigg in Liddesdale?). Bede notes further that Æthelfrith's brother Theobald was killed along with the whole of his army (presumably Theobald led part of the Northumbrian army). One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle adds the detail that Hering, son of Hussa, led the army. No more is known of Hering, but Hussa (588-92?) seems to have been Æthelfrith's predecessor as king of Bernicia (see entry on c.450 to 651).

604. Augustine consecrates bishops Mellitus and Justus
Mellitus converts the East Saxons, receives see of London
Justus receives see of Rochester

Bede records that in 604 Augustine consecrated two bishops, Mellitus and Justus, and assigned Mellitus to preach in the district of the East Saxons, and Justus to the see of Rochester (HE, ii.3). King Æthelberht built the churches of St Andrew's in Rochester and St Paul's in London.

Bede notes also that while Sæberht ruled the East Saxons, he was the son of Æthelberht's sister Ricule, and under Æthelberht's overlordship.

607. Ceolwulf of Wessex fights the South Saxons

This battle is not mentioned by Bede, but is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

611. Ceolwulf of Wessex dies (?)
Cynegils succeeds to Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention Ceolwulf's death, it simply states that in 611 Cynegils succeeded to Wessex, and notes that he was the son of Ceola, the son of Cutha, the son of Cynric. "Cutha" is presumably short for Cuthwulf, Ceawlin's brother.

Little is known of Cynegils's reign. He and Cwichelm (his son) defeated the British at Beandun (unidentified) in 614, and were defeated by Penda of Mercia at Cirencester in 628. Bede records that Cwichelm sent an assassin to kill Edwin of Northumbria, and in revenge Edwin sent an army into Wessex (see entry on c.626), but later Edwin's successor Oswald became Cynegils's godparent, and also married Cynegils's daughter Cyneburh (see entry on 635). Cwichelm (who may have shared rule with his father) was baptised and died in 636, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In 642, presumably on his death, Cynegils was succeeded by another son, Cenwealh.

c.613. Battle of Chester: Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeats Selyf of Powys

The battle of Chester is noted by Bede (HE, ii.2) as the fulfilment of a prophecy of Augustine's that the British, if they would not convert the English, would be killed by them instead (see entry on 602). Bede states that Æthelfrith (of Northumbria) raised a great army against Chester and there made a great slaughter of the Britons, including over 2000 monks of Bangor who had come to pray for a British victory.

One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions the battle after a note of the death of Pope Gregory, and dates both events to 605. The Chronicle is here following Bede quite closely, and since Bede records Gregory's death in 605 in the chapter before his account of the battle (HE, ii.1), the date was probably originally nothing to do with the battle.

The Annales Cambriae date the battle instead to 613, and this date (or some point between this date and Æthelfrith's death in 616) is generally accepted. The Annales add that Æthelfrith's opponent was Selyf (Solomon) son of Cynan (Cynan was the king of Powys). It has been suggested from contemporary Welsh verse that the kingdom of Powys at this time extended northwards into Lancashire, which might make more sense of the Northumbrian king's attack (Dumville, p.221, notes both the possibility and the lack of real evidence).

D. Dumville, "The origins of Northumbria: some aspects of the British background", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.213-22

614. Cynegils and Cwichelm of Wessex defeat the Britons at Beandun

This battle is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which further notes that over 2000 Britons were killed.

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)

February 24, 616. Æthelberht of Kent dies
Eadbald succeeds to Kent; restores paganism
Archbishop Laurence persuades Eadbald to the faith

Bede records Æthelberht's death on 24 February, in 616, 21 years after the missionaries arrived and he accepted the faith (HE, ii.5).

The "21 years" is a problem, since it would place the arrival of the missionaries in 595, which contradicts the date of 597 Bede gives elsewhere (HE, v.24, and see the papal letters at HE, i.23-4). On the other hand, shifting Æthelberht's death to 618 (21 years after 597) runs into problems with the chronology of events after the death of Sæberht of the East Saxons (see entry on 616/7): Sæberht died after Æthelberht, and then there must be room for a pagan backlash and for Mellitus to spend a year in exile and then return some time before taking up the archbishopric of Canterbury in February 619. This would be almost impossible if Æthelberht died in February 618, so it seems best to regard "21 years" as an error and leave Æthelberht's death in February 616.

Æthelberht was succeeded by his son Eadbald, who had never received Christianity and compounded his fault in Bede's eyes by marrying his father's wife, presumably his stepmother (HE, ii.5; see entry on 858 for another example of a king's son marrying his stepmother). On the death of Sæberht (616/7) the East Saxons also reverted to paganism, and bishops Mellitus and Justus went back to the continent to await the outcome. According to Bede, Laurence would have followed, but St Peter appeared to him in a dream and scourged him for deserting his post. The next morning Laurence showed Eadbald the marks and Eadbald, sore afraid, quickly gave up his unlawful wife, accepted the Christian faith, and outlawed paganism once more, though he was not strong enough to reimpose Christianity (or bishop Mellitus) on the East Saxons (HE, ii.6).

616. Battle at the river Idle: Rædwald of the East Angles kills Æthelfrith of Northumbria
Edwin succeeds to Northumbria

The story of Rædwald's alliance with Edwin is told by Bede as part of the long account of Edwin's conversion (HE, ii.12). Edwin of Deira was in exile from Æthelfrith of Bernicia, and had been wandering for long years through all the kingdoms of Britain when he sought protection from Rædwald of the East Angles. Rædwald took Edwin in and promised to protect him. When Æthelfrith learnt that Edwin was in East Anglia, he sent messengers to Rædwald promising large amounts of money if he would put Edwin to death. Rædwald refused, and so Æthelfrith sent a second and a third time, promising even larger gifts and threatening war if Rædwald refused. Finally, either corrupted by the bribes or cowed by the threats, Rædwald agreed and promised either to kill Edwin or give him up to the Bernician messengers. Edwin learned this and went to sit outside the hall, where a heavenly messenger came to give him hope; shortly after that, a faithful friend sought him out, to tell him that Rædwald's wife had convinced him that going against his initial promise to Edwin would have been entirely unbecoming and a sacrifice of his honour. Rædwald sent away Æthelfrith's messengers, and shortly afterwards gathered together a large army to restore Edwin to the Northumbrian throne. Rædwald's army met Æthelfrith's without giving the Northumbrian king time to prepare, and Æthelfrith was slain in the battle on the Mercian border on the east bank of the river Idle, as was Rædwald's own son Regenhere. It was this battle that enabled Edwin to succeed to the Northumbrian throne.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the battle under 617, but since Bede says that Edwin had ruled the Northumbrians for 17 years at the time of the Battle of Hatfield of October 12, 633 (HE, ii.20), the correct date for the battle and for Edwin's accession is presumably 616.

c.616. Edwin of Northumbria occupies Elmet and expels King Cerdic

The Historia Brittonum records this conquest as taking place in Edwin's reign (?63). The Annales Cambriae record the death of a Cerdic in 616, just before they record Edwin's accession: this may be Cerdic of Elmet, although it need not be, and if it is someone else then the defeat of Cerdic of Elmet could be redated to 616?633. Bede does not mention the conquest of Elmet, though he does note that Edwin's nephew Hereric was poisoned while living in exile under the British king Cerdic, and this might have given Edwin an excuse for the war (HE, iv.23).

Elmet (Elfed in Welsh) was near modern-day Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and sent some warriors to the battle at Catraeth commemorated in the Gododdin (see entry on 570). The fact that a British kingdom survived into the 7th century, though probably surrounded by English Northumbria, suggests that there may have been other British kingdoms among the early English kingdoms, and that the English conquest was not as wholesale as our fragmentary and later sources lead us to believe. The name Elmet survives Edwin's conquest, as the Elmedsæte (dwellers in Elmet) are the most northerly people listed in the Tribal Hidage (a document of uncertain date between the later 7th and 9th centuries).

D. Dumville, "The origins of Northumbria: some aspects of the British background", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.213-22, at pp.220-1

616/7. Sæberht of East Saxons dies
Sæberht's three sons succeed to East Saxons; restore paganism

Sæberht's death in mentioned in Bede (HE, ii.5), but not in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As Plummer has shown (II.88), the date is very likely either 616 or 617: Bede's wording implies it is after Æthelberht's death (February 616), and the expulsion of Christian clerics which followed Sæberht's death must be in January 618 or earlier (because Mellitus spent one year in exile in Gaul (HE, ii.6), and he was made archbishop of Canterbury in February 619, some indeterminate time after his return (HE, ii.7)).

After Sæberht's death, his three sons succeeded, Sæward, Seaxred, and probably Seaxbald (see Yorke, p.52). They had restrained their heathen practices during their Christian father's reign, but now went back to openly worshipping idols and allowing their subjects to do the same. Bede records the story that the three sons of Sæberht saw the bishop celebrating mass (Mellitus, in London), and they asked him why he would not give them the Eucharistic bread just as he had given it to their father. The bishop replied that they could not partake of the bread unless they were baptised, and after much argument they threw him out of the kingdom (HE, ii.5).

C. Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum [...] (Oxford: 1896)

B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)

c.616. West Saxons defeat East Saxons; Sæberht's three sons killed

This battle is mentioned in Bede (HE, ii.5), who implies that it was the East Saxons' due punishment for having expelled their Christian bishop. It cannot be dated precisely: Bede says that it took place not long after the East Saxons had exiled Mellitus, which was at some point between 616 and January 618 (see entry on 616/7, so it could have happened as early as 616 or as late as a few years after 618. The next recorded king of the East Saxons was Sigiberht the Small, of whom almost nothing is known, save that he was succeeded by Sigiberht the Good, who was converted back to Christianity in about 653.

625-7. Conversion of Northumbria

Bede tells a long story of the conversion of Edwin of Northumbria at HE, ii.9-14. It begins with Edwin of Northumbria sending ambassadors to Kent, to ask for the hand of Æthelberht's daughter (Eadbald's sister) Æthelburh. Eadbald objected that Edwin was a pagan, and Edwin responded that he would not prevent Æthelburh from practising her religion, and indeed might convert himself. At this, Æthelburh was betrothed to Edwin, and Paulinus was consecrated bishop (on 21 July 625) and went in Æthelburh's train to the Northumbrian court. (HE, ii.9. This all bears close comparison with the Frankish princess Bertha coming to pagan Kent and bringing bishop Liudhard with her: see entry on c.575.) We are told that Paulinus worked long and hard to convert the Northumbrians, but to no avail.

The following year, Cwichelm of the West Saxons sent an assassin to kill Edwin (see entry on 626), and Edwin promised Paulinus that if God would grant him life and victory over his enemies, he would renounce idols and serve Christ. As earnest of this, he gave his infant daughter (Eanflæd, later abbess of Whitby) to be baptised. His campaign against the West Saxons was successful, and though he did not accept the Christian faith immediately and without consideration, he did listen to Paulinus and consult with his counsellors (HE, ii.9).

Pope Boniface wrote letters of encouragement to Edwin and Æthelburh (HE, ii.10-11, compare the letters Pope Gregory had written to Æthelberht and Bertha in 601). Bede also recounts a moment in Edwin's exile with Rædwald (see entry on 616), in which a heavenly messenger appeared to give him hope, and in return Edwin promised to follow such a messenger in every particular. Paulinus came one day and spoke in the voice Edwin seemed to remember from the vision, and bade him remember his promise. Edwin then agreed that he would accept Paulinus's faith, but would confer with his counsellors first that they might all be converted together (HE, ii.12-13; note the echo of Bede's description of the first meeting of Augustine and the British bishops in c.602).

Bede goes on to describe Edwin's council (HE, ii.13), in which Coifi, the heathen high priest, claims that the heathen religion is worthless because it has not brought him better advancement, and another counsellor makes the famous comparison between life on earth and the flight of a sparrow through a hall. After the council Coifi rushes forth to profane the heathen shrines which he had consecrated, and Edwin with all his nobles and many others is baptised on Easter day of 627 (HE, ii.14).

One might be forgiven for thinking there is enough here to convert a normal person several times over. It is possible that Edwin was very cautious or very reluctant, but another possibility is that legends grew up quickly around Edwin's conversion, and that Bede, unable or untroubled to select the original, has presented them all. Support for this second possibility comes from the earliest Life of Gregory, composed at Whitby in the early 8th century (704?714). Chapter 16 tells the tale of the heavenly messenger at Rædwald's court, prefaced by the warning that this was not the tale as told by those who were closest to Edwin (his daughter and grand-daughter were abbesses of Whitby), but that it was included since it was related sincerely by faithful witnesses. This may suggest that the heavenly messenger glimpsed at Rædwald's court was a later and legendary addition.

The 9th-century Historia Brittonum (at ?63) and the Annales Cambriae make the counter-claim that Edwin was baptised by Rhun son of Urien (king of Rheged). This claim is probably rightly dismissed as a much later invention, though it is true that Bede's prejudice against the British church might keep him from mentioning British influence in the Northumbrian conversion (see further Campbell, p.24).

J. Campbell, "Bede I", reprinted in his Essays in Anglo-Saxon History (London, 1986), pp.1-27

c.626. Penda becomes king of the Mercians

Sources for the early history of Mercia are few and far between, with almost no detail before we reach Penda in the early 7th century. The earlier material can be dealt with briefly here. The royal line is said to go back, son to father, from Penda to Pypba to Crida to Cynewald to Cnebba to Icel. Icel is probably the one who came to Britain, since the 8th-century Life of St Guthlac notes that the line begins with him. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC 626) takes the line farther back, through Eomer and Angeltheow and Offa (three legendary heroes noted in Beowulf), and eventually to Woden. This neat structure ignores the Mercian king Cearl and his daughter Cyneburh, who took in the Northumbrian Edwin in his exile according to Bede (HE, ii.14), and so presumably ruled at some point between the end of the 6th century and 616. Henry of Huntingdon in the 12th century assumed Cearl was a kinsman of Pypba and reigned between Pypba and Penda, but this may be no more than a guess (see Sims-Williams, p.25).

Penda probably started to rule in about 626. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes under 626 that he ruled the kingdom for 30 years, and was 50 when he gained the throne. This would make him of Lear-like proportions at his final battle in 655, and it is more likely that the Chronicle is mangling a source which said that he ruled the kingdom for 30 years and was 50 when he died (see Brooks, p.166). Bede notes that Penda held the kingdom of the Mercians for 22 years after the battle of Hatfield in 633, "with varying success" (HE, ii.20); this might be taken to imply that Penda came to power in 633, but it might only mean that he first came to Bede's Northumbrian attention in the year of his major battle with the Northumbrians. (The West Saxons would remember Penda from their first battle with him in 628, recorded in the Chronicle.) The Historia Brittonum is more difficult to reconcile, since it gives Penda a reign of ten years, starting from the battle of Maserfelth (in 642), at which his brother Eowa, king of the Mercians, was killed, and by means of which he freed the kingdom of the Mercians from the Northumbrians. This starting date of 642, at odds with the other two sources, suggests that Bede's brief comment that Penda ruled "with varying success" may conceal a period when Penda had lost control of Mercia to the Northumbrians (see entry on 634-42).

Penda's relations with the Northumbrians, then, are a tale of four battles: first, the battle of Hatfield in 633, in which he and Cadwallon of Gwynedd killed Edwin of Northumbria, and second, in the following year, the battle at Denisesburn (see entries on 634 and 634-42), in which Cadwallon at least was soundly defeated by Oswald of Northumbria, and Penda may have had his brother imposed on him as king of the Mercians under the overlordship of the Mercians. Penda would defeat the Northumbrians a second time in 642 at the battle of Maserfelth, when he would kill Oswald of Northumbria, and Penda would himself be killed in the Northumbrians' second victory, at the battle of Winwæd of 655.

Penda's relations with other southern kingdoms were scarcely more peaceful. He defeated Cynegils and Cwichelm of Wessex in 628 at Cirencester, probably establishing his overlordship over the Hwicce at that point, and possibly forcing Cynegils's son Cenwealh to marry his sister. When Cenwealh repudiated Penda's sister in about 645, Penda forced him into exile, and he fled to the court of Anna of the East Angles. The East Angles were likely to harbour Penda's enemies because he had killed two of their kings, Sigeberht and Ecgberht, in a battle of c.635?645; he would go on to kill Anna of the East Angles in 654. It may be that one of the things that Penda was disputing with the East Angles was jurisdiction over the territory of the Middle Angles which lay between them, over which Penda put his son Peada in 653. It may also be that Penda was systematically reducing the power of a kingdom which had flexed its muscles and shown that it might be a threat back in 616 when it had sent an army up to the Northumbrian border (presumably through eastern Mercia) and toppled the Northumbrian king (see Dumville, p.132).

N. Brooks, "The formation of the Mercian kingdom", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.159-70

D. Dumville, "Essex, Middle Anglia and the expansion of Mercia", The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.123-40

P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800 (Cambridge: 1990)

626. West Saxon Cwichelm tries to assassinate Edwin of Northumbria
Northumbrians launch a revenge attack on the West Saxons

Bede tells this story as part of the tale of the conversion of Northumbria (HE, ii.9; see entry on 625-7). Cwichelm, whom Bede calls king of the West Saxons (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle usually presents him as acting with his father king Cynegils), sent Eomer, an assassin, to Edwin's court. In the midst of delivering his pretend message from his lord, Eomer leapt up, drew his poisoned sword, and rushed at the king. A thegn called Lilla quickly got in the way, and Eomer killed him outright and wounded the king behind him. Eomer was surrounded and slain.

When Edwin recovered from his wound, he gathered his army and marched against the West Saxons, and had a victorious campaign in which he slew or forced to surrender all those he discovered to have plotted his death. (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edwin took an army into Wessex and destroyed there five kings, and killed many other people. We cannot say who these five kings were: Cynegils and Cwichelm certainly survived.)

c.627-731. Early history of Lindsey

The kingdom of Lindsey (probably the same as the Parts of Lindsey in modern Lincolnshire) was known to Bede, and though it fell alternately under Northumbrian and Mercian control in the 7th century, a surviving regnal list shows that it did at one time boast its own kings. It was once thought that the last of these, Aldfrith, witnessed a single charter confirmed by Offa of Mercia (S 1183), but this is now thought to be more probably a mangled attestation of Offa's son Ecgfrith (see Kelly, Selsey, p. 54).

Most of the references to Lindsey in the 7th century come from Bede. In the earliest, Paulinus goes to Lindsey after converting Edwin and converts the nobleman (praefectus) Blæcca and his household in Lincoln (HE, ii.16). Bede goes on to report a story that mass baptisms took place in the river Trent near Littleborough in the presence of King Edwin, which suggests that Lindsey was already under Northumbrian influence at this point. Lindsey next emerges after the death of Oswald of Northumbria in 642, when the Lindsey monastery of Bardney was unwilling to receive the bones of St Oswald, "because he belonged to another kingdom and had once conquered them" (HE, iii.11); it took a miracle for them to change their minds, so, as one would expect in Bede's History, a miracle duly took place. In the time of Wulfhere of Mercia (658-75), Lindsey was part of the diocese of Mercia (HE, iv.3), but Wulfhere lost it to Northumbria when he fought Ecgfrith in around 670?675. In 678, Lindsey gained a bishop (HE, iv.12), and it was probably at the Battle of the Trent in the following year (see entry on 679) that Wulfhere's successor Æthelred regained Lindsey from Ecgfrith (HE, iv.12).

The return to Mercian control in 679 was the final change: from then on, Lindsey was under Mercian control, though it seems to have retained its kings at least until 731, when Bede mentions the kingdom of Lindsey as being part of Æthelbald of Mercia's Southumbrian dominions (HE, v.23).

D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50 (for Lindsey, see p. 37)

B. Eagles, "Lindsey", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.202-12

S. Kelly, Charters of Selsey (Oxford: 1998)

F. Stenton, "Lindsey and its Kings", Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: 1970), pp.127-35

628. Penda of Mercia defeats Cynegils and Cwichelm of Wessex at Cirencester

This battle, a Mercian victory in the territory of the Hwicce, may signal the beginnings of Hwiccian dependence on the more powerful rulers of the Mercians, though clear evidence of this subordinate relationship does not appear until the 670s (see entry on c.670-c.790).

Bede notes that Penda's sister was married to Cenwealh, the son of Cynegils (HE, iii.7); since Cenwealh later repudiated his wife (see entry on 645), it may be that the match was forced upon him. The peace settlement after the battle in 628 (the Chronicle notes that Penda and Cynegils and Cwichelm came to terms) would be a plausible context.

October 12, 633. Battle of Hatfield: Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon of Gwynedd kill Edwin of Northumbria

Bede (HE, ii.20) notes that in 633 Cadwallon, king of the Britons, rebelled against Edwin, with the support of Penda of Mercia, and that after a fierce battle on the plain of Hatfield, Edwin was killed on October 12, 633. One of Edwin's sons, Osfrith, was also killed in the battle; another, Eadfrith, deserted to Penda, but was later killed.

After their victory, Cadwallon and Penda ravaged the land of the Northumbrians. Paulinus and Queen Æthelburh and three royal children and grandchildren fled to Kent, where they were received by King Eadbald. Æthelburh, fearing for the safety of the children, sent them farther away, to be brought up by the Frankish king Dagobert. Paulinus became bishop of Rochester.

633/4. On Edwin's death, Osric succeeds to Deira and Eanfrid to Bernicia: both slain by Cadwallon
Oswald succeeds to Northumbria

Bede records (HE, iii.1) that after Edwin's death, the kingdom of Northumbria fell back into its two parts, and Deira went to Edwin's cousin Osric (son of his uncle Ælfric), while Bernicia went to Æthelfrith's son Eanfrith. Eanfrith had been in exile among the British during Edwin's reign, but was allowed to return after Edwin's death. Both Osric and Eanfrith were Christian, but upon claiming their thrones they returned to their former idolatry. The British king Cadwallon promptly killed Osric, and occupied Northumbria. Almost a year later Eanfrith came to make peace with Cadwallon, bringing only twelve companions, and was killed in his turn. Bede then makes the cryptic comment that since this year is held to have been one of ill-omen, "those who compute the dates of kings" decided to abolish the memory of these three kings and assign the year to Oswald's reign.

Oswald was Eanfrith's brother, and after Cadwallon killed Eanfrith he gathered an army, killed Cadwallon at the battle of Denisesburn, and took up the kingship (HE, iii.1). As the son of of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and the nephew of Edwin of Deira (Edwin's sister Acha was Æthelfrith's second wife), Oswald was able to reunite the two realms into a single kingdom of Northumbria (HE, iii.5).

634. Battle at Denisesburn ("Battle of Heavenfield"): Oswald of Northumbria kills Cadwallon

Bede reports (HE, iii.1) that Oswald killed Cadwallon and his immense host at a place called Denisesburn. The battle is better known as the battle of Heavenfield, for the place where Oswald set up a cross and prayed before the fighting (HE, iii.2).

634-42. Oswald of Northumbria overlord of the Mercians (?)

There is no absolutely clear evidence for this overlordship of Oswald over the Mercians. It was postulated by Nicholas Brooks to explain how Bede and the Chronicle can assume that Penda's reign starts in 626 or 633 (see entry on c.626), whereas the Historia Brittonum assumes it begins after the battle of Maserfelth in 642, and that at that battle, Eowa, king of the Mercians, was slain, and Penda separated Mercia from the Northumbrians. Bede's remark that Penda ruled "with varying success" from 633 suggests that the 642 date might represent Penda regaining his kingdom, rather than gaining it for the first time.

Penda and Cadwallon were allies in the Battle of Hatfield of 633, in which they killed Edwin and devastated Northumbria. Bede's account of the Battle of Heavenfield in the following year notes only the crushing defeat of Cadwallon. Nothing is said of Penda's fate, but it may be that the Northumbrians supplanted him and installed Eowa as a subking of Mercia, under the overall authority of Oswald of Northumbria. This would then be the situation until the battle of Maserfelth in 642, when Penda regained power and defeated Eowa and so freed Mercia from the Northumbrians, as the Historia Brittonum explains.

This sequence would closely parallel the documented Northumbrian overlordship over Mercia in 655-8, when after the Battle of Winwæd in which Penda was killed, Oswiu sent Northumbrian ealdormen to govern Mercia, which they did for three years until the Mercians supplanted them with Penda's son Wulfhere. It may be that the Mercians suffered the yoke of Eowa longer because he was himself a Mercian, the brother of Penda (both are called sons of Pybba: see ASC 626, 757).

N. Brooks, "The formation of the Mercian kingdom", in S. Bassett (ed.), The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (London: 1989), pp.159-70, at pp.166-8

634/5. Oswald of Northumbria makes Aidan bishop of Lindisfarne

During Edwin's reign the sons of Æthelfrith were in exile among the Irish and Picts and converted there (Bede, HE, iii.1), and so when Oswald gained the throne he asked the Irish elders to send a bishop to teach and minister to the Northumbrians (HE, iii.3). The Irish sent Bishop Aidan from Iona, and Oswald gave him a place for his episcopal see on the island of Lindisfarne. Bede praises Aidan's great gentleness, devotion, moderation, and zeal for God, though he shared the Irish error of miscalculating the date of Easter (HE, iii.3 and 5).

Bede adds that many others, mostly monks, came from Iona into Oswald's realms and and preached the gospels with devotion, that churches were built and lands and property were granted to establish monasteries.

635. Oswald of Northumbria stands sponsor to baptism of Cynegils of Wessex
Dorchester-on-Thames becomes first West Saxon see

If Oswald of Northumbria was overlord of Mercia in 634-42, this would more easily explain how he came to be at Dorchester-on-Thames in 635, standing godfather to the West Saxon king Cynegils at his baptism (HE, iii.7; the date is not given by Bede but appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). On the same day that Cynegils of Wessex was baptised, Oswald of Northumbria married his (Cynegils's) daughter Cyneburh, thus further cementing the relationship.

The ceremonies were performed by bishop Birinus, who was consecrated by a bishop in Genoa and came to Britain on the advice of Pope Honorius. Bede notes that both kings (Oswald and Cynegils) gave Birinus an episcopal see at Dorchester (HE, iii.7), and this was the first West Saxon bishopric.

c.635?645. Penda of Mercia attacks East Anglia, kills Sigeberht and Ecgric

This battle is recorded in Bede (HE, iii.18), but is ignored by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and cannot be precisely dated. It must be before 645 because Anna was king of the East Angles at that point (see entry on 645), and Bede says it was a long time after Sigeberht retired to a monastery and resigned the rulership of the East Angles to his kinsman Ecgric (see entry on c.615-54; Sigeberht probably succeeded in the early 630s, and might have retired soon after, but we have no precise information).

The East Anglians were attacked by the Mercian Penda, and realizing that they were no match for him they asked Sigeberht to come back from his monastery so that the sight of him might inspire the army. Sigeberht refused, so they dragged him out; even in the battle he remembered his chosen calling and refused to carry anything but a staff in his hand, so it is not surprising that he was killed there, as was Ecgric, and the whole East Anglian army was slain or scattered by Penda.

January 20, 640. Eadbald of Kent dies
Earconberht succeeds to Kent

642. Cynegils of Wessex dies (?)
Cenwealh, Cynegils's son, succeeds to Wessex

Bede notes that Cenwealh refused the Christian faith which his father had accepted (HE, iii.7), and goes on to relate how he lost his earthly kingdom as well. He had been married to Penda's sister, and when he cast her aside Penda drove him into exile for three years (645-8). He took refuge at the court of Anna of the East Angles, and became a Christian there. After Cenwealh's restoration, a Frankish bishop called Agilbert who had been studying in Ireland came to the West Saxon court, and was pressed to stay on as bishop for the West Saxons. (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates Agilbert's appointment to 650.) This arrangement continued for many years, until Cenwealh appointed a new bishop at Winchester, where he ordered that a minster be built (see entry on 660), and Agilbert retired to Gaul.

The name of Penda's sister, Cenwealh's earlier wife, is not recorded. He later married a woman called Seaxburh, about whom very little is known, but she ruled the West Saxons for a year after his death in 672. He fought battles in 652 (perhaps a civil strife), 658 (against the Britons), and 661 (against Wulfhere of Mercia). He seems to have shared his authority with Cuthred, son of his brother Cwichelm (see entry on 648), and also with Cenberht, father of Cædwalla, who is called King Cenberht in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when it notes his death in 661. Bede reports that Cenwealh suffered heavy losses at the hands of his enemies, and it was this which led him to ask Agilbert to come back as bishop of the West Saxons, which led to Agilbert sending his nephew Leuthere (HE, iii.7); the only record of these losses in the Chronicle is the note of Wulfhere of Mercia's raid on Ashdown in 661, but this might well have been part of a prolonged campaign.

August 5, 642. Battle of Maserfelth: Penda of Mercia kills Oswald of Northumbria
Oswine succeeds to Deira, Oswiu succeeds to Bernicia

Described at Bede, HE, iii.9.

645. Penda of Mercia drives Cenwealh of Wessex into exile for three years
Cenwealh takes refuge with Anna of the East Angles, and becomes Christian

Bede associates Cenwealh's exile with his repudiation of his wife, Penda's sister, and notes that Cenwealh spent three years at the court of Anna of the East Angles, and became a Christian there (HE, iii.7). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle repeats some of this under the year 658, and also tracks Cenwealh's exile, noting that he was exiled in 645, baptized in 646, and granting land near Ashdown in Berkshire (i.e., back in power in Wessex) in 648.

648. Cenwealh of Wessex grants Ashdown to nephew Cuthred

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in 648, Cenwealh gave to his kinsman Cuthred (son of his brother Cwichelm) 3,000 hides of land near Ashdown. This grant is worth mentioning because 3,000 hides would probably be a small kingdom: according to Bede, Mercia in the 650s totalled only 12,000 hides (HE, iii.24). In the Chronicle's note of the grant of Ashdown we should probably see Cenwealh admitting Cuthred to some kind of subkingship or joint kingship, just as Cwichelm seems to have been seen as a king (by the Northumbrians at least) in his father Cynegils's reign.(Bede, HE, ii.9, and see entry on 626). No more is known of Cuthred until the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records his death in 661, when Wulfhere of Mercia was harrying Ashdown.

August 20, 651. Oswine of Deira killed, on orders of Oswiu of Bernicia
Oswiu of Bernicia succeeds to all Northumbria

Bede notes (HE, iii.14) that Oswiu of Bernicia could not live at peace with Oswine of Deira. The reasons are not given, but the causes of dissension increased so greatly that Oswiu resolved to make an end of Oswine, and they both raised armies. Oswine, realising that his was much the smaller army, decided to avoid the battle and wait for a better time. He disbanded his forces and went to hide in the home of a lord called Hunwold. Hunwold, unfortunately for Oswine, betrayed him to Oswiu, who ordered the killing of the Deiran king, a sentence carried out by the reeve Æthlewine at a place near Gilling. Bede adds that Eanflæd, Oswiu's queen, later ordered that a monastery be built there, to say prayers for both the murdered Oswine and Oswiu who had ordered the killing.

Bede adds that Oswiu's rule over all Northumbria was very troubled (laboriosissime), involving attacks by the Mercians and by his son Alhfrith and nephew Æthelwald (HE, iii.14). Æthelwald was able to grant some land to St Cedd in Deira after 651, and may have held the whole Deiran sub-kingdom (Bede, HE, iii.23, is ambiguous); but he was probably removed after his involvement in the battle of Winwæd in 655, when he was supposed to be helping the Mercian Penda against his uncle Oswiu, but in the event sat out the battle in a place of safety (Bede, HE, iii.24). His life expectancy after thus betraying two major lords would be short regardless of which of them caught up with him first, and he disappears from the record.

Alhfrith is associated with his father in rule at the time of the battle of Winwæd and in the preliminaries which led to the council of Whitby in 664 (Bede, HE, iii.24-5). On two other occasions, Alhfrith is explicitly called king (HE, iii.28 and v.9), though this is presumably still under Oswiu's overall authority: where HE, iii.28 says that King Alhfrith sent Wilfrid to be consecrated in Gaul, Stephen's Life of Bishop Wilfrid associates this decision with both kings (chapter 12). Though Bede mentions that Alhfrith attacked his father Oswiu (HE, iii.14), no details of any lasting disagreement have survived: it is true that Oswiu started out on the Irish side of the Easter question, whereas Alhfrith, a student of Wilfrid's, was on the Roman side, but this will have been resolved by the Synod of Whitby in 664. It is assumed that a disagreement escalated to blows some time after 664, the time of the last datable reference to Alhfrith and a point at which he is still acting in harmony with his father, but what that disagreement was remains a mystery.

652. Cenwealh of Wessex fights at Bradford-on-Avon

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes only that Cenwealh fought at Bradford, without mentioning whom Cenwealh was fighting or who won. Æthelweard, in his Latin version of the Chronicle, notes that it was a civil war, and the location of Bradford makes it plausible that this was a fight between Cenwealh and Cuthred. (Bradford is west of Ashdown, and may well have been within the 3,000 hides near Ashdown that Cenwealh granted Cuthred in 648.) William of Malmesbury in the 12th century does not clearly refer to this battle, but he mentions two battles Cenwealh fought against the British, one at Vortigern's burg and one at Penne (GRA, i.19.2): the battle at Penne is clearly Cenwealh's fight against the British in 658 (at Peonnan), and it may be that the fight at Vortigern's burg is a confused reference to the fight in 652 (but see 665 for another possibility).

R. Mynors and others, William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford: 1998)

653. Penda of Mercia makes his son Peada king of the Middle Angles
Peada accepts Christianity from Oswiu of Northumbria and marries Alhflæd

Bede notes that Penda of Mercia installed his worthy son Peada on the throne of the kingdom of the Middle Angles (HE, iii.21). Peada then went to Oswiu of Northumbria, and asked for the hand of his daughter Alhflæd. Oswiu would only consent on condition that Peada become Christian, which he promptly did. Bede adds that Oswiu's son Alhfrith, who was also Peada's friend and brother-in-law (Alhfrith had married Peada's sister Cyneburh), earnestly encouraged Peada to accept the new faith. In his chronological summary (HE, v.24), Bede dates the conversion of the Middle Angles under Peada to 653, and this is followed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Peada's alliance with the Northumbrians looks like a clever political move, because he was allowed to keep southern Mercia as a kinsman of Oswiu after the Mercian defeat at Winwæd in 655. However, if there is any truth to the rumour that his Northumbrian wife was responsible for his murder the following year (see entry on 655), this was clearly a mixed blessing.

c.653. Sigiberht of Essex accepts Christianity from Oswiu of Northumbria
Oswiu sends Cedd to preach to the East Saxons

Bede says that the conversion of the East Saxon king Sigiberht took place at about the same time as that of Peada of the Middle Angles (HE, iii.22). Bede adds that Sigiberht (sometimes called Sigiberht "the Good"), was the successor of another Sigiberht, called "the Small". This Sigiberht "the Small" presumably succeeded to the East Anglian kingdom some time after the deaths of the three sons of Sæberht in about 616; if there were other intervening kings, their names have not survived.

Bede notes that Sigiberht ["the Good"] often visited Oswiu in Northumbria, and that Oswiu for a long time argued that he should accept the faith. It is likely, though Bede does not mention this, that political overlordship was being urged on Sigiberht as well, and that this might not have been so unwelcome for a small southern kingdom in the glory days of Penda of Mercia. At any rate, Sigeberht, won over finally by arguments and supported by the consent of his friends, finally believed in the new faith. He then (like Edwin of Northumbria before him) called a meeting of his followers to hear their views; when they all agreed to accept the faith, he was baptized with them by Bishop Finan at the Northumbrian royal estate Ad Murum (perhaps Wallbottle?).

Sigiberht returned to Essex, and asked Oswiu to send him teachers to convert his people. Oswiu summoned Cedd from the kingdom of the Middle Angles, and sent him and another priest to preach to the East Saxons. Cedd travelled through the whole kingdom, and after his work prospered he was made a bishop by Bishop Finan in Lindisfarne. Cedd built churches throughout the kingdom, but the two most important were at Bradwell-on-Sea and Tilbury, where he gathered Christians and taught them to observe the discipline of a Rule. (Parts of St Peter's church in Bradwell still date back to the 7th century.)

653?664. Sigiberht of Essex murdered by his kinsmen
Swithhelm succeeds to Essex

Bede notes that for a long time after Sigiberht's conversion all was well, but that Sigiberht was eventually murdered by his own kinsmen, for being too ready to pardon his enemies (HE, iii.22). This death cannot be dated, but was presumably some years after the conversion in about 653, and before the death of Sigiberht's successor Swithhelm in about 664. Bede notes that Swithhelm was the son of Seaxbald, and Seaxbald was perhaps the (otherwise unnamed) third son of Sæberht (see Yorke, p. 52).

Bede adds that Swithhelm was baptised by Cedd in East Anglia, sponsored by King Æthelwold of East Anglia (q.v.). The fact that Swithhelm received Christianity from a neighbouring king and not with the rest of the East Saxon nobility under Sigiberht may suggest that Swithhelm started his reign as a pagan, but it might equally be that he was in exile in East Anglia during Sigiberht's reign.

B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)

654. Penda of Mercia kills Anna of the East Angles
Æthelhere, Anna's brother, succeeds to East Anglia

Bede notes that Anna was slain by Penda (HE, iii.18), and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle provides the date 654. It may be that Anna had protested or attacked when Penda made his son Peada ruler of the Middle Angles in 653, or perhaps Penda anticipated that Anna would attack and moved first. Bede notes that Æthelhere was Anna's brother and successor (HE, iii.24), though he died at the battle of Winwæd in 655.

November 15, 655. Battle of Winwæd: Oswiu of Northumbria kills Penda of Mercia

This battle, described at Bede, HE, iii.24, was to be the final settling of scores between the Northumbrians and Penda of Mercia.

November 15, 655. Æthelhere of East Anglia dies
Æthelwold, Æthelhere's brother, succeeds to East Anglia (?)

Bede notes Æthelhere's fall among the thirty royal ealdormen who were supporting Penda at Winwæd (HE, iii.24). The Colgrave-Mynors translation gives the impression that Æthelhere of the East Angles was the cause of the war, but another possible reading which seems more plausible would attribute auctor ipse belli ("the cause of the war himself") to Penda rather than to Æthelhere, and this is the reading followed by Whitelock (EHD, p.693).

We know from Bede (HE, iii.22) that Æthelwold, another brother of Anna and Æthelhere, ruled the East Angles at some point after Anna (and, presumably, Æthelhere) and that during his reign he stood sponsor to the baptism of Swithhelm of the East Saxons. Swithhelm died c.664, and we know that a nephew of Anna and Æthelhere and Æthelwold, Ealdwulf, started ruling in 662/3, so it seems reasonable to assume that Æthelwold ruled 655-662/3, though there is no hard evidence for these dates.

Since Oswiu of Northumbria ruled directly over part of Mercia in 655-8, and Æthelhere of East Anglia was acting as an ally of the Mercians in 655, it may be that Oswiu sent some of his ealdormen to rule over East Anglia for a time as well. Another possibility, since Oswiu had married Edwin's daughter Eanflæd (HE, iii.15) and Æthelwold's brother was married to one of Edwin's grand-nieces (see entry on 662/3), is that Oswiu allowed Æthelwold to rule over the East Angles because of their kinship, just as he allowed Peada to rule over part of Mercia because he was a kinsman.

655-8. Oswiu of Northumbria is overlord of the Mercians

Bede notes (HE, iii.24) that after the battle of Winwæd, Oswiu of Northumbria ruled over Mercia, as well as the rest of the southern kingdoms, for three years. He gave the kingdom of Southern Mercia into the keeping of Penda's son Peada, because he was a kinsman, and sent Northumbrian ealdormen to control Northern Mercia. Peada was murdered in the spring of 656, apparently with the treacherous involvement of his wife, and then presumably the Northumbrian ealdorman took over all of Mercia.

657. Foundation of Whitby

658. Northumbrian ealdormen expelled from Mercia
Wulfhere, Penda's son, succeeds to Mercia

Bede notes (HE, iii.24) that three years after Winwæd the ealdormen of the Mercians, named as Immin, Eafa, and Eadberht, rebelled against King Oswiu, expelled his ealdormen, and set up Penda's young son Wulfhere as king in their stead.

Wulfhere was no more content to stay within the bounds of Mercia than his father Penda had been, and large parts of Southumbrian England fell under his sway. In 661 Wulfhere conquered the Isle of Wight and the province of the Meonware in Hampshire and gave them as baptismal gifts to Æthelwealh of the South Saxons, which implies he was in a position of authority over the South Saxons. In the same year he harried the West Saxons (see entry on 661), and Bede's comment that Cenwealh suffered serious losses at the hands of his enemies (HE, iii.7) suggests we have only a very incomplete account of West Saxon / Mercian relations for the period. Mercian encroachment on West Saxon territory is confirmed by the fact that after Dorchester-on-Thames was abandoned as a West Saxon see it served as a Mercian bishopric instead (see entry on 660). Wulfhere's control over the East Saxons is made explicit c.664, when Bede notes the East Saxon kings are under Wulfhere's overlordship and shortly afterwards when Wulfhere sells Wine the see of London, which had been the East Saxon capital. The kings of the Hwicce witness charters as sub-kings of Wulfhere in the 670s (see entry on c.670-c.790), and Lindsey seems also to have been under Wulfhere's control until he lost it to Ecgfrith of Northumbria in a battle towards the end of his reign (see entry on c.627-731 for Lindsey, and 670?675 for the battle with Ecgfrith). A charter of 672?674 (S 1165) shows that Wulfhere was also the overlord of Surrey in the 670s, though Ecgberht of Kent (664-73) had controlled Surrey at some earlier point. In the last year of his reign, Wulfhere fought Æscwine of the West Saxons (see entry on 675). He died in 675.

658. Cenwealh of Wessex puts the Britons to flight in Somerset

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Cenwealh fought the Britons at Peonnan, and drove them in flight as far as the Parrett (in Somerset). Peonnan remains unidentified, as pen (British for "a hill") is very common in west country place-names: arguments have been advanced for Penselwood (near the Wiltshire-Somerset border), Pinhoe (Devon), and Penn (near Yeovil; see further Yorke, p.53).

B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London: 1995)

660. West Saxon see transferred to Winchester

Bede tells that the see of Winchester arose when Cenwealh of Wessex grew tired of Agilbert's "barbarous speech" and divided the kingdom into two dioceses, appointing to the new episcopal seat at Winchester a bishop called Wine, who had also been consecrated in Gaul but who spoke the king's own language. Bede records that Agilbert retired in high dudgeon to Gaul, where he ended his days as bishop of Paris (HE, iii.7), though he was in Northumbria for the Synod of Whitby in 664.

Since Agilbert had had ten years to learn to speak West Saxon (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes his arrival in 650), and since Cenwealh later appointed Agilbert's nephew Leuthere with no apparent aural ill effects (HE, iii.7), Bede's explanation for the move of the diocese to Winchester is not entirely convincing. It is more likely that Mercian expansion brought Dorchester-on-Thames dangerously close to the Mercian border: Wulfhere was raiding Ashdown (and would have passed Dorchester on the way) in 661, and at some point after the West Saxon departure, Dorchester was briefly a Mercian bishopric (see Yorke, Wessex, p.172).

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes under Cenwealh's accession that he had a minster at Winchester built and dedicated to St Peter. (This would become known as the Old Minster after the foundation of the New Minster in 901, and would be demolished in 1093 after the construction of the Norman cathedral.) One late manuscript of the Chronicle puts the foundation in 648, but as Barbara Yorke argues, this is probably part of later Winchester mythology (by which Cenwealh was carrying out his father's wishes and founded the church at the earliest possible moment, which would be his return from exile, newly Christian, in 648), and it is suspicious that the date does not appear before the late 11th century (see Yorke, "Foundation", pp.77-8). It seems more likely that the minster was built c.660, when the West Saxon bishopric was moved to Winchester.

M. Biddle (ed.), Winchester in the Early Middle Ages: An Edition and Discussion of the Winton Domesday, Winchester Studies, 1 (Oxford: 1976) [pp.306-8 give a brief history of the Old Minster]

B. Yorke, "Foundation of the Old Minster, Winchester", Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 38 (1982), pp.75-83

B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London: 1995)

661. Cenwealh of Wessex fights at Posentesburg
Wulfhere of Mercia harries on Ashdown; Cuthred and Cenberht of Wessex killed

Nothing more is known of Cenwealh's fight at Posentesburg, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though an identification with Posbury, Devon, has been suggested (EHD, footnote). If this identification is accepted, Wulfhere was perhaps taking advantage of Cenwealh's absence in the southwest to raid Ashdown, which Cenwealh had given to his nephew Cuthred; the Chronicle adds that Cuthred and King Cenberht died in the same year.

661. Wulfhere of Mercia conquers Isle of Wight, gives it to Æthelwealh of Sussex

Bede (HE, iv.13) notes that Æthelwealh of Sussex was baptized with the sponsorship of Wulfhere of Mercia, and in token of this relationship Wulfhere gave Æthelwealh the territories of Wight and of the Meonware in adjacent southern Hampshire. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates Wulfhere's conquest and gift of the Isle of Wight to 661, though it calls the South Saxon king "Æthelwold". South Saxon rule over Wight lasted only about twenty years, as Cædwalla of Wessex would kill Æthelwealh and ravage the Isle of Wight in the 680s (see entries on c.680?685, 686-7).

662/3. Æthelwold of East Anglia dies (?)
Ealdwulf, nephew of Æthelwold, succeeds to East Anglia

As noted above under 655, the dates for Æthelwold of East Anglia are uncertain.

We are much better informed about Ealdwulf of East Anglia. The East Anglian genealogy calls him the son of Æthelric, the son of Eni (so Æthelric was the brother of three earlier rulers, Anna, Æthelhere, and Æthelwold), and Bede notes that Ealdwulf's mother was Hereswith, who was the sister of Hild (the famous abbess of Whitby who discovered Cædmon's gift for religious song), and daughter of the nephew of Edwin of Northumbria (HE, iv.23). We know also that Ealdwulf had a son Ælfwald, listed in the East Anglian genealogy and king of the East Angles after him, and a daughter Ecgburh, abbess of an unnamed monastery according to Felix's Life of St Guthlac, chapter 48.

The date when Ealdwulf started to reign is established from the fact that he is one of the four kings to witness the synodal book of Theodore's Synod of Hatfield (September 17, 679), and it is noted that he does this in the seventeenth year of his reign (HE, iv.17), so his rule must have started in the twelve months after September 17, 662. Ealdwulf died in 713.

B. Colgrave, Felix's Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge: 1956)

D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50 [e.g. p.31 for Ealdwulf of East Anglia]

664. Eclipse and plague

Bede (HE, iii.27) reports in 664 an eclipse and a sudden pestilence which raged far and wide in southern Britain, Northumbria, and Ireland.

c.664. Swithhelm of Essex dies
Sigehere and Sæbbi succeed to Essex, under overlordship of Wulfhere of Mercia

The date of Swithhelm's death and the accession of Sigehere and Sæbbi is uncertain, though as Bede mentions it in the context of the plague of 664 (HE, iii.30), it is tempting to date it to this year. Bede also notes that Sigehere and Sæbbi were subject to the Mercian king Wulfhere.

Mercian overlordship is clearly shown when bishop Wine buys the see of London from Wulfhere of Mercia (Bede, HE, iii.7), even though London is ostensibly the East Saxon capital. (This transaction is not dated, but it is probably shortly after 664: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says Wine held the bishopric of the West Saxons for three years from 660, though he was still bishop of the West Saxons when he consecrated St Chad in 664, see HE, iii.28, and ASC 664).

664. Synod of Whitby

Bede (at HE, iii.25, giving the date 664 at iii.26) and Stephen of Ripon (a much briefer note at Life of Bishop Wilfrid, chapter 10) record an assembly at Whitby to settle the question of the proper method of calculating the date of Easter. Present were Hild, abbess of Whitby, king Oswiu and his son Alhfrith, Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, with his Irish clergy, and Agilbert, former bishop of the West Saxons, with the priests Agatho and Wilfrid. For a concise discussion of the debate, see W. M. Stevens's article in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. In a nutshell, Wilfrid championed the Roman method of calculation while Colman championed the Irish method. King Oswiu declared in favour of the Roman method and so it was adopted as the standard, and Colman and his followers went back to Iona.

K. Harrison, The Framework of Anglo-Saxon History to AD 900 (Cambridge: 1976)

July 14, 664. Earconberht of Kent dies
Ecgberht (I) succeeds to Kent

665. Second Battle of Badon (?)

This battle is recorded in the Annales Cambriae, but not in any of the English sources. Sims-Williams has suggested that William of Malmesbury's reference to a battle fought by Cenwealh at Vortigern's burg (noted under 652) might preserve an English reference to this battle, by the legendary connection of Vortigern with Mount Badon.

P. Sims-Williams, "The settlement of England in Bede and the Chronicle", Anglo-Saxon England 12 (1983), pp.1-41, at p.39

668. Theodore of Tarsus becomes Archbishop of Canterbury

669. Wilfrid becomes bishop of Northumbria

c.670-c.790. The kings of the Hwicce, dependents of the Mercians

For a hundred years or so, in the late 7th and 8th centuries, there are references to a ruling family of the Hwicce, the dominant people in the area of Worcester. It is clear from these references that the Hwicce were themselves under the domination (or the protection) of the more powerful kings of Mercia, and it may be that they owe their control of the area to a strategic alliance with the Mercians -- but only the fact of the relationship emerges clearly from the sources. Most of the references are in charters, which give us not the beginnings and ends of their reigns, but the information that they were in power in the year that the charter was drafted. Since it would be awkward to present this in the general chronological framework, the references are gathered here instead.

In a discussion of the conversion of the South Saxons in 680/1 (HE, iv.23), Bede notes that the South Saxon queen, Eabe, had been baptized in her own province of the Hwicce, and that she was the daughter of Eanfrith the brother of Eanhere, who were both Christians, as were their people. The reference to "their people" (and the fact that Eanfrith's daughter became a queen elsewhere) are taken to suggest that Eanhere, and possibly also Eanfrith, ruled the Hwicce. There is no evidence as to when they ruled, but the lack of reference to them in the documentary sources from the 670s or later may suggest that their rule should be placed back in the 660s.

The first Hwiccian king mentioned in his own right is Osric, who appears in the 670s, and is a sub-king of the Mercians Wulfhere (658-675) and Æthelred (675-704). Bede calls him king in a reference which cannot be precisely dated (HE, iv.23), but must be several years after the arrival of Theodore in 668, so perhaps the late 670s. He is called the subregulus (sub-king) of Wulfhere of Mercia in a charter of 672?674 (S 1165), and in a charter of 676 (S 51), he grants an estate as king, but the grant is counter-signed by Æthelred of Mercia. In another charter, of about 680 (S 70), Æthelred of Mercia grants land to Osric and Oswald, whom he calls "my two servants of noble family in the province of the Hwicce". (Though S 70 may not be entirely genuine, the status granted to Osric is similar to that seen in the more clearly authentic documents.)

The next Hwiccian king known from the sources is Oshere, who appears in a charter of 680 and another of the 690s, and seems to be under the overlordship of Æthelred of Mercia. In 680 (S 52) he makes a grant as king, with the permission of Æthelred. In 693?696 (S 53) he makes another grant as king, with no clear reference to Æthelred of Mercia, but in the historical preamble of a charter of 736/7 (S 1429), he is called sub-king of the Hwicce and a retainer of Æthelred.

Sons of Oshere are in charge of the Hwicce in the first half of the 8th century, under the overlordship of Æthelbald of Mercia (716-57). A charter ostensibly of 706 (S 54), by which Æthelweard sub-king, son of Oshere former king of the Hwicce, grants land with the permission of Coenred of Mercia (704-9), is probably not genuine, but the same information recurs in genuine charters. In a charter from 716?737, Æthelric, the retainer of Æthelbald of Mercia, is called the son of Oshere the former king of the Hwicce. In the famous Ismere charter of 736 (S 89), this Æthelric is again called the sub-king and retainer of Æthelbald. In a charter of 737?740, Osred, a member of the royal family of the Hwicce, is called an official (minister) of Æthelbald. The Hwiccians were not alone under Æthelbald's dominion: Bede notes that in his day (in 731) all of the southern kingdoms were subject to Æthelbald of Mercia.

The last known rulers of the Hwicce are the brothers Eanberht, Uhtred and Ealdred, who appear in the third quarter of the 8th century under the overlordship of Offa of Mercia (757-96). In 757 (S 55), Eanberht, regulus (ruler) of the Hwicce, makes a grant which is counter-signed by Offa. In 759 (S 56), Eanberht, Uhtred and Ealdred, make a grant with the permission of Offa, and Offa's signature appears above those of the brothers. Four more charters of the 760s and 770s are cast in similar terms (S 57-9, 63). In a charter of 778 (S 113), Offa grants land to Ealdred, whom he calls "my sub-king, namely ealdorman (dux) of his own people of the Hwicce".

By the 790s, Offa is granting land in the kingdom of the Hwicce with no reference to his sub-kings (S 139 of 793?796), and there are no further references to Eanberht, Uhtred or Ealdred. The chapter on the separate sub-kingdom of the Hwicce seems to have ended.

It may have had one more flicker of life in 802, when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the ealdorman Æthelmund rode from the province of the Hwicce into Wessex, where he was repulsed by Weohstan, the ealdorman of Wiltshire. However, if this Æthelmund is correctly identified with the Æthelmund of charters of the 790s, he seems more likely to have been a Mercian official, taking opportunistic advantage of the death of the West Saxon king, than the last hope of an independent Hwicce. (On all this, see Sims-Williams, pp.33-9.)

P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (Cambridge: 1990)

February 15, 670. Oswiu of Northumbria dies
Ecgfrith, Oswiu's son, succeeds to Northumbria

Oswiu's death is attributed to sickness by Bede (HE, iv.5), who notes that had he not been struck down he would have gone to Rome to die there. Ecgfrith succeeded to the kingdom of the Northumbrians. Ecgfrith's brother Ælfwine, who was killed at the Battle of the Trent in 679, was also called "king" by Bede, which raises the possibility that he was a sub-king under Ecgfrith, perhaps the sub-king of Deira as Alhfrith and Æthelwald may have been before him.

c.670. Picts rebel against Ecgfrith of Northumbria, but are defeated

This battle is mentioned only in Stephen's Life of Bishop Wilfrid, chapter 19. The Picts are stated to be rebelling against English rule, so Oswiu must have subjected at least some of them. Stephanus dates the rebellion only to Ecgfrith's "early years": it should perhaps be dated to just after Oswiu's death, with the Picts hoping to take advantage of the change of ruler to establish their freedom. Ecgfrith, with the assistance of the sub-king Beornhæth and a troop of horsemen, slew many of the Picts and reduced the rest back to subjection under his rule until his death (fighting the Picts in 685).

Beornhæth is one of the nine named ealdormen after Ecgfrith (and before King Aldfrith) in the list of kings and ealdormen in the Durham Liber Vitae. The next name in the list is that of Berhtred, who died fighting the Picts in 698 and whom the Annals of Tigernach call the son of Beornhæth. Though there is no explicit link, it is tempting to add the Ealdorman Berhtfrith who defeats the Picts in 711 to this family. His name is similar to Berhtred's, and his position to Beornhæth's (Stephanus in chapter 60 calls Beorhtred King Osred's right-hand man, just as Beornhæth was Ecgfrith's sub-king): it may be that three generations of the family held the key role in Northumbria's armies.

670?675. Wulfhere of Mercia leads all of the southern nations to defeat against Ecgfrith of Northumbria

This battle is mentioned in Stephen's Life of Bishop Wilfrid, chapter 20, and retrospectively in Bede's Ecclesiastical History (HE, iv.12). The outer limits for the date of the battle are 670 (Ecgfrith's accession) by 675 (Wulfhere's death). One could try to narrow this on the grounds that Wulfhere would be more likely to command "all of the southern nations" (including Wessex) after 672 or even 673 when Cenwealh and Seaxburh of Wessex were dead (see entry on 672). But this may be reading too much accuracy into the account of a Northumbrian hagiographer writing some 40 years later who wants to show Ecgfrith winning a battle against overwhelming odds. (Compare Eddius's similar rhetoric in chapter 19 about Ecgfrith's defeat of the Picts, where the Picts come from "innumerable tribes from every nook and corner in the north".) Wulfhere could have brought his own Mercian forces and those of his subordinates the South Saxons, the East Saxons, the Hwicce and the people of Lindsey and of Surrey before 673 and it might still have looked like "all of the southern nations" to the outnumbered Northumbrians. Bede notes that by this battle Wulfhere lost control of Lindsey to Northumbria.

672. Theodore's Synod of Hertford

672. Cenwealh of Wessex dies
Cenwealh's queen, Seaxburh, reigns for the following year
Division of kingdom and rule by sub-kings?

Bede notes that when Cenwealh died, sub-kings divided up the kingdom of Wessex and ruled for about ten years (HE, iv.12). The next West Saxon king mentioned by Bede is Cædwalla. However, since Cædwalla was in exile in the years before his accession (HE, iv.14), it may be that Bede's report of ineffective sub-kings reflects Cædwalla's verdict on his predecessors rather than the state of affairs in 672-85. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has Cenwealh dying in 672, his queen Seaxburh reigning for a year after him, Æscwine succeeding in 674, and Centwine succeeding in 676. There is no record of what happened to Seaxburh after her year in power, nor is it clear whether the apparent gap between Seaxburh's reign and Æscwine's accession is deliberate or simply mechanical error. (A literal reading of Stephen's remark that Wulfhere of Mercia led "all of the southern nations" against Ecgfrith of Northumbria would suggest that Wulfhere was briefly in charge, but a literal reading is probably not appropriate; see 670?675.)

July 4, 673. Ecgberht (I) of Kent dies
Hlothhere succeeds to Kent

674. Benedict Biscop founds Monkwearmouth monastery

674. Æscwine succeeds to West Saxons

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives Æscwine's descent as son of Cenfus, son of Cenferth, son of Cuthgils, son of Ceolwulf, son of Cynric, son of Cerdic. Bede ignores him and the only recorded event of his reign is a fight against Wulfhere of Mercia in 675. He died in 676.

675. Wulfhere of Mercia and Æscwine of Wessex fight at Biedanheafde

675. Wulfhere of Mercia dies
Wulfhere's brother Æthelred succeeds to Mercia

Æthelred of Mercia ravaged Kent in 676, and won back Lindsey in the battle of the Trent against Ecgfrith of Northumbria in 679. Bede notes that after that battle there was a long peace between Mercia and Northumbria (HE, iv.21). The Hwicce remained under Mercian control in Æthelred's time (see entry on c.670-790), though Æthelred lost Surrey and Sussex to the control of Cædwalla of the West Saxons (see entry on 685). It was also in the late 680s that members of the East Saxon royal line were ruling in Kent, apparently with Æthelred's support (see entry on 686-90). However, by the early 690s, with the strong rulers Wihtred in Kent and Ine in Wessex, Mercian expansion was blocked and southern English affairs became much more stable. Æthelred resigned and became a monk in 704.

c.675-750. Early English silver coinage

The changeover from gold to silver in about 675 saw a vast increase in the scale on which coins were minted, and also the areas where they were made. From the early 8th century the minting of silver coins spread to East Anglia, Wessex, southern and eastern Mercia, and Northumbria. At the same time there was an influx of coin from Frisia and the lower Rhineland. These silver pennies are the same size and shape as the earlier gold shillings.

Most of the coins have no legends, though some mention the London mint and other gives moneyers' names (e.g. Æpa, Wigred, Tilberht). Northumbrian coins helpfully give the name of the king on one side, and usually the moneyer's name on the other. Designs on the Southumbrian coinage are much more varied than on the gold coins, with busts, seated and standing figures, birds and beasts and wolves, standards and geometric designs: this seeming chaos can be reduced to 26 broad series, and the region where they were minted (if not the specific mints) can normally be identified.

Unfortunately the silver standard was gradually debased just as the gold standard had been, and by the mid-8th century the striking and use of coins seems to have ceased south of the Humber. North of the Humber coins continued to be struck on the old model, and coins more bronze than silver appeared with the names of the Northumbrian kings until the mid-9th century. South of the Humber a reformed silver coinage was brought in in the 760s, silver pennies on a broader and thinner flan, copying Carolingian reforms.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

676. Æscwine of Wessex dies
Centwine, son of Cynegils, succeeds to Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Centwine was a son of Cynegils, which makes him a brother of Cenwealh. Stephen notes that Bishop Wilfrid paused at King Centwine's court in his exile, but did not stay long because Centwine's queen was the sister of the Northumbrian queen Iurminburg, and so Iurmingburg's hatred pursued him there (Life of Bishop Wilfrid, chapter 40). Aldhelm, in the third of his Carmina Ecclesiastica (poems on the dedications of churches), states that Centwine ruled the kingdom (imperium) of the Saxons and won three great battles, that he was a pagan until the end of his reign, and that he finished by becoming a monk. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 682, Centwine put the Britons to flight, which may be one of the three great battles noted by Aldhelm. Centwine's paganism neatly explains why he does not witness the proceedings of Theodore's Synod of Hatfield in 679, along with the kings of the Northumbrians, the Mercians, the East Angles and the people of Kent.

B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge: 1927)

R. Ehwald, Aldhelmi Opera (Berlin: 1919), pp.14-18

M. Lapidge and J. Rosier, Aldhelm: The Poetic Works (Cambridge: 1985), pp.47-49

676. Æthelred of Mercia devastates Kent

Bede (HE, iv.12).

678. Theodore divides the northern diocese into three; Wilfrid leaves

679. Battle of the Trent: Ecgfrith of Northumbria fights Æthelred of Mercia

Bede mentions this battle (HE, iv.21) as a demonstration of the effectiveness of Archbishop Theodore. In the course of the battle, Ecgfrith's brother Ælfwine, who was also Æthelred's brother-in-law and "much beloved in both kingdoms", was slain. Bede notes that the way was clear for fiercer hostilities between the two peoples, but that Archbishop Theodore intervened to try to keep the peace, and convinced the Northumbrians to accept a money-payment for Ælfwine's death (wergeld) instead of a full slaking of their vengeance in blood. Bede adds that this was followed by a long period of peace between Ecgfrith and Æthelred and their respective kingdoms.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle adds no details to Bede's account, and indeed in one version notes only that Ælfwine was slain in 679, with no reference to a battle.

September 17, 679. Theodore's Synod of Hatfield

c.680?685. Cædwalla of Wessex kills Æthelwealh of Sussex

Bede notes (HE, iv.15) that while Cædwalla was in exile before he became king, he took an army to Sussex and slew Æthelwealh and devastated the land. He was driven out by two of the king's ealdormen, Berhthun and Andhun, who ruled the South Saxons until Cædwalla became king of the West Saxons and came back and reduced it again. The first battle must have taken place before Cædwalla became king in 685.

681. Benedict Biscop founds Jarrow monastery

682. Centwine of Wessex puts Britons to flight

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Centwine put the Britons to flight "as far as the sea", but unfortunately offers no indication of which Britions or which sea. It is most likely to be the Britons of Cornwall, west of Wessex, whom Cenwealh of Wessex had previously driven to flight as far as the Parrett in Somerset in 658.

684. Ecgfrith of Northumbria sends an army under Ealdorman Berhtred to Ireland

[Charles-Edwards 1989, p32 n31]

Bede (HE, iv.26) records this as a vicious and unprovoked attack, and sees in the curses of the Irish as they were slain the direct causes of Ecgfrith's death in battle the following year against the Picts.

c.685. Cædwalla emerges as king of Wessex
Cædwalla conquers Sussex, Isle of Wight

Bede mentions Cædwalla becoming king of the West Saxons after time spent in exile (HE, iv.15-16), and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes under 685 that Cædwalla "began to contend for the kingdom". The Chronicle notes further that he was the son of Cenberht (whom Cenwealh apparently granted some royal authority, for he was called King Cenberht at his death in 661), and great-grandson of Ceawlin. It may be that Cædwalla was disappointed that Cenwealh did not confirm him in his father's position, and so finally contested with Cenwealh's brother Centwine for the kingship; perhaps Centwine was forced into a monastery after this struggle and did not retire voluntarily (see entry on 676).

Bede records that after Cædwalla became king he went back and ravaged Sussex and took it over for a second time (HE, iv.15, and see entry on c.680?685) and he also recaptured the Isle of Wight (HE, iv.16; Wulfhere of Mercia had captured it and given it to the South Saxon king in 661). Cædwalla was a heathen throughout his reign, but Bede records that he vowed to give a fourth part of the Isle of Wight to the Lord, and he fulfilled this by giving it to Bishop Wilfrid. Stephen's Life of Bishop Wilfrid speaks highly of Cædwalla (chapter 42), noting that Cædwalla sought out Wilfrid and that Wilfrid supported him in his exile. (This odd alliance of bishop and heathen makes slightly more sense given that Wilfrid was badly treated at the court of Cædwalla's rival Centwine, as noted under 676.) A charter from Cædwalla's reign has him granting land in Surrey (S 235), which suggests that he captured it from Wulfhere's successor Æthelred. The Chronicle records that he ravaged Kent in 686-7, and implies that he set up his brother Mul as king of Kent. After a brief but full reign, Cædwalla retired in 688 and went to Rome, where he died.

February 6, 685. Hlothhere of Kent dies, after battle with South Saxons raised by Eadric of Kent, who succeeds
686. Eadric of Kent dies
686-90. Kent falls to usurpers and foreign kings

Bede (HE, iv.26) records that Hlothhere king of Kent died on 6 February 685, of a wound in battle with the South Saxons whom his nephew Eadric had raised to take the throne. Hlothhere was the brother of Ecgberht, the previous king, while Eadric was Ecgberht's son. Bede adds that Eadric then ruled for a year and a half after Hlothhere, after which the kingdom fell to usurpers and foreign kings until the rightful king, Wihtred, son of Ecgberht, ascended to the kingship.

The West Saxon prince Mul seems to have ruled Kent in 686-7 (see entry on 686-7). According to a Kentish charter (S 10) this was followed by the rule of Swæfheard of the East Saxons, who seems to have ruled part of Kent under the patronage of Æthelred of Mercia from 688 to 692?694, though he was ruling jointly with Wihtred by 692 (see Kelly, pp.196-7). A king called Oswine also began ruling in 688, but had disappeared by 692 (see Kelly, pp.197-8); though he claims legitimacy in his charters, Bede does not admit this, and we have no secure way of judging the matter. (Bede may be an impartial observer, but since Wihtred ruled Kent for most of Bede's adult life (690-725), the prevailing opinion about Oswine's legitimacy will have been that put out by Wihtred's court. If Oswine was a defeated rival of Wihtred, the court would probably call him a pretender whether he had a just claim or not.)

S. Kelly, Charters of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and Minster-in-Thanet (Oxford: 1995)

May 20, 685. Battle of Nechtansmere: Ecgfrith of Northumbria dies, fighting the Picts
Aldfrith, Oswiu's illegitimate son, succeeds to Northumbria

Bede (HE, iv.26) states that Ecgfrith's raid against the Picts was undertaken against the advice of his counsellors, particularly St Cuthbert. Nonetheless Ecgfrith prepared to ravage the country, but the Picts feigned flight and lured him into some narrow passes in the mountains, where the Northumbrian king and his forces were slaughtered.

Aldfrith's succession may not have been quite immediate: Bede notes that at his death in 705 he had reigned nearly twenty years (HE, v.18), and if this is consistent with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which dates his death to 14 December 705 he probably succeeded early in 686. In fact, Aldfrith was an illegitimate son of Oswiu and studying among the Irish at Iona in the year before Ecgfrith's death, so he may neither have expected nor have been expected to become king (see the Anonymous Life of St Cuthbert, III.vi, and Bede's Prose Life of St Cuthbert, chapter 24). Bede notes further that Aldfrith was "in exile" among the Irish, so there may have been some prejudice against his becoming king, though there are no more explicit references to delay or dispute in Aldfrith's succession. Bede notes that Aldfrith ably restored the state of Northumbria, albeit within narrower bounds, and praises his learning (HE, iv.26).

[Note also Aldhelm, Alcuin, Adomnan -- or have a separate entry on Aldfrith's court and Northumbria's golden age?]

686-7. Cædwalla of Wessex and Mul ravage Kent and Isle of Wight
Cædwalla's brother Mul set up as king of Kent, but burnt shortly afterwards
Cædwalla ravages Kent again

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 686 Cædwalla (king of Wessex) and Mul (his brother) ravaged Kent and the Isle of Wight, and that in 687 Mul was burnt in Kent with twelve others, and Cædwalla ravaged Kent again. No mention is made in the Chronicle of Mul's rule of Kent, but a charter of the Kentish monastery of Minster-in-Thanet (S 10) notes that Mul granted an estate as king of Kent.

It seems likely that the attack of 686 resulted in Mul being placed on the Kentish throne, where he ruled for a year or so until the people of Kent rose up and burnt him alive (the "twelve others" were presumably Mul's West Saxon advisors). The Chronicle notes that in 694 the people of Kent made terms with Ine, the king of Wessex after Cædwalla, and paid him 30,000 pence for the burning of Mul.

It is possible that the Chronicle's reference to Cædwalla and Mul ravaging the Isle of Wight in 686 refers to the same event as Bede's remark that Cædwalla captured the Isle of Wight after he became king (HE, iv.16). It might equally refer to a second battle: Bede notes that Cædwalla was in hiding in the mainland territory of the Jutes (southern Hampshire) because of wounds sustained during the fighting, so the conquest of the Isle of Wight was clearly not a walkover.

688. Cædwalla of Wessex abdicates, goes to Rome
Ine succeeds to Wessex
April 10, 689. Cædwalla baptised by Pope Sergius I
April 20, 689. Cædwalla dies; buried in St Peter's church, Rome

Bede records (HE, v.7 and 23) that Cædwalla, after ruling the West Saxons most ably for two years, went to Rome in the third year of Aldfrith of Northumbria (688), was baptised there on the Saturday before Easter Day of 689 (April 10) by Pope Sergius, who gave him the name Peter. Cædwalla/Peter then fell ill, and died on April 20. He was buried in St Peter's church in Rome, and Bede gives the text of an epitaph which he reports was put up on Sergius's orders. [The epitaph was written by Crispus, the then archbishop of Milan, and the stone itself was discovered in the sixteenth century when St Peter's was rebuilt, though it has since disappeared again. -- from the footnote in Colgrave/Mynors]

After Cædwalla left in 688, Ine succeeded to kingship of the West Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that he was the son of Cenred, son of Ceolwold, who was the brother of Cynegils, both grandsons of Ceawlin. Bede notes that Ine continued to oppress the South Saxons as Cædwalla had done (HE, iv.15), and a letter of Wealdhere, bishop of London, reveals conflicts between the West and East Saxons in 704/5. The Chronicle records a battle in which Ine and his kinsman Nunna of Sussex fought the British king Geraint in 710, and another between Ine and Ceolred of Mercia at Woden's Barrow in 715. Ine was probably the English king who was defeated by the Cornish in 722, in a battle recorded only by Welsh sources. There seems to have been internal tension in 721-5, perhaps amounting to a civil war: Ine killed two æthelings, Queen Æthelburh demolished Taunton, and Ine fought the South Saxons twice, probably for harbouring an exiled ætheling. But in spite of these upsets, with strong kings in Wessex (until 726), Kent (until 725), and Mercia (until 704), the political situation in the south at the turn of the 7th/8th centuries was much more stable than it had been in the days of the wars of Penda or Wulfhere of Mercia or Cædwalla of Wessex. In 694, for instance, the people of Kent paid Ine compensation for the burning of the West Saxon prince Mul in 687, rather than prolonging the fight, and an almost identical clause in the law codes of Ine of Wessex and Wihtred of Kent suggests cooperation on other fronts as well (Wihtred 28 and Ine 20, see EHD, pp.398 and 401). Ine's is the first West Saxon law code to be preserved (it survives as a "reprint" attached to the later laws of Alfred), and it was also in Ine's reign that a second West Saxon bishopric was established, at Sherborne (see entry on 705). Like Cædwalla before him, at the end of his reign he retired to go to Rome (see entry on 726).

B. Yorke, Wessex in the Early Middle Ages (London: 1995)

690. Wihtred, son of Ecgberht, succeeds to Kent

698. Ealdorman Berhtred of Northumbria is killed fighting the Picts

This battle is recorded in Bede's chronological summary (HE, v.24), but not in the main narrative. On Berhtred's father, see above under 670.

704. Æthelred of Mercia retires to a monastery
Coenred, son of Wulfhere, succeeds to Mercia

Very little is known of Coenred's reign. Felix's Life of St Guthlac notes that in the days of King Coenred the Britons troubled the English with their attacks and pillaging and devastation (chapter 34), though no specific battles are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Bede notes that after ruling for five years Coenred went to Rome and became a monk in 709 (HE, v.19 and v.23).

704/5. Conflicts between West and East Saxons

The conflicts between the West and East Saxons of this period are revealed in a letter from Wealdhere, bishop of London, to Brihtwold, archbishop of Canterbury (EHD 164), composed after Coenred's succession in 704 but before the division of the West Saxon bishopric in 705. Wealdhere implies that there had been disputes for years between the West and East Saxons, in spite of repeated meetings which established peace treaties, by which the East Saxons agreed not to harbour exiles and the West Saxons agreed not to carry out their threats (presumably to devastate Essex). Another such peace meeting was planned for October 15 (of either 704 or 705) at Brentford, and Wealdhere was seeking the archbishop's opinion as to whether or not he should attend. This was an issue because the archbishop had decreed in the previous year that there should be no communication with the West Saxons until they carried out his decree about the ordination of bishops. It would be most interesting to know whether this lost archiepiscopal decree related to (or caused) the creation of a second West Saxon bishopric in 705.

705. Division of West Saxon bishopric into two (Winchester and Sherborne)

The West Saxon bishopric had started out in Dorchester-on-Thames in 635, and had moved to Winchester in 660,.probably to be farther from the border with Mercia. Bede records (HE, v.18) that after the death of Bishop Hædde in 705 the West Saxon bishopric was divided into two dioceses, that at Winchester given to Daniel (who was Bede's West Saxon informant) and the other to Aldhelm. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recording Aldhelm's death in 709, notes that he was bishop "west of the wood" or "west of Selwood"; the seat was at Sherborne. The two bishoprics would be subdivided again in 909.

December 14, 705. Aldfrith of Northumbria dies
Eadwulf rules Northumbria for two months
Osred, Aldfrith's son, succeeds to Northumbria

Aldfrith's death is recorded in Bede (HE, v.18) and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Chronicle adds that Osred's son succeeded him, but Stephen's Life of Bishop Wilfrid notes that Eadwulf ruled briefly between the reigns of Aldfrith and Osred (chapter 49). Nothing is known of the background of this Eadwulf: Stephen says only that he was driven from the kingdom by a conspiracy after ruling for only two months, which he attributes to the fact that Eadwulf would not re-admit Wilfrid. Since Osred was only eight in 705 according to Bede, Eadwulf may have been appointed as a governor until Osred came of age.

It is not clear what arrangements were made for guiding Osred into maturity after Eadwulf was removed. That they were seen to be insufficient, whatever they were, is suggested by later tirades against Osred from Boniface in the mid-8th century and Æthelwulf in the early 9th. Boniface, in a letter to Æthelbald of Mercia (translated at EHD 177, pp.820-1), notes that Osred was driven by the spirit of wantonness, debauching virgins throughout the nunneries until "with a contemptible and despicable death he lost his glorious kingdom, his young life and his lascivious soul". Æthelwulf in chapter 2 of his De Abbatibus (an account of a monastery founded in Osred's reign) notes further that Osred scorned God's laws in his might and wantonness, and had many people killed, and forced others into monasteries (perhaps against their will). And though the near-contemporary Bede welcomes Osred's accession as a new Josiah in his Verse Life of St Cuthbert, he says almost nothing about the reign in his later History (HE, v.18), which suggests that Osred had failed of whatever initial promise Bede saw.

A. Campbell, ed., Æthelwulf: De Abbatibus (Oxford: 1967)

706. Council by the river Nidd: Wilfrid reinstated

709. Coenred of Mercia goes to Rome
Ceolred, son of Æthelred, succeeds to Mercia

Little is known of Ceolred's reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Ceolred fought Ine of Wessex at Woden's Barrow in 715. Stephen notes that Ceolred sent messengers to Bishop Wilfrid (presumably on his accession in 709), asking to confer with him and promising to order his whole life after Wilfrid's instruction. But Wilfrid died before reaching Ceolred (Life of Bishop Wilfrid, chapters 64-5), and Ceolred's life took a less lofty course. St Guthlac promised to Æthelbald that Ceolred's life would be shortened because his hope lay in wickedness (Life of St Guthlac, chapter 49), and Boniface wrote to Æthelbald, reminding him that after a sinful life Ceolred was struck mad by an evil spirit in the middle of a feast and so died, raging and distracted (EHD 177, p. 820). In another letter, Boniface described the vision of the afterlife granted to a monk of Much Wenlock, which included Ceolred being carried off by devils to the tortures of hell (Colgrave, Guthlac, p.6). Ceolred died in 716.

B. Colgrave, Felix's Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge: 1956)

B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge: 1927)

710. Ine of Wessex and Nunna of Sussex fight Geraint of Dumnonia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions the battle, adding that Ine and Nunna were kinsmen, but does not say who won.

711. Ealdorman Berhtfrith defeats the Picts

Bede notes in his chronological summary (HE, v.24) only that Berhtfrith fought the Picts; it is from the Annals of Tigernach that we learn that this was a Pictish defeat. This is the last recorded battle between the Picts and the Northumbrians before King Eadberht's offensive in 740. In his State of the Nation summary for 731 (HE, v.23), Bede notes that the Picts have a peace treaty with the English.

On what might be Berhtfrith's family, see above under 670.

713. Ealdwulf of East Anglia dies
Ælfwald, Ealdwulf's son, succeeds to East Anglia (?)

The date of Ealdwulf's death is fixed by Continental chronicles (see note at Plummer, II.107).

The East Anglian genealogy notes that Ælfwald was Ealdwulf's son, and it is plausible that he succeeded in 713, though we have no precise information. (Ealdwulf is the last East Anglian king mentioned by Bede; see HE, ii.15.) Ælfwald was certainly king of the East Angles by the time that Felix's Life of St Guthlac was written, because it is dedicated to him. Colgrave, the editor of Felix's Life, suggests it was written in the 730s (p.19). The only other contemporary source of information about Ælfwald is a letter of encouragement he wrote to Boniface on the Continent, promising him the prayers of seven East Anglian monasteries (see Colgrave, pp.15-16). According to a post-Conquest source, Ælfwald died in 749.

There must have been friendly relations between East Anglia and Mercia at the time of the writing of the Life of St Guthlac, since Felix notes in his prologue that the life was written at Ælfwald's request, and the life of a saint descended from the Mercian royal line and friendly with the great Mercian king Æthelbald would not make cheerful reading in an East Anglia groaning under the Mercian yoke. It may even be that Æthelbald spent part of his exile before his accession in 716 in East Anglia.

B. Colgrave, Felix's Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge: 1956)

C. Plummer, Venerabilis Baedae Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum [...] (Oxford: 1896)

715. Ine of Wessex fights Ceolred of Mercia at Woden's Barrow

This battle is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but not the result.

If this Woden's Barrow is the same as one mentioned in a later Wiltshire charter (S 1513), then the modern name for Woden's Barrow is Adam's Grave. (See Place-Names of Wiltshire, p.318.)

J. Gover, A. Mawer and F. Stenton, The Place-Names of Wiltshire (Cambridge: 1939)

716. Osred of Northumbria is killed
Coenred, descended from Ida, succeeds to Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Osred was slain south of the border, and Boniface's comment that he died "a contemptible and despicable death" (see EHD 177, p.821) may suggest he was murdered. (In his chronological summary at HE, v.23, Bede makes the distinction that Ceolred died but Osred was killed.) No more is known of the location or manner of his death.

Almost nothing is known of his successor Coenred: Bede notes only his accession on Osred's death in 716, his successor's accession in 718, and the fact that he was the brother of Ceolwulf, who was king when Bede was writing (HE, v.22-23). A genealogy of Ceolwulf appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 731, which shows descent back to Ida but not through any more recent kings, so Coenred and Ceolwulf were probably only distantly related to Osred.

716. Ceolred of Mercia dies
Æthelbald, grandson of Eowa, succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Æthelbald was the son of Alweo, the son of Eowa, the son of Pybba (ASC 716), so his ancestry goes back not to Penda but to his brother Eowa. During the reign of Ceolred, who was descended from Penda, Æthelbald was in exile. Felix's near-contemporary Life of St Guthlac reports Æthelbald's several visits to the hermit Guthlac, once in the company of Wilfrid (chapter 40), and on one occasion Guthlac comforted Æthelbald, assuring him that Ceolred would soon die and Æthelbald would assume his rightful place as lord of the Mercians (chapter 49).

Bede remarks famously that by 731, all the southern kingdoms up to the Humber were subject to Æthelbald of Mercia (HE, v.23; Bede names specifically Kent, the kingdom of Essex, the East Angles, the West Saxons, the kingdom of the Mercians and those west of the Severn (the Magonsætan), the kingdom of the Hwicce and the kingdom of Lindsey). Corroboration of some of this appears in the entries for c.670-c.790 (for the rulers of the Hwicce signing as Æthelbald's subkings), 725-760s (for Mercians being appointed as archbishop of Canterbury in Kent), 726 (for Æthelheard of Wessex appearing in Æthelbald's entourage). Several charters granting freedom from tolls show that Æthelbald had important commercial interests in London (see Kelly for discussion). The same impression of wide powers is given by the famous Ismere charter of 736 (S 89), where Æthelbald is called in the text "ruler not only of the Mercians but of all the provinces that go by the general name of 'South English'", and "ruler of Britain" in the witness-list.

Æthelbald occupied West Saxon Somerton in 733, and devastated Northumbria (perhaps burning York) while Eadberht of Northumbria was off fighting the Picts in 740. In 743 Æthelbald and Cuthred of Wessex both fought the Britons, with Cuthred perhaps acting under Æthelbald's orders. However, Cuthred was not quiet under the Mercian yoke, and fought Æthelbald in 750 and managed to put him to flight in 752. The West Saxons may have been back under some sort of control in 757, given that a charter of Æthelbald's from that year gives him the style "king not only of the Mercians but also of surrounding peoples" and includes the attestation of Cynewulf of Wessex (S 96). Æthelbald was killed in 757.

In about 747, Boniface and seven other missionary bishops wrote a letter to Æthelbald (EHD 177), praising his good works and alms-giving and keeping the peace, and blaming him for not taking a wife but instead fornicating with nuns, and also for violating the privileges of churches and stealing their revenues. In response, Æthelbald issued a charter in 749 which stated clearly and at length that the churches should be free of all forms of public taxation, and churchmen free of all works and burdens, save those which are exacted from everyone (S 92; see Keynes for discussion).

S. Kelly, "Trading privileges from eighth-century England", Early Medieval Europe 1(1) (1992), pp.3-28

S. Keynes, "The reconstruction of a burnt Cottonian manuscript: The case of Cotton MS. Otho A. I", British Library Journal 22.2, pp.113-60

718. Coenred of Northumbria dies
Osric (perhaps Aldfrith's son?) succeeds to Northumbria

Bede reports that Osric died in 729, after ruling for eleven years (HE, v.23), which puts his accession in 718. His ancestry is unknown, but the similarity of his name with that of the earlier king Osred (705-16), Aldfrith's son, suggests the possibility that he was another son of Aldfrith and Osred's brother (q.v. the sons of Æthelwulf of Wessex in the mid-9th century: Æthelstan, Æthelbald, Æthelberht, Æthelred, and Alfred), though this relationship is not mentioned in the sources before the 12th century (Reginald of Durham's Vita S. Oswaldi, chapter 21).

721-5. Internal divisions in Wessex
(Æthelburh demolishes Taunton; Ine fights the South Saxons)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five events in 721-5 that suggest a power-struggle in Wessex. In 721, Ine killed the ætheling Cynewulf. In 722, Queen Æthelburh demolished Taunton, which Ine had built, and the ætheling Ealdberht whom Ine had banished went away to Surrey and Sussex. That same year, Ine fought against the South Saxons, presumably because they were harbouring Ealdberht, and in 725 Ine fought the South Saxons again and killed Ealdberht.

722. Britons defeat the English in three battles

The Annales Cambriae note three battles in 722, that at the river Hayle in Cornwall, the battle of Garth Maelog, and the battle of Pencon "among the south Britons", and notes that the British were victorious in all three. None of these are mentioned in English records.

April 23, 725. Wihtred of Kent dies
725-760s. The kings of Kent

Bede gives the date of Wihtred's death, and notes that he left as heirs three sons, Æthelberht, Eadberht, and Alric (HE, v.23).

No more is known of Alric, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Eadberht, king of Kent, died in 748 and Æthelberht, king of Kent, died in 762. While these two kings are known from the Chronicle, the charters reveal several more kings operating in Kent in this period, and an understanding of the succession is therefore heavily dependent on analysis of the charters. The following discussion is based on that of Kelly, pp.198-203. To sum up, it seems that Æthelberht and Eadberht and their followers ruled jointly. On Eadberht's death in 748, he was succeeded by Eardwulf, and at some point before 762 Eardwulf was probably succeeded by Sigered. On Æthelberht's death in 762, he was succeeded by Eadberht. Later medieval historians confused this second Eadberht (762-4?) with the first (725-48), but Kelly has explained how this confusion came about and demonstrated that there were two separate people. [Eardwulf issues two charters, one of them witnessed by Æthelberht (S 30, dated 762 but this date is impossible since one of the witnesses had died by 760, and S 31, undated). The second Eadberht issues two charters in 762/3 (S 28-9), and Sigered grants estates near Rochester in the early 760s (S 32, dated 762, and S 33, datable to 761?764).]

The fine details are perhaps only of local interest, because Kent had fallen under the control of Offa of Mercia by 764, and was clearly under the shadow of Æthelbald of Mercia (716-57) long before that. Bede notes that in his day (731) the various southern kings were all subject to Æthelbald of Mercia, and he also notes that the archbishop of Canterbury appointed in 731, Tatwine (731-4), was a Mercian (HE, v.31). Tatwine's successor Nothhelm (735-9) was also Mercian, which argues strong Mercian influence if not outright control, though we are less well-informed about the next two archbishops (see Brooks, p.80). There is no reason to believe that Mercian overlordship of Kent wavered between Bede's comment of 731 and Æthelbald's death in 757. Since Offa was not Æthelbald's chosen successor, Kent probably regained its independence after Æthelbald's death in 757, but it was only eight years later that Offa demonstrated Mercian control much more obviously, since in 764 the charters in the names of the kings of Kent cease outright. Aside from a couple of later interludes, where Mercian control wavered and independent Kentish kings reappeared briefly (Ecgberht and Ealhmund in 776-784, Eadberht Præn in 796-8), Kent became a province of Mercia until the 820s, when it was conquered by Wessex in its turn.

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984)

S. Kelly, Charters of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and Minster-in-Thanet (Oxford: 1995)

726. Ine of Wessex retires, goes to Rome
Æthelheard succeeds to the West Saxons; fights rival claimant Oswald

Bede records that at the end of his rule of the West Saxons, Ine went to Rome to spend some time as a pilgrim there before he died (HE, v.7). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Æthelheard succeeded; his relationship to Ine is not known, though some manuscripts note that he was a kinsman. The Chronicle continues that Æthelheard had almost at once to fight the ætheling Oswald, presumably a rival claimant, whose descent is given as the son of Æthelbald, son of Cynebald, son of Cuthwine, son of Ceawlin. (This puts him in the same generation as Cædwalla and Ine's father Cenred, but the nearest common ancestor is Ceawlin's son Cuthwine.) The Chronicle records Oswald's death in 730.

The similarity of name between Æthelheard and Ine's queen Æthelburh opens the possibility that Æthelheard was one of Æthelburh's siblings, and only kin to Ine by marriage. But the name element Æthel- is too common for this to be asserted without other evidence. Æthelheard is the first of five kings (the others are Cuthred, Sigeberht, Cynewulf, and Beorhtric) who hold the kingship of the West Saxons until 802 but do not seem to be related to the main West Saxon royal line (or indeed to each other), though descent from Cerdic is claimed for all of them. (See table at Yorke, p.134).

It seems that without the check provided by the strong kings Ine of Wessex and Wihtred of Kent, and with a strong king Æthelbald installed in Mercia, it was not long before Bede could say that all the Southumbrian kingdoms (including the West Saxons) were subject to Æthelbald of Mercia in 731 (HE, v.23). There are hints of this in other sources: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelbald occupied Somerton in Somerset in 733, and in the 720s or 730s, Æthelheard of Wessex witnesses one of the charters of Æthelbald of Mercia with the note that it is while he was on an expedition against the Welsh across the Severn (S 93). Some parts of this charter cannot be accepted as genuine, but the witness-list is probably acceptable, and gives the impression that Æthelheard was acting as the subordinate of Æthelbald of Mercia (see further Kirby, p.133, and Kelly, Abingdon, on S 93). Æthelheard died in 740. He was probably married to the Queen Frithugyth who went to Rome in 737 according to the Chronicle (see Kelly, St Augustine's, p.37, for notes on the charters which link Æthelheard and Frithugyth).

D. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London: 1991)

S. Kelly, Charters of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and Minster-in-Thanet (Oxford: 1995)

S. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon (Oxford: forthcoming)

B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)

May 9, 729. Osric of Northumbria dies, after appointing Ceolwulf his successor
Ceolwulf, Coenred's brother, succeeds to Northumbria

Bede notes that Osric died on May 9, 729, after reigning eleven years and appointing Ceolwulf, the brother of his predecessor Coenred, as his successor (HE, v.23). The king's appointment is a tantalising glimpse into how the succession was arranged when there were no direct heirs, but the tangled mixture of murder and betrayal which characterises the Northumbrian succession later in the 8th century suggests that only a lack of other contenders allowed Ceolwulf's succession to proceed according to the dead king's wishes. Or perhaps, since Ceolwulf was briefly deprived of his kingdom in 731, and gave it up to his cousin in 737, the opposition in 729 just took a bit longer to get organized.

Ceolwulf was the reigning king when Bede wrote his History and it is he to whom the work is dedicated. When it comes to an account of Ceolwulf's reign, Bede's reaction is similar to that of a modern historian pressed for an analysis of too-recent events: he says that the reign has "been filled with so many and such serious commotions and setbacks that it is as yet impossible to know what to say about them or to guess what the outcome will be" (HE, v.23).

731. Ceolwulf of Northumbria captured and tonsured

This is reported not by Bede himself, but among annals for the early 730s appended to the Moore manuscript of Bede's History: "King Ceolwulf was captured, and tonsured, and returned to his kingdom". No more is known of this incident, and we are left wondering who captured Ceolwulf, and also whether they intended to hold him and set up a different king but were prevented, which leads to the further question of who stopped them, or whether they simply tonsured him as a sign of contempt, an indication that they thought him more fit for running a cloister than a kingdom. Bede, in section nine of his Letter to Ecgberht of 734, speaks approvingly of Ceolwulf's devotion to religious causes, and another continuation to Bede notes that Ceolwulf was tonsured at his own request in 737 and resigned the kingdom. This begins to beg the question of why Osric thought Ceolwulf was an appropriate choice for king in the first place, but Ceolwulf's retirement in 737 may have had as much to do with escaping a thankless and bitterly-contested kingship as with religious vocation.

733. Æthelbald of Mercia occupies (West Saxon) Somerton

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelbald occupied Somerton (in Somerset); Æthelweard's version of the Chronicle adds the detail that Somerton was a royal centre.

735. York becomes the second archbishopric

737. Ceolwulf of Northumbria retires to Lindisfarne
Eadberht, Ceolwulf's cousin, succeeds to Northumbria

A continuation of Bede notes that Ceolwulf was tonsured at his own request and resigned the kingdom to Eadberht, whom we learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (737-8) was the son of Ceolwulf's paternal uncle. (At ASC 731 Ceolwulf is said to be the son of Cutha, son of Cuthwine, son of Leodwold, and so back to Ida, but "Cutha" is probably a duplication of Cuthwine, because another source gives the descent Ceolwulf son of Cuthwine son of Leodwold; at ASC 738, Eadberht is said to be the son of Eata, son of Leodwold.)

Ceolwulf lived on to the early 760s (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts his death in 762, while Simeon of Durham's 12th-century Historia Regum records it under 764). He was remembered as a saint at Lindisfarne, and also as a benefactor who granted an estate and obtained for the monks permission to drink wine or beer instead of the water or milk to which they had been accustomed before (Simeon of Durham, Historia Regum, at 854).

Eadberht expanded his realm to the north and west against the Picts and Britons. He fought the Picts in 740 and 750, and allied with the Picts to fight the Britons in 756. He also had to cope with civil insurrection, starving out a son of Aldfrith who tried to take over while he was in Pictland (see entry on 750). The 12th-century History of the Church of Durham (at ii.3) speaks of the friendship between Eadberht and Pepin the Short (king 751-68). No other evidence of this has survived, but it is not implausible: we do know that Eadberht's successor Alhred (765-74) sent an embassy to Charlemagne (see entry on 765). Eadberht retired in 758 to York, where his brother Ecgberht had been bishop (and later archbishop) since 732.

D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50 (Ceolwulf's genealogy is at p.35)

740. Æthelheard of Wessex dies
Cuthred succeeds to Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records Æthelheard's death in 740. (The eighth-century annals appended to Bede record the death in 739, but as these are Northumbrian rather than local West Saxon annals, and as a reign-length for Æthelheard of 14 years is recorded in the Chronicle and elsewhere, the date 740 is preferred.)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Cuthred succeeded, without giving his lineage (which is not recorded elsewhere either), and adds that he fought stoutly against Æthelbald of Mercia. This can be seen in battles in 750 and probably 752. He also fought against the Britons in 743 (probably as a subordinate of Æthelbald of Mercia) and 753, and against one of his ealdorman in 750. He died in 756.

740. Eadberht of Northumbria fights the Picts
Æthelbald of Mercia devastates Northumbria (burns York?)

The 8th-century annals appended to Bede note that Æthelbald of Mercia treacherously devastated Northumbria while Eadberht of Northumbria was off fighting the Picts. The burning of York is not there mentioned, but is recorded without explanation in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 741 and this should perhaps be associated with Æthelbald's raid.

It is not certain why Æthelbald's raid is called "treacherous": while this may be a natural reaction to any devastating and unprovoked attack, it is also possible that the Northumbrian king tried (and, in the event, failed) to negotiate a peace with his southern neighbours before taking his army to the far north. The raid of 740 may be the first sign of another alliance, between the Mercians and the Picts, which is recorded in the annal for 750.

743. Æthelbald of Mercia and Cuthred of Wessex fight the Britons

This entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle could be interpreted as Æthelbald and Cuthred joining together in an alliance against the Britons (as Burgred of Mercia and Æthelwulf of Wessex came together to do in 853), or as two separate campaigns. The earlier occasion on which Æthelheard of Wessex seems to have been raiding while in the train of Æthelbald of Mercia (see entry on 726) suggests a joint campaign, though under Mercian control rather than the more equal partnerships of the 9th century.

746. Selered of the East Saxons is killed
Swithred, grandson of Sigeheard, succeeds to the East Saxons (?)

Selered's death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Pre-Conquest sources are then silent on the rulership of the East Saxons until the reference to Sigeric going to Rome in 798 . John of Worcester, in the 12th century, notes that Swithred was king of the East Saxons in 758 (perhaps for 760; see Darlington and others, p.201 n.8), and the pre-Conquest East Saxon regnal list does include a Swithred, son of Sigemund, son of Sigeheard (king c.700). Swithred is the only name in the regnal list (actually three regnal lists, covering different branches of the East Saxon line) which fits plausibly between Selered and Sigeric, so it may be that he succeeded in 746.

R. Darlington and others, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, II: The Annals from 450 to 1066 (Oxford: 1995)

747. Council of Clofesho

It has already been noted that in about 747 Boniface wrote to Æthelbald of Mercia urging him to stop violating the privileges of monasteries, and that in 749 Æthelbald responded with a charter of privileges (see entry on 716). Boniface wrote in a similarly admonitory vein to Archbishop Cuthbert, and the result was the Council of Clofesho of 747, attended by Æthelbald, which promulgated thirty canons and a wide-ranging set of reforms.

C. Cubitt, Anglo-Saxon Church Councils c.650-c.850 (London: 1995), pp.99-152

S. Keynes, "The reconstruction of a burnt Cottonian manuscript: The case of Cotton MS. Otho A. I", British Library Journal 22.2, pp.113-60

749. Ælfwald of East Anglia dies
Hun, Beonna, and Æthelberht succeed to East Anglia
749-94. East Anglia in the later 8th century

Simeon of Durham, writing in the 12th century, notes that in 749 Ælfwald died and Hunbeonna and Alberht divided the kingdom between them. Modern editors, based on surviving coins of "Beonna", assume that Simeon or an earlier scribe made a blunder and the division was threefold between Hun, Beonna, and Æthelberht (Alberht). No more is known of Hun, but a single coin of Æthelberht which closely resembles the coins of Beonna has recently been discovered (see Archibald, pp.7-13; this coin shows that "Æthelberht" is the correct expansion of Simeon's Alberht). Almost all of the surviving East Anglian coins of this period are in the name of Beonna, and John of Worcester in his (12th-century) annal for 758/760 (see Darlington and others, p.201 n.8) names only Beonna as king of the East Angles; it may be that the tripartite division was short-lived, followed by a reign of Beonna as sole king of the East Angles.

Beonna's (and Æthelberht's) coins are worth noting because they are the first attempt at a reformed southern coinage after the debasement of the early pennies (see entry on c.675-750 and Grierson and Blackburn, pp.277-8), and also the first southern coins since the gold shilling of Eadbald of Kent to give the name of the issuing king. Beonna's coinage should probably be dated to the later 750s or early 760s, and may represent a bid for East Anglian independence after the death of Æthelbald in 757 (see Archibald, p.7). It is only in the coinage that we can trace the next events in East Anglian history, as Offa starts to issue an East Anglian coinage probably in the later 760s or early 770s. The issues are not precisely datable, and there are no other sources (such as charters) to give us a clearer picture of when Offa took power in Mercia or what happened to Beonna. Offa's East Anglian coinage was later interrupted by the coinage of another Æthelberht of East Anglia, which should probably be associated with the Æthelberht whose execution was ordered by Offa in 794. This murdered Æthelberht was later revered as a saint, and post-Conquest hagiographies note that he came to the throne in 779 and his father Æthelred had ruled before him (see Yorke, p.64). There is no other evidence of Æthelred's existence, nor any corroboration of Æthelberht's rule beyond three of his pennies.

Without more datable references (attestations of Beonna, Æthelred, and Æthelberht in the charters of Offa, or notes in chronicles), it is difficult to sum up East Anglian affairs in the second half of the 8th century. It seems that Hun, Beonna, and Æthelberht succeeded in 749, but probably still under the overall authority of Æthelbald of Mercia. On Æthelbald's death in 757 the East Angles made a bid for independence, and at least Beonna and Æthelberht issued coins in their own names. Very shortly afterwards, Beonna was recognized as the main (or the only) East Anglian king; but probably within ten years East Anglia had again fallen under the overlordship of Offa, and Beonna's coinage in his own name was discontinued. Beonna may have survived as a subking, though he attests none of Offa's charters, and this sub-kingship may have passed on to the second Æthelberht's father Æthelred, and then on to Æthelberht himself. Later, perhaps in the early 790s, Æthelberht made a renewed bid for East Anglian independence and started to issue coin in his own name, and Offa ordered his execution in 794. This would cow the East Angles until Offa's own death, when they would make another bid for independence under Eadwald (see entry on 796).

A coin of Beonna of East Anglia, by the moneyer Efe. Note that the king's name on the front (below left) is written partly in runes; it reads "Beonna rex".

M. Archibald and others, "A Sceat of Ethelbert I of East Anglia and Recent Finds of Coins of Beonna", British Numismatic Journal 65 (1995), pp.1-19

R. Darlington and others, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, II: The Annals from 450 to 1066 (Oxford: 1995) [see p.201 n.8 on whether the 758 annal should be redated to 760]

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)

750. Eadberht of Northumbria adds the plains of Kyle and other lands to his kingdom
Offa, perhaps a son of Aldfrith, tries and fails to claim Northumbria

The 8th-century annals appended to Bede briefly note some additions to Northumbria. The fact that the plains of Kyle are in Ayrshire, far beyond the normal borders of Northumbria, shows that a great and sustained military campaign should probably be assumed to lie behind the brief references to Eadberht's northern conquests in 740, 750 and 756.

As before in 740, however, when Eadberht got too far away from Northumbria, trouble arose at home. None of the contemporary sources report it, but the 12th-century historian Simeon of Durham notes in his Historia Regum under 750 that Offa, the son of Aldfrith, was forced to take refuge at the relics of St Cuthbert (at Lindisfarne), and was dragged unarmed from thence almost dead with hunger (see EHD 3, p.265). The 12th-century History of the Church of Durham adds the details (at ii.1) that this Offa was of the royal family, that he was killed after being dragged from sanctuary, and that Eadberht, highly displeased, imprisoned Cynewulf, the bishop of Lindisfarne.

Simeon does not explain these curious events, but the simplest explanation is probably that in Eadberht's absence Offa tried to claim the kingdom, with the support of the bishop of Lindisfarne. Only the sorry end of the revolt is recorded by Simeon, the defeat and death of the pretender, but in claiming descent from Aldfrith, Offa would have been appealing to loyalty to the old royal house of Northumbria, which had ruled long before the descendents of Leodwold, Eadberht and Ceolwulf and Coenred. If such loyalty was there to be tapped, and the complicity of the bishop of Lindisfarne suggests it was, this opens up further possibilities as to who might have captured and tonsured the "upstart" Ceolwulf back in 731.

750. Cuthred of Wessex fights Æthelbald of Mercia and Ealdorman Æthelhun

The eighth-century annals appended to Bede note a battle between Cuthred of Wessex and Æthelbald of Mercia in 750. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports a fight between Cuthred and Æthelbald under 752 (which may be a misdated version of the battle of 750 or may be another battle), and notes under 750 that Cuthred fought against the arrogant Ealdorman Æthelhun.

Nothing more is known of Æthelhun: he does not appear in the few surviving West Saxon or Mercian charters from the mid-eighth century. There is no way of telling whether he was allied with the Mercians (or was himself a Mercian ealdorman, in which case the post-Bedan annals and the Chronicle presumably refer to the same battle), or whether he was staging an internal uprising among the West Saxons (perhaps seizing the moment when Cuthred was distracted by his campaign against Mercia).

752. Cuthred of Wessex defeats Æthelbald of Mercia at Beorhford

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Cuthred of Wessex fought Æthelbald of Mercia at Beorhford (unidentified), and put him to flight. As noted under 750, this may be a misdated reference to the battle of 750, but given the Chronicle's comment at the beginning of Cuthred's reign that he fought stoutly against Æthelbald, it may well be another battle.

753. Cuthred of Wessex fights the Britons

August 1, 756. Eadberht of Northumbria and Angus of the Picts defeat the Britons at Dunbarton
August 10, 756. Most of Eadberht's army destroyed

This battle is not mentioned in the annals appended to Bede or the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is Simeon of Durham, writing in the 12th century, who first notes this alliance of the Northumbrians and the Picts against the Britons of Strathclyde, and the fact that the Britons accepted terms at Dunbarton on August 1. Simeon goes on to note that almost the whole of Eadberht's army was destroyed on August 10, without offering any explanation: we cannot say whether the Britons reneged on their agreement and attacked, or whether the alliance between Northumbrians and Picts fell apart on the way back from Dunbarton.

756. Cuthred of Wessex dies
Sigeberht succeeds to Wessex

Sigeberht appears as a negligible figure in West Saxon history: he succeeded on Cuthred's death, but was deposed the following year for "unjust acts". Almost nothing is known about him save his treacherous reputation and the manner of his death (see entry on 757).

756. Canterbury burnt down

757. Sigeberht of Wessex deposed by Cynewulf and the counsellors of the West Saxons
Cynewulf succeeds to Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates how Cynewulf and the counsellors of the West Saxons deprived Sigeberht of the kingdom because of his unjust acts, all except for Hampshire. Sigeberht remained in Hampshire until he killed Cumbra, the ealdorman who had been most loyal to him, and then Cynewulf drove Sigeberht into the Weald, where he was slain by a swineherd. Cynewulf then ruled for 29 years, until he was himself slain by Sigeberht's brother Cyneheard (see entry under 786).

The Chronicle adds that Cynewulf often fought great battles against the Britons. This keeps up the tradition of his predecessor Cuthred (in 743 and 753), though Cynewulf's battles against the Britons are not individually recorded.

Cynewulf's relations with the Mercians are more difficult to follow. In the first couple of years of his reign, Cynewulf witnesses a charter of Æthelbald of Mercia in 757 (S 96), and his own earliest charter is confirmed by Offa of Mercia in c.758 (S 265); this may imply some West Saxon dependence on the Mercians. Another charter of Offa's of 772 (S 108) is witnessed both by Cynewulf of the West Saxons and by Ecgberht of Kent. However, Cynewulf's other five charters (S 260-4, from 758 to 778) make no mention of Mercian overlordship, and Cynewulf fought Offa at Bensington in 779. Cynewulf attended the meeting with the papal legates with Offa in 786, but the report of the legates gives us no hint as to the relations between Offa and Cynewulf at that point. It seems likely that Cynewulf maintained West Saxon independence after the first couple of years of his reign, but his appearance in a charter of Offa of 772 suggests how precarious and hard-fought that independence may have been.

757. Æthelbald of Mercia killed
Beornred succeeds to Mercia, briefly
Offa succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelbald was killed at Seckington and that his body was buried at Repton. It adds that Beornred succeeded to the kingdom but ruled only for a short time and unhappily, and that in the same year Offa came to the throne. Offa's descent is given through Penda's brother Eowa. Simeon of Durham in the 12th century adds the detail that Æthelbald was killed by his own bodyguard.

While earlier kings of Mercia expanded beyond the borders of Mercia proper (e.g. Penda, Wulfhere, Æthelbald), it was under Offa that this expansion reached its greatest extent, involving not just overlordship but direct control over many of the other English kingdoms and marriages with daughters of Offa for the kings of the two kingdoms (Wessex and Northumbria) that lay outside of Mercian rule.

Already in 757 Offa was confirming the charters of the rulers of the neighbouring Hwicce, and by the 790s that ruling family seems to have vanished altogether (see entry on c.670-c.790). Offa may also have had some control of Wessex early on, but Cynewulf seems to have ruled freely for much of his reign (see entry on Cynewulf's accession in 757); the two clashed at Bensington in 779. Offa took control of Kent in 764, lost it again at the battle of Otford in 776, and regained it in 784/5. It was probably shortly after Offa took Kent that he introduced a reformed coinage based on the Frankish model (see entry on c.765); a second coinage reform was made probably in 792. Offa took control of Sussex in about 771, and his control of East Anglia, though it cannot be precisely dated because it is recorded only in the coins, probably dates to the 760s or early 770s (see entry on 749-74). When the East Anglian king Æthelberht tried to declare independence in about 794, Offa had him beheaded.

Offa was married to Cynethryth, who is the only Anglo-Saxon queen to have coins issued in her own name, apparently following the model of the contemporary Byzantine empress Irene (see Grierson and Blackburn, pp.279-80). They had at least three daughters: Eadburh, who married Beorhtric of Wessex in 789, Ælfflæd, who married Æthelred of Northumbria in 792, and Æthelburh, an abbess. The later legends of Æthelberht of East Anglia note that he had hopes of marrying a fourth, Ælfthryth, and an uncertain charter mentions three more daughters (S 127). Only one son is known, Ecgfrith: Offa worked strenuously to ensure that Ecgfrith should succeed him, going so far as to have Ecgfrith consecrated as king while he (Offa) was still alive, following the recent Frankish precedent. It may have been the unwillingness of the archbishop of Canterbury in occupied Kent to oblige Offa on this point which resulted in Offa's scheme to create a third English archbishopric, at Lichfield within Mercia (see entry on 787). Doubtless the papal legates who visited in 786 were involved in negotiations on this point.

Offa enjoyed good relations with the great Frankish king Charlemagne: gifts were exchanged, and in one letter Charlemagne calls Offa "brother" (the only time he uses the term for another western king; see Wormald, p.101). Relations were nearly broken off c.790, probably because Charlemagne was harbouring Offa's political enemies, but were restored later.

Offa's best-known memorial today, the Dyke, leaves no trace in the narrative records, but the continuing battles with the Welsh that accompanied its creation are noted under 760, 778, 784, and 795.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

P. Wormald in J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (London: 1982), pp.101-28

758. Eadberht of Northumbria retires to a monastery
Oswulf, Eadberht's son, succeeds to Northumbria
July 25, 759. Oswulf of Northumbria slain by his household
August 5, 759. Æthelwold Moll succeeds to Northumbria

The 8th-century annals appended to Bede note that Eadberht retired to a cloister in 758 and resigned the throne to his son Oswulf, and that in 759 Oswulf was treacherously killed by his thegns and Æthelwold was elected by the people and began to rule. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle adds that Oswulf was killed on July 24/25 (some manuscripts give "24", some "25"). Simeon of Durham in his Historia Regum under 759 adds that Æthelwold Moll began to reign on August 5. (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records Eadberht's death on August 20, 769; Simeon of Durham adds that it was at York.)

Nothing more is known of Oswulf's short reign. His successor Æthelwold seems to have been the first member of his family to achieve power: no genealogy showing his descent back to Ida or other early kings has survived. That this innovation was bitterly contested is shown in a severe battle of 761, where Æthelwold kills one Oswine (perhaps related to Oswulf?), in Æthelwold's own expulsion in 765, and in the expulsion of his son in 778. Northumbrian politics were not notably peaceful earlier in the 8th century -- Osred may have been murdered in 716, and Ceolwulf was captured and tonsured in 731 -- but the killings and quick reverses of fortune do seem to escalate out of all control in the second half of the 8th century. A similar fluidity is seen in the mid-10th century, when York seems able to choose and expel rulers -- King Eadred, Erik Bloodaxe, Olaf Cuaran -- with what to the rest of the country probably looked like alarming ease and rapidity (see entry on 947-54).

Simeon of Durham records that Æthelwold married an Æthelthryth on November 1, 762, at Catterick. There are four Æthelthryths in the list of queens and abbesses in the Durham Liber Vitae, and Æthelwold's queen is very likely one of them.

760. Battle at Hereford between Britons and Saxons

The Annales Cambriae record this battle (probably but not explicitly involving Offa of Mercia, given the location), and note the death of Dyfnwal son of Tewdwr.

August 6, 761. Battle of Eildon (or "Edwin's Cliff"): Æthelwold of Northumbria kills Oswine

The 8th-century annals appended to Bede note that Oswine died in 761, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Moll (Æthelwold) killed Oswine at "Edwin's cliff" on August 6, and Simeon of Durham adds in his Historia Regum that a very severe battle was fought at Eildon on 6 August, that after three days Oswine fell, and that Æthelwold obtained the victory in battle.

We do not know who Oswine was, but in light of the strong probability that Æthelwold was involved in the killing of King Oswulf in 759, that Oswulf's kinsman Alhred would drive out Æthelwold in 765, and that Oswulf's son Ælfwold would drive out Æthelwold's son Æthelred in 779, it seems reasonably likely that the battle in 761 was part of this continuing civil war, and from the similarity of names it may well be that Oswine was a kinsman of the murdered Oswulf, seeking revenge.

764. Offa of Mercia takes direct control over Kent

A charter of 764 (S 105) gives the earliest direct evidence of Mercian control over Kent, in which Offa of Mercia grants an estate to the bishop of Rochester which had previously been granted by an earlier Kentish king. Kings of Kent were issuing charters without reference to Mercia earlier in the 760s (S 25, 27, 32, 33), so the takeover can probably be dated fairly closely to 764, though the circumstances are unclear. For the next twelve years, the only charter issued by a Kentish king (S 34 of 765) is confirmed by Offa. It also seems clear that Offa lost control of Kent after the battle of Otford in 776.

c.765. Offa of Mercia introduces reformed silver coinage

October 30, 765. Battle of Pincanheale: Æthelwold driven from Northumbria
Alhred, descended from Ida, succeeds to Northumbria

The 8th-century annals appended to Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle note only that Alhred began to rule in 765; Simeon of Durham's Historia Regum adds the details of the battle of Pincanheale (unidentified) and the expulsion of Æthelwold Moll. A genealogy of Alhred survives which traces descent back to Ida but none of the other names are known from earlier sources so it is impossible to say how closely related Alhred was to Æthelwold's predecessor Oswulf. Alhred was exiled in turn and replaced by Æthelwold's son in 774.

Alhred is best known for his involvement in Continental affairs. There is a surviving letter (EHD 197) from Alhred and his wife Osgifu requesting the prayers of Lul, archbishop of Mainz (but English by birth and a kinsman of Boniface), and asking him to forward their embassy to the Frankish king Charlemagne. Simeon of Durham records the marriage of Alhred and Osgifu in 768. It was also from an assembly summoned by Alhred that the mission of St Willehad set out, which led to the foundation of the Continental archbishopric of Bremen. And it was in Alhred's reign that the most famous Northumbrian scholar of them all, Alcuin, took his place as master at the school in York (in 767); he would go on to join Charlemagne's court in 781/2 (see Godman).

P. Godman (ed.), Alcuin: The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of York (Oxford: 1982)

Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: 1971), pp.92-3

769. Catterick burnt by the tyrant Earnred

This reference appears only in Simeon of Durham, who adds that Earnred himself perished miserably by fire in the same year. It is mentioned mainly because an even more cryptic note in the annals appended to Bede says that in 741 Earnwine and Eadberht were killed. There may then have been a family of some importance in mid-8th-century Northumbria which favoured names beginning Earn-, at least one of whom (the "tyrant" Earnred) was in a position of authority, which has now almost entirely vanished. Anglo-Saxon history is full of puzzles like this: sometimes, as in the case of Offa, Aldfrith's son, being dragged from sanctuary in 750, enough pieces remain that the picture can be recovered, but sometimes, as with Earnred and his family, only fleeting glimpses remain.

771. Offa of Mercia conquers the people of Hastings (Sussex)

This conquest is first mentioned by Simeon of Durham in the 12th century. The "people of Hastings" referred not merely to the town but to a district of eastern Sussex. The fall of the South Saxons to Offa is also neatly demonstrated in the fact that an Osmund, king of the South Saxons, issued his own charter in 770 (S 49) but was reduced to witnessing a charter of Offa as ealdorman in 772 (S 108).

Easter, 774. Alhred of Northumbria driven out
Æthelred, son of Æthelwold Moll, chosen as king of Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that at Easter 774 the Northumbrians drove their king Alhred from York and took as their king Æthelred, son of Æthelwold Moll. Simeon of Durham adds that Alhred fled with a few companions, first to Bamburgh, and then to the land of the Picts.

This is the first of Æthelred's two reigns. His father Æthelwold reigned from 759 until 765, when he was exiled. Æthelred reigned from 774 until 778/9, when he was exiled in his turn; he was was reinstated in 790, and finally killed in 796. Nothing is known of the earlier history of the family before Æthelwold, but it seems likely that Æthelwold was involved in the killing of the previous king, Oswulf. The killing of three Northumbrian high-reeves in 778 at Æthelred's orders looks like Æthelred pre-emptively removing threats to his reign, and reaction to this may have caused his first expulsion. In his second reign he was much more thorough about removing the opposition from the beginning.

776. Battle of Otford: Offa of Mercia loses control of Kent until 784/5
Kings Ecgberht, then Ealhmund, rule Kent

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes only that the Mercians and the people of Kent fought at Otford, without giving the outcome. It is from the four charters issued by independent kings of Kent in the years after 776 (S 35-8) that we can deduce that Otford was a Kentish victory. S 35 (dated 778), S 36 (dated 779) and S 37 (not precisely dated) are in the name of King Ecgberht, while S 38 (dated 784) is in the name of King Ealhmund. (For more on Ealhmund, see entry on 825.) The changeover between Ecgberht and Ealhmund cannot be dated more precisely than 779?784.

778. Offa of Mercia raids Dyfed in Wales

This raid is recorded only in the Annales Cambriae, which note "The devastation of the Southern Britons [i.e. Dyfed in South Wales] by Offa".

778/9. Æthelbald and Heardberht kill three Northumbrian high-reeves
Æthelred of Northumbria driven out
Ælfwold, Oswulf's son, succeeds to Northumbria
December 25, 779. Northumbrian ealdorman Beorn burnt alive

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in 778 Æthelbald and Heardberht killed three high-reeves, Ealdwulf, son of Bosa, at Coniscliffe (Durham), and Cynewulf and Ecga at Helathirnum (unidentified), on 22 March. Simeon of Durham dates these events to 29 September (perhaps the killings at Coniscliffe were in March and those at Helathirnum in September, or vice versa), and adds that it was done on the orders of Æthelred. Contemporary sources neither confirm nor deny this, but the fact that Ælfwold then succeeded to the kingdom and drove Æthelred from the country suggests that he was seen to be responsible. The Chronicle reports Ælfwold's accession under 778, while Simeon places it under 779, adding the information that Ælfwold was the son of Oswulf, who had been killed (probably at the instigation of Æthelred's father Æthelwold) in 758.

That Ælfwold's accession did not end the disputes is suggested from the fact that on December 25, 779, the ealdorman Beorn was burnt at Seletun (unidentified). This is all the information reported by the Chronicle; Simeon adds that Beorn was one of Ælfwold's nobles, and burnt by the ealdormen Osbald and Æthelheard, who led an army against him as well. This Osbald may well be the same as the one who was king of Northumbria for about a month in 796 after the death of Æthelred, and based on a letter from Alcuin he might have been involved in Æthelred's death as well (see under 796). The Ealdorman Æthelheard noted here may be the one whose death on August 1, 794, is reported in the Chronicle.

The Chronicle reports no more of the secular events of Ælfwold's reign, though we know from the report of the papal legates in 786 that they met with Ælfwold and his archbishop (see entry on 786), and the emphasis in the legatine canons on loyalty to the king should have been a welcome boost to Ælfwold's safety. Unfortunately he was killed two years later (see entry on 788).

779. Battle of Bensington: Offa of Mercia defeats Cynewulf of Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Cynewulf and Offa fought over Bensington and Offa captured the town.

784. Offa of Mercia raids Wales

This raid is recorded only in the Annales Cambriae, which note "The devastation of the Britons by Offa in the summer".

784/5. Offa of Mercia regains control of Kent

As with Offa's earlier conquest of Kent in 764, there is no narrative account of how Offa took over, but the fact is clear from the documentary sources. From a charter (S 38) and a late manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we known that a King Ealhmund reigned in Kent in 784. In 785, however, Offa was granting land in Kent with no reference to a Kentish king (S 123), and this continued into the 780s and 790s (e.g. S 125, 128, 134). On Offa's death, Kent regained its independence for two years under Eadberht Præn before returning to the Mercian yoke.

786. Papal legates visit England

In 786, Pope Hadrian sent his legates George, bishop of Ostia, and Theophylact, bishop of Todi, to England, apparently to investigate the state of the English church and root out any heresy that might be found there. A report of the legates survives (EHD 191), and from it we can see that they first visited Jænberht, archbishop of Canterbury, then the court of Offa, then on to a joint council with Offa of Mercia and Cynewulf of Wessex, at which both English kings promised to make needful reforms. Then Theophylact continued his visits in Mercia and Wales, while George went up to Northumbria, where he was joined by Alcuin for his meeting with King Ælfwold and Archbishop Eanbald of York. In Northumbria George produced a set of twenty canons, dealing with both religious and secular affairs. These were witnessed by the Northumbrians, and then taken back to Offa's court and witnessed there also. The following year saw synods both in southern England and in Northumbria.

From a letter of Pope Leo to Offa's successor Coenwulf in 798 (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, III.523-5), we learn that Offa vowed before a synod including the papal envoys and all the bishops and nobles of Britain that he would send each year 365 mancuses (a mancus was a coin worth 30 pence) to Rome as a sign of thanksgiving to St Peter. One suspects that Offa was giving thanks not merely for the legates' efforts in suppressing heresy, but also for the papal approval he had secured for his moves in the following year, when he would establish a third English archbishopric at Lichfield, and have his son Ecgfrith anointed (see entries for 787). There is no direct evidence that the legates concerned themselves with this, but it seems a reasonable assumption given that papal approval would certainly be necessary for the creation of a new archbishopric. The several references in the twelfth canon to the king as the lord's anointed would be interpreted by Offa's circle as referring to Ecgfrith's anointing the following year, whether that was the original intention or not.

Catherine Cubitt has recently argued that the canons were partly the work of Alcuin of Northumbria, and so more closely related to Northumbrian affairs: certainly the emphasis on loyalty to the king in canons eleven to fourteen addresses a severe shortcoming in contemporary northern affairs, as the entries on 758/9, 765, 774, 778/9, 788, make quite clear. One might also remember Alhred of Northumbria's mission to Charlemagne as a point of contact between Northumbria and the Continent (see entry on 765).

A letter from Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne written probably a year or two before the visit of the legates mentions a rumour that Offa had proposed to dethrone the Pope (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, III.440-3), and although Charlemagne reassured the Pope that the rumour was completely untrue, curiosity as to how it came about may have been another reason for sending Roman envoys to Britain, the first since the mission of Augustine back in 597. (For a possible explanation of the rumour, see entry on 787.)

786. Cynewulf of Wessex killed by Cyneheard
Beorhtric succeeds to Wessex

The story of the fight of Cyneheard and Cynewulf in 786, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is a set-piece of Anglo-Saxon loyalty and courage. This is the way of it.

After Cynewulf had ruled for nearly 30 years, he wanted to drive out the ætheling Cyneheard, who was the brother of the deposed Sigeberht (see entry on 757). Cyneheard discovered that King Cynewulf was at Merton visiting a woman with only a small following, and overtook him there and surrounded him before Cynewulf's guards were aware of him. The king discovered this, and went to the doorway and defended himself there until he saw Cyneheard the ætheling, whereupon he rushed out and wounded him severely, but the others were able to surround him and kill him. The king's men were alerted by the woman's cries and armed themselves for battle and ran to the spot. The ætheling told them that he would give them money and spare their lives if they backed down, but all refused, and they continued to fight until all (the king's men) were killed except for one British hostage, and he was sorely wounded.

The next morning the rest of the king's men, who had not accompanied him to Merton, including his ealdorman Osric and his thegn Wigfrith, rode thither and discovered that the ætheling held the fort and had barred the doors against them. The ætheling offered them money and land on their own terms, if they would accept him as king, and pointed out that kinsmen of theirs (the king's men) were with him (the ætheling). The king's men replied that no kinsman was dearer to them than their lord, and they would never follow his slayer. And then the king's men told their kinsmen within that they might leave unharmed. But the kinsmen who were with the ætheling said that the same offer had been made to the men who had been with the king, and that they would not accept the bargain, any more than the men who had been slain with the king had. Then there was fighting at the gates until the king's men broke in, and killed the ætheling and all who were with him, save one, who was Ealdorman Osric's godson, and saved by Osric, though he was often wounded.

It has long been assumed that tales of loyalty to the point of refusing to outlive one's slain lord were dear to the hearts of the Anglo-Saxons, from their appearance both here and (much more explicitly) in the poem celebrating the battle of Maldon in 991. Rosemary Woolf has pointed out, however, that these are the only two surviving examples, and even in the poem Beowulf characters take a more pragmatic view (Hengest saw the death of his lord as something which required vengeance, not a heroic death); she also noted that Cynewulf's men are not refusing to live on after the death of their lord so much as refusing to help their lord's killer become the next king. This does not make it any the less a tale of loyalty and courage, and as Woolf remarks, "any king would wish to have followers such as Cynewulf had" (p.71), but it does change the emphasis.

Another possible point of confusion is the word here translated as "visiting a woman", which appears only this once in Old English and which Æthelweard in the 10th century translated into Latin as "residing with a certain whore". Don Scragg has recently pointed out that Æthelweard misunderstood other parts of the annal and there is no reason to assume sexual misdemeanors, nor for that matter any reason why the "woman" should not be Cynewulf's wife: elsewhere in the Chronicle, Cynewulf is always portrayed in a good light (witness the way he deposes Sigeberht in 757 with the assent of the council rather than on his own), and the brothers Cyneheard and Sigeberht are only seen engaging in "unjust acts" (be it killing loyal ealdormen or trying to buy the kingship).

After both Cynewulf and Cyneheard were dead, Beorhtric succeeded to the kingdom. Nothing is known of his lineage, save the claim that it goes back to Cerdic. In 789 he married Offa's daughter Eadburh, and it was perhaps with Offa's assistance that he was able to exile his rival Ecgberht. It was also early in Beorhtric's reign that the first Vikings ships came to the land of the English (see entry on c.790). Beorhtric died in 802.

D. Scragg, "Wifcyþþe and the Morality of the Cynewulf and Cyneheard Episode in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", Alfred the Wise: Studies in honour of Janet Bately (Cambridge: 1997), pp.179-85

R. Woolf, "The ideal of men dying with their lord in the Germania and in The Battle of Maldon", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.63-81

787. Synod of Chelsea: Lichfield established as third archbishopric
Ecgfrith, son of Offa of Mercia, consecrated king

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that there was a contentious synod at Chelsea, and Archbishop Jænberht lost part of his province, and Hygeberht was chosen by King Offa, and Ecgfrith was consecrated king.

The third archbishopric at Lichfield existed from the Synod of Chelsea in 787 until it was demoted back to a bishopric at the Synod of Clofesho in 803. Hygeberht was the first and only archbishop. Most of what we know about the see comes from letters written in the five years before it is abolished. Alcuin writes to Æthelheard, archbishop of Canterbury, in 798 (EHD 203), suggesting that it would be good if the unity of the (southern English) church could be restored, given that it was apparently torn asunder not out of reasonable motives but out of a desire for power. In the same year Offa's successor Coenwulf wrote to Pope Leo III (EHD 204), noting that Offa had divided the southern archdiocese in two because of his enmity against Archbishop Jænberht and the people of Kent. Pope Leo replied (EHD 205) that Offa had told the previous pope that it was the united wish of all the English people that there should be a new southern archbishopric, both because of the vast size of the country and of the expansion of the Mercian kingdom. (Pope Leo incidentally quashed Coenwulf's suggestion that the southern archdiocese be placed in London rather than restored to Canterbury; this had been a clever ploy of Coenwulf's, because while he claimed that he was trying to restore Pope Gregory's original choice for the southern see, his more pragmatic reason would be that London was much more under Mercian control than Canterbury had been.) The Pope wrote to Æthelheard of Canterbury on January 18, 802 (EHD 209), confirming the ancient privileges of the see of Canterbury, and this ruling was confirmed by the 803 Synod of Clofesho.

It seems clear then that Offa convinced Pope Hadrian that the division of the see was because Southumbrian England was too large for a single archbishopric, but that he misrepresented this as a unanimous view, and that his underlying reasons included enmity with Jænberht and the people of Kent. The fact that the Chronicle notes that Ecgfrith was consecrated king immediately after it notes the new archbishopric may suggest that the Kentish archbishop, Jænberht, refused to consecrate Ecgfrith. Jænberht might well have feared that the anointing of a Mercian prince by the archbishop of Canterbury might be seen as conferring hereditary rule over all of southern England, including Kent which had been independent until Offa re-occupied it two years previously (see Brooks, pp.119-20).

The enmity between Offa and Jænberht raises the possibility that it was Jænberht who started the rumour that surfaced in about 784 that Offa planned to dethrone the pope, as part of a plan to discredit Offa in the Papal Curia and ensure that any suggestion from the Mercian king about changing the arrangement of bishoprics should fall on deaf (or enraged) ears. (See entry on 786 for the background to this rumour, which may have helped prompt the dispatch of the papal legates to England.)

Ecgfrith was the first Anglo-Saxon whom we know to have been anointed as king (Eardwulf of Northumbria in 796 is the next known case). This anointing of the son of a reigning king during the king's lifetime follows the example of Charlemagne, who in 781 sent his two sons to be anointed by the pope (see Brooks, p.117). Offa's own example shows that the Mercian kingship was not always handed down in the immediate family (the closest common ancestor of Offa and his predecessor Æthelbald was Eowa, Penda's brother and Offa's great-great-grandfather), and he may well have felt that his son needed as much support as he could give him. After his anointing, Ecgfrith often witnesses at least two of Offa's charters as "Ecgfrith king" or even "Ecgfrith king of the Mercians" (S 129, 131) after his father's attestation, another clear sign that Offa associated his son with the royal power and intended to pass the kingship to his son. Alcuin implied in a letter written after Offa and Ecgfrith were both dead that Offa also killed many other claimants to ensure his son's succession (EHD 202), and it is clear that Alcuin regarded Ecgfrith's short reign as divine vengeance for the deaths compassed by his father.

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984)

September 2, 787. Northumbrian synod at Pincanheale

This synod is noted in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; nothing is known of the proceedings, but they very probably centred on the twenty canons drawn up by the papal legate the previous year.

September 23, 788. Ælfwold of Northumbria killed by Sicga
Osred, Alhred's son and Ælfwold's nephew, succeeds to Northumbria

The Chronicle notes that on September 23 Ælfwold of Northumbria was killed by Sicga, and a heavenly light was seen where he was killed, and he was buried at Hexham, and that Osred, Alhred's son and Ælfwold's nephew, succeeded to the kingdom. Simeon of Durham adds that Sicga had formed a conspiracy to kill Ælfwold, that the death took place at Scythlescester (probably Chesters, a station by Hadrian's Wall), and that because of the light from heaven seen in that place a church was built there by the local faithful, in honour of God, St Cuthbert and St Oswald (another murdered Northumbrian king).

Sicga was probably the most important secular Northumbrian nobleman after the king: he is the first lay witness after the king to the legatine canons of 786, somewhat ironically since these emphasize loyalty to one's lord so strongly. The Chronicle notes that he died on February 23, 793, while Simeon adds that he died by his own hand and was conveyed to Lindisfarne on April 23. One has to wonder if any thoughtful Northumbrians saw a message in the sacking of Lindisfarne by Vikings a little over a month after they took in the body of a man who killed his king in defiance of the legatine canons he had sworn to uphold. A letter of Alcuin written after the sack suggests that the connection might have been drawn, though Alcuin was writing in very general terms (EHD 194: Alcuin suggests the sins of the community at Lindisfarne may have called the disaster upon them; but see further the entry on Æthelred's accession in 790).

Almost nothing is known of Osred's reign. He was supplanted and forced into exile by the returning Æthelred in 790, and killed when he attempted to reclaim the kingdom in 792.

789. Beorhtric of Wessex marries Eadburh, daughter of Offa of Mercia
Ecgberht of Wessex into exile in France

From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (839) we learn that Beorhtric and Offa had driven Ecgberht of Wessex into exile in France for three years after Beorhtric married Offa's daughter (so presumably in 789).

c.790. Conflict between Offa of Mercia and Charlemagne

From a letter of Alcuin to Colcu (EHD 192), we learn that dissension had lately arisen between Offa of Mercia and Charlemagne, such that each ruler refused landfall to the ships and merchants of the other. Alcuin had heard rumours that he would be sent back to England to help negotiate a peace.

The Acts of the Abbots of Fontenelle (EHD 20), written some forty years later, explain that the cause of the conflict was that Charlemagne had sought Offa's daughter as a wife for his son, and that Offa had replied that this might only be if Offa's son might wed Charlemagne's daughter Bertha. Charlemagne apparently grew furious, and ordered that no English ships be allowed to land on the coast of Gaul, but was restrained by the wise counsel of the abbot of Fontenelle.

Another possible cause of the conflict might be that Charlemagne was harbouring enemies of Offa who had been driven from England. That this did happen we know from letters Charlemagne wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury and to Offa himself (EHD 196 and 197). Ecgberht of Wessex, who was exiled to France in about 789 (see entry), might have sheltered at Charlemagne's court. With the hindsight that comes from our knowledge that Ecgberht conquered all of southern England including Mercia in the 820s, we can see that Ecgberht was potentially Offa's most dangerous foe. If this was at all apparent in the young Ecgberht of 789, Offa might well have hoped that Charlemagne would kill Ecgberht instead of succouring him, and this would be a further reason for the cooling of relations in about 790.

Whatever the reasons behind the breach, it had healed by 796 at the latest, when Charlemagne wrote a very cordial letter to Offa (EHD 197), making provisions that English merchants should be protected by the laws while in Frankish territory, and enjoining that Offa similarly protect Frankish merchants in English territory.

c.790. Earliest Viking raid on England (Portland, Dorset)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that some time in the reign of Beorhtric of Wessex (786-802) three ships of Northmen arrived (at Portland in Dorset), and when the local reeve (Beaduheard of Dorchester) came and tried to lead them to the royal estate, thinking that they were traders, they killed him. And "those were the first ships of Danish men which came to the land of the English": they were by no means the last, as the spectacular raid on Lindisfarne in 793 was to demonstrate. Raids may have been sporadic for the first forty years or so, but they intensified in the 830s (as we can see from more frequent references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle): great armies landed in the 860s and proceeded to carve up whole Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until the 870s and 880s when Alfred of Wessex was the last English king and the only one to successfully see off the invaders. Alfred's defensive workings meant the country was better-prepared when the Vikings returned in the 890s, and over the first half of the 10th century Alfred's descendents won back the rest of the country from Viking lords. Viking raiders would return in the 980s, however, to trouble the kingdom of Æthelred, and finally conquer it in the person of the Cnut the Dane, who became king of England in 1016.

S. Keynes, "The Vikings in England", The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (Oxford: 1997), pp.48-82

790. Osred of Northumbria exiled (flees to Isle of Man)
Æthelred, Æthelwold Moll's son, again succeeds to Northumbria

The Chronicle notes only that Osred was betrayed and driven out of the kingdom and that Æthelred succeeded. Simeon of Durham adds that Osred was deceived by his nobles, taken prisoner and deprived of the kingdom, tonsured at York, and forced into exile. (That from his Historia Regum; in his History of the Church of Durham he adds that Osred fled to the Isle of Man.) The nobles are not named, but it would be interesting to know whether Sicga was still among them (we know nothing of him between his killing of Ælfwold in 788 and his own death in 793).

The first couple of years of Æthelred's second reign (his first reign was 774-778/9) show him moving quickly to eliminate opposition, killing the sons of King Ælfwold in 791 (Ælfwold himself had been killed in 788), and killing King Osred on his return in 792. His attempt to kill Ealdorman Eardwulf was unsuccessful, and it might have been seen as poetic justice that it was this same Eardwulf who eventually succeeded him in 796. His marriage to a daughter of Offa of Mercia in 792 gained him a strong southern ally, who incidentally favoured the same approach to getting rid of superfluous rivals, as his beheading of Æthelberht of East Anglia in 794 makes clear. Almost nothing is known of Æthelred's domestic affairs after 792: it is the Viking onslaughts of 793 and 794 which attract the attention of the chroniclers.

That at least one contemporary observer thought things were pretty dire in the state of Northumbria can be seen from a letter Alcuin wrote to Æthelred and his nobles after the sack of Lindisfarne (EHD 193), suggesting that the Vikings might be divine punishment for the manifold sins of the English. Alcuin is politic enough not to limit his criticism to Æthelred's reign, saying things had been bad since King Ælfwold's day (778/9-788). Since his visit in 786 for the council with Ælfwold and the papal legate was the last occasion before this letter that we know Alcuin was in Northumbria, it would be unwise to use the letter as an indication that things were worse in Æthelred's reign. It is also clear that Alcuin was well aware of scriptural explanations of foreign invasions allowed as divine vengeance for the sins of a chosen people: in following this model he stands four-square in a literary tradition that in Britain goes back to Gildas in the 6th century and forward to King Alfred in the 9th and Wulfstan in the 11th. This is not necessarily to deny the truth of Alcuin's observations, but to point out that he was collecting facts to back a particular thesis, and like Wulfstan's long catalogue of the sins of the English in the reign of another King Æthelred troubled by Viking invasions (see entry on 978), he was looking with a dark-adapted eye.

791. Æthelred of Northumbria kills the sons of King Ælfwold

Ælfwold was an earlier king of Northumbria (778/9-788). Simeon of Durham reports that his sons, Ælf and Ælfwine, were in the principal church in York (presumably in sanctuary), but were brought from it by false promises, taken by force and miserably killed.

791/2. Æthelred of Northumbria orders Ealdorman Eardwulf killed, but he survives

Ealdorman Eardwulf would emerge in 796 as king of Northumbria. These earlier events come down to us only in the account of Simeon of Durham, who notes that in Æthelred's second year Eardwulf was captured and brought to Ripon, and ordered to be killed outside the gate of the monastery. The brethren carried his body to the church, and placed it outside in a tent, and after midnight he was found in the church, alive. The details are not clear, but it seems that Eardwulf survived an attempted execution, in circumstances which were seen as miraculous. These are probably "the perils from which the divine mercy freed you" which Alcuin notes in a letter written to Eardwulf after 796 (EHD 199).

September 14, 792. Osred, former king of Northumbria, killed on his return from exile

The Chronicle notes that Osred was captured on his return from exile, and killed on 14 September, and buried at Tynemouth. Simeon adds that he returned in secret, relying on the oaths and good faith of certain nobles (Sicga again, perhaps?), who deserted him in the event so that he might be killed on Æthelred's orders.

September 29, 792. Æthelred of Northumbria marries Ælfflæd, daughter of Offa of Mercia (at Catterick)

This marriage, mentioned in the Chronicle and located at Catterick by Simeon of Durham, can be seen from Æthelred's point of view as part of his efforts to ensure his security on the throne. He was already killing potential rivals at home, and a marriage with the Mercian king's daughter would make raids from the south less likely (such as plagued Eadberht in 740, when he raided the Picts and Offa's predecessor Æthelbald raided Northumbria). It would also give him a strong ally to call on if he were threatened.

c.792. Offa of Mercia's second coinage reform

June 8, 793. "Fiery dragons over Northumbria": Vikings sack Lindisfarne

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle includes under 793 its famous reference to dire portents appearing over Northumbria, taking the form of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and "fiery dragons were seen flying in the air". These portents were followed by a great famine, and then the sack of Lindisfarne on June 8.

794. Vikings sack Donemutha (Jarrow?)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Vikings plundered Ecgfrith's monastery at Donemutha, which is unidentified though Simeon of Durham in the twelfth century identified it as Bede's house of Jarrow.

794. Offa of Mercia has Æthelberht of East Anglia killed

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes, without explanation, that Offa had Æthelberht beheaded. This was probably Offa's response to a renewed bid for East Anglian independence (see entry on 749-94). Æthelberht came to be revered as a saint, and Hereford Cathedral was dedicated to him by the 11th century (see Rollason, p.9). According to post-Conquest lives of St Æthelberht, Offa had him killed at Sutton, near Hereford, where he had come to ask for the hand of Offa's daughter in marriage. It would be interesting to know whether such a match had been seriously considered: the marriages of other daughters of Offa to Beorhtric of Wessex in 789 and Æthelred of Northumbria in 792 suggest the possibility.

S. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: 1988) [see p.224 n.20 and references there]

D. Rollason, "The cults of murdered royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England", Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982), pp.1-22

C. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1939)

795. Offa of Mercia raids Wales (Brycheiniog?)

This raid is noted only in the Annales Cambriae, which record "The devastation of Reinuch by Offa". For the identification of Reinuch with Brycheiniog in this somewhat ambiguous annal, see Sims-Williams, p.53. The date given in the annal corresponds to 796, but since the death of Offa is recorded under the following annal, the raid should probably be dated to 795.

P. Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800 (Cambridge: 1990)

April 18, 796. Æthelred of Northumbria killed by Ealdred
April 19 - May 13, 796. Osbald succeeds to Northumbria
May 14, 796. Eardwulf succeeds to Northumbria
May 26, 796. Eardwulf consecrated king of Northumbria at York

The Chronicle notes that there was an eclipse of the moon on 28 March, that Eardwulf succeeded to Northumbria on 14 May, and that he was afterwards consecrated and enthroned on 26 May at York by Archbishop Eanbald and the bishops Æthelberht, Higbald and Badwulf. This is the second recorded consecration of a king in Anglo-Saxon England, after that of Ecgfrith of Mercia in 787. The violence that had attended the Northumbrian succession over the previous forty years showed that it needed all the additional sanctification it could get.

Simeon of Durham adds that Æthelred was killed near the Cover (a river in Yorkshire) on 18 April, and that the nobleman Osbald (perhaps the same as the one involved in the burning of Beorn in 779) was appointed by some nobles of the nation and after 27 days was deserted and banished, fleeing to Lindisfarne and then to the Pictish court. Alcuin wrote a letter to Osbald (EHD 200) which shows that he was suspected of being a party to Æthelred's death, and urged him to turn from secular to religious affairs. This he seems to have done, for Simeon notes that he was an abbot when he died in 799, and was buried at York.

While Osbald may have helped to plan the deed, it was one Ealdred who actually killed King Æthelred, and one of Æthelred's followers, Torhtmund, killed Ealdred in vengeance for his slain lord. We learn this from a letter of Alcuin to Charlemagne of 801 (EHD 206), in which Alcuin provides introductions for several Englishmen who wished to visit Charlemagne's court, Torhtmund among them. Simeon records Torhtmund's killing of Ealdred in his annal for 799.

Eardwulf had been an ealdorman in Æthelred's reign, and narrowly escaped execution in 791/2. In his own reign (796-806), Eardwulf faced a battle with some of his nobles in 798, ordered the deaths of what might have been rival claimants in 799 and 800, went to war with Coenwulf of Mercia in 801, and was driven into exile in 806.

Alcuin seems initially optimistic about Eardwulf's reign, or at least hopeful that Eardwulf will avoid making the mistakes of his predecessors (see Alcuin's letter to Eardwulf, EHD 199), but he soon returns to the gloom he showed in earlier reigns (see entry on 790). In a letter of 797 (EHD 202) Alcuin notes that Eardwulf dismissed his wife and took a concubine and that he might expect to lose his kingdom soon as a result; in a letter of 801 (EHD 207) Alcuin sympathises with the archbishop of York about his tribulations and makes dark hints about the death of kings who opposed the church.

July 29, 796. Offa of Mercia dies
Offa's son Ecgfrith is king for only 141 days
Coenwulf (Centwine's great-great-grandson) succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes Offa's death and the fact that Ecgfrith died in the same year. The precise figure of 141 days comes from the Mercian regnal list, which would put Coenwulf's accession in mid-December at the earliest. Almost nothing is known of Ecgfrith's reign: four charters appear to survive (S 148-51), but at least two of these are later fabrications, which may be based on genuine documents but cannot themselves be trusted.

Coenwulf does not appear in charters of Offa, which may be because he was in exile in Offa's reign, much as Æthelbald had been in the reign of Ceolred (see entry on 716). Given the amount of blood which Offa is said to have shed to secure the succession of his son (see Alcuin's letter, EHD 202), it is likely that being out of the country was the only safe option for someone other than Offa's son who hoped one day to be king of the Mercians. Coenwulf was the great-great-grandson of King Centwine (676-85), and traced his descent farther back through Penda; somewhat ironically, given Offa's efforts to ensure the kingship descended in direct family lines, the nearest common ancestor of Coenwulf and Offa is Penda's father Pybba.

After Offa's death, Kent (q.v.), East Anglia (q.v.), and the East Saxons (q.v.) became independent, but Kent was recaptured by 798, East Anglia probably within another few years after that, and the East Saxons definitely by 814. Coenwulf faced an invasion from Eardwulf of Northumbria c.801, cancelled the controversial archbishopric of Lichfield in 803, and famously quarelled with the archbishop of Canterbury, Wulfred, in 816. He raided into Dyfed in 818, and may have been planning another raid when he died at Basingwerk in 821.

D. Dumville, "The Anglian collection of royal genealogies and regnal lists", Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976), pp.23-50 [p.31 for genealogies of Offa and Coenwulf; p.33 for Mercian regnal list]

796. On Offa's death, Kent becomes independent
Eadberht Præn succeeds to Kent
Æthelheard, Archbishop of Canterbury, flees Kent

Eadberht Præn's accession to Kent in 796 is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and also by the coins bearing Eadberht's name struck at Canterbury in this period (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.283). It is probable that Eadberht of Kent, like Ecgberht of Wessex was another of the exiles sheltered at Charlemagne's court: in a letter to Offa written in 796 (EHD 197), Charlemagne mentions an Eadberht (using the Frankish form Odberht) who had taken refuge with him.

Archbishop Æthelheard's flight is mentioned in a surviving letter of Alcuin (EHD 203), which refers to an earlier letter of Æthelheard in which he said that the clerics of Canterbury asked him to leave. Alcuin nonetheless chastises Æthelheard for deserting his post, reminding him that Archbishop Laurence, faced with the hostile King Eadbald back in 616, stayed put. It may be though that Æthelheard, as the archbishop who helped diminish the primacy of Canterbury by collaborating in the elevation of Lichfield, was concerned to draw Kentish anger away from the cathedral. Nicholas Brooks has suggested that the absence of Christ Church documents before 798, compared with the profusion afterwards, might be attributed to an attack on Æthelheard in newly-independent Canterbury (Brooks, p.121). In any event, another letter of Alcuin (Allott, no. 50), written in 797, imploring the people of Kent to take back their archbishop, makes it clear that they did not want him back.

S. Allott, Alcuin of York, c. A.D. 732 to 804 -- His Life and Letters (York: 1974)

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984)

796. On Offa's death, East Anglia becomes independent
Eadwald succeeds to East Anglia

The independence of East Anglia can be deduced from the fact that East Anglian moneyers start minting coins in the name of Eadwald after Offa's death (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.293). This coinage is the only evidence of East Anglia's independence, and since the coin types cannot be precisely dated it is impossible to say when Eadwald's reign ended and Coenwulf's reign in Mercia began (two East Anglian moneyers struck coins for Offa, Eadwald, and Coenwulf in turn). Grierson and Blackburn note that the first East Anglian type of Coenwulf features a bust of Coenwulf which probably makes it later than c.805 (when the portrait type was introduced at Canterbury), but caution that since late 8th-century East Anglian coins are so rare, there may have been an earlier East Anglian issue of Coenwulf which has not survived.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

796. On Offa's death, East Saxons becomes independent
Sigeric, son of Selered, succeeds to East Saxons

The independence of the East Saxons after Offa's death is assumed from a reference in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to Sigeric, king of the East Saxons, going to Rome in 798. This King Sigeric may be the Sigeric who witnessed one of Ecgfrith's charters of 796 (S 151) as an ealdorman, in which case he presumably ruled independently from late 796 until 798. It may be that Coenwulf resumed control over the East Saxons in 798, as he did over the people of Kent and shortly after that over the East Angles, but from charters we learn of another East Saxon king, Sigered, in 811. Sigered may have succeeded his father in 798, or he may have rebelled from Coenwulf's overlordship at some point in the first decade of the 9th century. Unfortunately there was no royal mint in Essex, so East Saxon independence is much more difficult to track than that of Kent and East Anglia, which produced coins of the local rulers who arose after Offa's death.

April 2, 798. Battle at Whalley: Eardwulf of Northumbria defeats a conspiracy of his enemies

This battle, like the Battle of Edwin's Cliff fought by Æthelwold of Northumbria in 761 shortly after his accession, shows that being elected king of the Northumbrians in this age was not enough to ensure the loyalty of the people. In this context, while Æthelred's killings of his enemies in 791 and 792 look brutal from our vantage point, there were doubtless contemporaries who thought them simply well-judged pre-emptive strikes, avoiding the battles to establish effective supremacy that would otherwise be inevitable.

The Chronicle notes only that there was a great battle in Northumbria, on April 2, at Whalley (Lancs.) and that Alric, Heardberht's son, was killed, along with many others. Simeon of Durham as usual adds more details, suggesting that the battle was the result of a conspiracy formed by the murderers of King Æthelred, and joined by one Ealdorman Wada, and that after many had been killed on both sides Wada took to his heels, and Eardwulf royally won the victory. Wada may have fled to Coenwulf of Mercia, because he appears in connection with Coenwulf in a papal letter of 808 discussing the exile of Eardwulf (Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, III.563).

798. Coenwulf of Mercia ravages and regains control of Kent
Eadberht Præn of Kent captured and killed
Coenwulf appoints his brother Cuthred king of Kent

The Chronicle notes that Coenwulf ravaged the people of Kent, and had Eadberht Præn seized and brought in fetters into Mercia; one of the manuscripts adds that they had his eyes put out and his hands cut off, a detail repeated by Simeon of Durham.

Though Cuthred was appointed as king of Kent, from the charters it appears that Coenwulf kept power to himself for several years. Coenwulf granted land in Kent without reference to Cuthred in 798-9 (S 153, 155), and with Cuthred in 801-5 (S 157, 159-61). It is not until the last years of his reign that we see Cuthred independently issuing charters in Kent (S 39-41, of 805?807).

A charter of 798 issued by Æthelheard as archbishop (S 1258) shows that the return of Mercian rule in Kent also brought the return of the Mercian archbishop to Canterbury.

799. Eardwulf of Northumbria orders the killing of Ealdorman Moll

This item, though first reported by Simeon of Durham, fits plausibly into the pattern of earlier 8th-century Northumbrian politics. Simeon gives no details of the identity of Moll, but the name suggests a connection with Æthelwold Moll (king 759-65) and his son Æthelred (king 774-778/9 and 790-6), and one who was descended or claimed descent from that family (Æthelwold's grandson, perhaps?) might well have been seen as a threat to the throne, or have been in the process of trying to claim it when Eardwulf ordered his death.

800. Eardwulf of Northumbria orders the killing of Alhmund, son of King Alhred

Simeon of Durham notes that Alhmund, the son of King Alhred (765-74), was seized by the guards of King Eardwulf, and killed along with his fellow fugitives. It is not clear where Alhmund had fled to; in 801 Eardwulf would pursue more fugitives into Coenwulf's Mercia. It was perhaps as a result of the battles of 801 that a cult of St Alhmund was encouraged at Derby where his body rested: Coenwulf may have used the cult to emphasize the guilt of Alhmund's murderer and so encourage dissatisfaction with Eardwulf (see Rollason, p.20). If Wada had fled to Coenwulf immediately after the battle of 798, the Mercian / Northumbrian antipathy might have begun a few years earlier.

D. Rollason, "The cults of murdered royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England", Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982), pp.1-22

c.801. Eardwulf of Northumbria attacks Coenwulf of Mercia

Simeon of Durham notes in his annal for 801 that in these times Eardwulf of Northumbria led an army against Coenwulf of Mercia, because Coenwulf harboured Eardwulf's enemies. There was a long campaign between Eardwulf and Coenwulf, with Coenwulf leading many forces from other provinces, but finally, by the advice of the English bishops and nobles on both sides, they made a peace and swore to hold by it in their lifetimes.

This harbouring of enemies seems to have been a common complaint in the period: see the entry on c.790 for the dispute between Offa and Charlemagne, probably caused by Charlemagne harbouring Offa's enemies, and the entry on 798 for the possibility that Wada was one of the fugitives Eardwulf was trying to recover. Other Northumbrian nobles might have thought Mercia a good refuge because Eardwulf's predecessor, Æthelred, had been married to a daughter of Offa of Mercia. A letter of Alcuin suggests that other Northumbrian refugees took refuge with the archbishop of York (EHD 207).

802. Beorhtric of Wessex dies (poisoned accidentally by his wife Eadburh?)
Mercian ealdorman Æthelmund raids into Wessex
Ecgberht succeeds to Wessex

The story of the accidental poisoning of Beorhtric of Wessex by his queen Eadburh appears in chapter 14 of Asser's Life of King Alfred, where it is used to explain the low status of the king's wife in 9th-century Wessex. Asser notes that Beorhtric's wife Eadburh was daughter of the tyrannical Offa, and like her father in her tyrannical ways and misuse of power. She is supposed to have hated Beorhtric's friends, and to have denounced them before the king; if she failed to make him kill or imprison them, she killed them herself with poison. On one occasion, when Eadburh meant to kill one of the king's friends, Beorhtric himself took some of the poison unawares, and died.

Asser goes on in the following chapter to explain that, not surprisingly, Eadburh had to leave the country, and she fetched up with many treasures at the court of Charlemagne. Charlemagne apparently gave her the choice of marrying him or his son; she chose the son because he was younger, and was doubtless chagrined to hear the king reply that had she chosen him, he would have given her his son, but as she had not, she would have neither of them. She was granted charge of a large convent as abbess, but expelled a few years later for reckless and debauched behaviour, and ended her days as a beggar in Pavia.

One cannot help comparing this with the more obviously legendary tale of how Rowenna killed Vortigern's son Vortimer with a poisoned glove, or wondering how much truth there may be in either. Asser tells us that he has the story from the truthful King Alfred, and adds that Alfred had it from many reliable witnesses, most of whom remembered the story in all its particulars -- this unusual emphasis on the veracity of the story might suggest that Asser was worried his audience would think it unlikely. It should be remembered that the marriage of Eadburh and Beorhtric was part of an alliance as a result of which Alfred's grandfather Ecgberht was forced to leave the country: it would not be surprising if stories to the discredit of Offa, Beorhtric and Eadburh began to circulate once Ecgberht was back and in power. The story of Eadburh's antics should perhaps be treated with the same caution as the vituperation heaped on King Eadwig by the author of the first Life of St Dunstan, which is probably the result not of a truthful and sober assessment of Eadwig's character, but of spite that Eadwig exiled Dunstan towards the beginning of his reign.

No other source mentions the accidental poisoning: of the death, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says only that Beorhtric died and Ecgberht succeeded to the kingdom. It is probably safest to leave it at that, and treat the story of Eadburh as an example of later 9th-century propaganda rather than early 9th-century fact.

The Chronicle adds that on the same day (as Beorhtric's death or Ecgberht's succession), the (Mercian) ealdorman Æthelmund rode from the territory of the Hwicce across the border at Kempsford, and was repulsed in a great battle by ealdorman Weohstan and the people of Wiltshire. This shows the importance of quickly establishing the succession in Anglo-Saxon times, since at least on this occasion nobles of bordering kingdoms were ready and waiting to take advantage of any weakness or confusion in the aftermath of a king's death.

October 12, 803. Council of Clofesho: Lichfield's archdiocese cancelled, and supremacy of Canterbury restored

806. Eardwulf of Northumbria driven from his kingdom
806-66. Gap in reliable narrative sources for Northumbrian history

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that in 806 Eardwulf of Northumbria was driven from his kingdom. Unfortunately, after this brief comment, sources of reliable narrative history for Northumbria lapse into near-silence for almost 60 years, picking up the story only with the Viking conquest in 866/7. (That there was continuity in Northumbrian attitudes and power-struggles is however suggested by the fact that at their reappearance in 866/7 they are said to be involved in great civil strife, having just deposed one king and taken on another.)

A set of early 9th-century Frankish annals (cited at EHD 21) reports under 808 that Eardwulf, having been expelled, visited Charlemagne, and then went on to Rome, and on his return from Rome he was escorted by envoys of the pope and of Charlemagne back to his kingdom. Since the annal for 809 deals with events after Eardwulf's return home, we can place this return somewhere in 808/9. The 12th-century History of the Church of Durham states that a certain Ælfwold, about whom nothing is known, ruled the Northumbrians for two years after Eardwulf's flight (ii.5). The same passage states that after Ælfwold, Eardwulf's son Eanred began to reign. The contradiction in sequence of events could be explained away by suggesting that Eardwulf was restored and immediately made way for his son Eanred who was seen as a more acceptable ruler, but it is more honest to admit we don't know precisely what happened. No coins of this second Ælfwold survive (another Ælfwold had ruled Northumbria 778/9-788), but this is not decisive either way, since until 1994 no coins of the otherwise-attested Eardwulf were known either (see Pirie 1995).

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does note in 829 that Ecgberht of Wessex met the Northumbrians and made peace with them, but gives no indication who was in charge of the Northumbrians at the time. The 12th-century History of the Church of Durham states that Eanred ruled for 33 years, that Æthelred succeeded him, that Osberht succeeded Æthelred, that Osberht's fifth year was A.D. 854 (ii.5), and that A.D. 867 was the fifth year of Ælle, who succeeded the exiled Osberht (ii.6). If we assume that Eanred's reign started in 808, this gives Æthelred's succession in 841 and Osberht's in 849. The 13th-century Flowers of History of Roger of Wendover claims instead that Eanred succeeded Ælfwold in 810, and died himself in 840, when he was succeeded by his son Æthelred, that Æthelred was expelled from the kingdom by Rædwulf in 844, but when Rædwulf was killed in a battle with the pagans (Vikings) Æthelred resumed the kingship, and that in 848 Æthelred died and was succeeded by Osberht, who ruled for 18 years.

Both late narratives ignore the return of Eardwulf, mentioned in a contemporary source, and there is disagreement as to whether Ælle took over in 866 (Roger of Wendover) or 862 (History of the Church of Durham). It is uncertain that much weight can be placed on either of them (see Dumville). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 866/7 Osberht had just been deposed and Ælle elected. The substantial surviving coinage from 9th-century Northumbria provides independent evidence for the sequence of rulers Eanred, Æthelred, Rædwulf, Æthelred again, and Osberht. This supports the order of events given in the later sources, but numismatists have been troubled by the small volume of coins of Osberht in comparison to his predecessor, and this has led to suggestions that the coinage ended in 851 or that all the dates should be advanced by 14 years or so (so that Æthelred succeeds in 854, Rædwulf in 858, and Osberht in 862; see Pagan). Grierson and Blackburn, noting that Pagan's radical 14-year shift creates some problems in Northumbrian archiepiscopal chronology, prefer a less radical shift by which Æthelred's second reign is placed in the 850s and most of Osberht's in the 860s (pp.301-3). They do not commit themselves to a figure, however, with understandable caution in light of all the uncertainty (one question that has not been tackled, and which probably cannot be tackled, is what effect the continuing Northumbrian civil wars or intensifying Viking attacks may have had on coin production). It is probably best to admit that while we know the overall sequence of rulers for the period (with lingering question marks over Eardwulf's possible second reign after 808 and the civil strife between Osberht and Ælle), we do not have enough information to give dates for the individual reigns.

D. Dumville, "Textual archaeology and Northumbrian history subsequent to Bede", Coinage in Ninth-Century Northumbria (Oxford: 1987), pp.43-55

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986), pp.301-3

H. Pagan, "Northumbrian Numismatic Chronology in the Ninth Century", British Numismatic Journal 38 (1969), pp.1-15

E. Pirie, "Earduulf: A Significant Addition to the Coinage of Northumbria", British Numismatic Journal 65 (1995), pp.20-31

807. Cuthred the (Mercian) king of Kent dies
Coenwulf of Mercia resumes direct control of Kent

811-4. Coenwulf of Mercia reconquers Sigered and the East Saxons

The East Saxon king after Offa's death had been Sigeric, who went to Rome in 798 (see entry for 796). There is a Sigered who is called king in charters of Coenwulf of Mercia for 811 (S 165, 168), subking (subregulus) in 812 (S 170), and ealdorman (dux) by 814 (S 180). This Sigered is not explicitly stated to be East Saxon in the charters, but the name appears in the East Saxon regnal list as a son of Sigeric, and the other neighbouring kingdoms, Kent and East Anglia, were firmly back under Mercian control before 811. The charters enable us to say that Coenwulf brought Sigered and the East Saxons back under his control in 811-4: there is unfortunately no way of knowing what relations existed between Coenwulf and Sigered before 811. It would be very interesting to know whether Coenwulf tolerated an independent East Saxon kingdom because he did not have the same resources that Offa had had and could not take it back, or whether he tolerated it because he could not be bothered to take it back, or whether he simply reached an agreement with Sigered which meant that he did not need to take it back. Perhaps Sigered was installed with Mercian support, much as Coenwulf established his brother Cuthred as king of Kent, and Coenwulf could have taken back full control at any time he wished. Whatever his status with regard to the Mercians, Sigered is the last known East Saxon king.

D. Dumville, "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and Texts", Anglia 104 (1986), pp.1-32 [for Sigered, son of Sigeric, see p.32]

815. Ecgberht of Wessex ravages Cornwall

816. Council of Chelsea: Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, attacks Coenwulf of Mercia

No mention in ASC, but Wulfred was deprived of his see 817-21 (note archiepiscopal coins without names)

Wulfred forced to make terms in 821 or lose estates?

-- Wulfred attacks lay lordships and insists on bishop's right to appoint abbots

-- Wulfred then claims lordship of Reculver, Minster-in-Thanet (run by Coenwulf's daughter Cuenthryth)

-- Coenwulf suspends Wulfred for 6 years, threatens permanent exile, enlists papal support

-- Wulfred loses -- has to pay ?120 compensation, forfeits Eynsham, Oxon. -- and abbeys withhold obedience.

c.818. Coenwulf of Mercia devastates Dyfed

This battle is recorded only in the Annales Cambriae, which note "Coenwulf devastated the regio of the Demetae" (that is, Dyfed).

821. Coenwulf of Mercia dies
Ceolwulf, Cenwulf's brother, succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records Coenwulf's death without details. It is in the 12th-century historical poem L'Estoire des Engleis of Geffrei Gaimar that we learn that he died at Basingwerk, at the north end of Wat's Dyke (Stenton, p.230, says this is unlikely to be invention and suggests it may come from a lost version of the Chronicle possessed by Gaimar).

Charters of Ceolwulf calling him the king of the Mercians and the people of Kent show that Ceolwulf retained control of Kent. The East Angles revolted briefly (q.v.), but the rebellion was quashed. Ceolwulf conquered Powys in 822, but was himself deposed in 823.

F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford: 1971)

821. On Coenwulf's death, Æthelstan of East Anglia revolts

While Æthelstan of East Anglia's reign properly begins in 827 on the death of Ludica, there are two coins of Æthelstan by the East Anglian moneyer Edgar which Marion Archibald has convincingly argued should be dated rather earlier than the rest of Æthelstan's coins, closer to the ship-type of Ceolwulf of Mercia (821-3). It seems most likely then that these two coins of Æthelstan should be dated c.821 and seen as evidence of an East Anglian revolt after Coenwulf's death, just as the coins of Eadwald point to an East Anglian revolt after the death of Offa (see entry for 796). Since the moneyer Edgar went on to mint coins for the Mercians Ceolwulf and Beornwulf, Æthelstan's revolt was presumably unsuccessful. He would try again in 826, when an unnamed East Anglian king applied to Ecgberht of Wessex for protection, and the East Angles killed the Mercian king Beornwulf (see entry on 826), but his reign still did not properly begin until 827.

822. Ceolwulf of Mercia conquers Powys

This conquest is recorded in the Annales Cambriae, which note "The fortress of Deganwy was destroyed by the Saxons and they took into their power the regio of Powys".

823. Ceolwulf of Mercia deprived of Mercia
Beornwulf succeeds to Mercia
Bealdred succeeds to Kent, with Beornwulf's support (?)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not state that Ceolwulf died in 823, but that he was deprived of the kingdom. The very different name of the following king, Beornwulf (as compared to the brothers Coenwulf, Cuthred, and Ceolwulf) leads to the suspicion that he might have been from a different family. It is tempting to associate him with the Beornred who tried to take power in Mercia after Æthelbald's death in 757 but was ousted by Offa, but since Coenwulf is the last Mercian king for whom we have a full genealogy, there is no way of verifying this. Beornwulf is best remembered for losing the battle of Ellendun against the West Saxons in 825 and being killed by the East Angles in 826.

The position of Kent in Beornwulf's reign is uncertain. Where the Kentish mints had produced coins in the names of the previous Mercian kings Coenwulf and Ceolwulf, in Beornwulf's reign they produced coins in the name of one Bealdred. No charters of Bealdred survive, and he appears in the documentary sources only in the Chronicle's account of the West Saxon take-over of 825, in which after the defeat of Beornwulf, the West Saxons send some forces to Kent and drive out King Bealdred. The alliterating names raise the possibility that this Bealdred is a kinsman of Beornwulf of Mercia's, placed in charge of Kent just as Coenwulf of Mercia had put his brother Cuthred earlier (798-807). The fact that a charter of Archbishop Wulfred of 826 (S 1267) is dated by Beornwulf's regnal year, with no reference to Bealdred's, supports the theory that Bealdred was a Mercian caretaker or dependent rather than an independent king.

August 19, 825. Battle of Galford (Devon): Ecgberht of Wessex defeats the Britons

The precise date of this battle is supplied from the dating clauses of two charters, which note that they were drawn up on August 19 when the army of Ecgberht advanced against the Britons at the place called Creodantreow (S 272-3). A letter of Archbishop Dunstan in the 10th century (EHD 229) mentions that the people of Cornwall rose up against Ecgberht and he went there and subdued them, which may refer to this battle or the earlier one of 815.

825. Battle of Ellendun (Wroughton, Wilts.): Ecgberht of Wessex defeats Beornwulf of Mercia
Æthelwulf of Wessex drives Bealdred out of Kent
People of Kent, Surrey, South Saxons and East Saxons submit to Æthelwulf

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Ecgberht fought Beornwulf of Mercia at Ellendun (Wroughton) and that Ecgberht won and there was a great slaughter there. Then Ecgberht sent his son Æthelwulf and bishop Ealhstan and ealdorman Wulfheard to Kent, with a large force, and they drove Bealdred north across the Thames, and the people of Kent and Surrey and the South Saxons and the East Saxons submitted to Æthelwulf because they had been wrongfully forced away from his kinsmen.

A late 11th-century manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes under 784 that Ealhmund ruled in Kent, and that Ealhmund was Ecgberht's father, who was Æthelwulf's father. This makes clear the link between the West Saxon ruling house and Kent and the south-east. Since we know that members of the main West Saxon ruling family were not in power in Wessex between Ine's death in 726 and Ecgberht's accession in 802, the most likely explanation is that one of these exiled West Saxon æthelings gained a foothold in Kent while Cynewulf was ruling in Wessex (757-86). (See also Keynes, p.3, n.8)

S. Keynes, "King Alfred and the Mercians", in M. Blackburn and D. Dumville (edd.), Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage of Southern England in the Ninth Century (Woodbridge: 1998), pp.1-45

826. East Angles appeal to Ecgberht of Wessex for protection
Beornwulf of Mercia killed by the East Angles
Ludica succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle seems to date these events to 825, but this long annal probably recounts the events of more than one year. Corroboration that Beornwulf lasted until at least 826 is provided by a charter of that year (S 1267), which is dated to the third year of Beornwulf of Mercia. The king of the East Angles who appealed to Ecgberht for peace and protection, unnamed by the Chronicle, was probably the Æthelstan who rebelled in 821 and began his reign properly in 827, and whose name is recorded only on his coins. The death of Beornwulf of Mercia was not enough to gain the East Angles their independence, as Beornwulf's successor Ludica continued to issue coins in East Anglia (Grierson and Blackburn, pp.293-4). Ludica witnesses a record of a council at Clofesho of King Beornwulf of 824 as an ealdorman (S 1434). Almost nothing is known of his reign.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

827. Ludica of Mercia killed
Wiglaf succeeds to Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Ludica was killed, and his five ealdormen with him, and that Wiglaf succeeded.

Wiglaf was conquered by Ecgberht of Wessex in 829, but re-emerged as Mercian king the following year (q.v.). He died in 840.

827-870. East Anglia in the 9th century

The narrative sources for East Anglia dry up in the ninth century, even more so than for Northumbria (see entry on 806-66). Beyond the facts that an unnamed East Anglian king sought the help of Ecgberht of Wessex and that the East Angles killed Beornwulf of Mercia in 826, that East Anglia was one of the many targets of Viking raids in 841 and the landing-place of the "Great Heathen Army" in 865, the East Angles leave no traces in narrative history until the martyrdom of King Edmund in 869. It is only from their coins that we can deduce the existence of the kings Æthelstan and Æthelweard, predecessors of Edmund of East Anglia.

The two ship-type coins of Æthelstan seem to date from a revolt after Coenwulf's death in 821. The rest of Æthelstan's coinage follows on directly from the coinage of Ludica of Mercia: no coins of Wiglaf of Mercia were minted in East Anglia, and since we know from other sources that Ludica was killed in 827, that year probably also marks the beginning of Æthelstan's reign as king of an independent East Anglia.

The problems of constructing a skeletal history from the coinage are discussed at length by Pagan. A hoard deposited c.840 and containing (among its East Anglian coins) only coins of King Æthelstan allows the probability that Æthelstan was king at least until 840. A hoard deposited c.860 and containing East Anglian coins of Æthelstan (3), Æthelweard (16), and Edmund (3) suggests that Edmund had come to power shortly before 860, since otherwise we might expect more coins of Edmund. (A hoard deposited c.872, for instance, includes 50 East Anglian coins of Edmund, 5 of Æthelweard, and 2 of Æthelstan.) It would be plausible then to assume that Æthelstan ruled from 827 until the early 840s (perhaps falling in the Viking raids of 841), Æthelweard ruled for the later 840s and early 850s, and Edmund ruled from the later 850s until his death on 20 November 869. Later accounts of Edmund's martyrdom such as the Annals of St Neots place it in his 16th year, and while this appears too late to be accepted as historical evidence it may be noted that the coinage does not contradict a reign-beginning for Edmund in 855.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

H. Pagan, "The Coinage of the East Anglian Kingdom from 825 to 870", British Numismatic Journal 52 (1982), pp.41-83

829. Ecgberht of Wessex takes direct control over Mercia
Ecgberht of Wessex meets the Northumbrians and makes peace with them

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Ecgberht conquered the kingdom of the Mercians. This is confirmed by an issue of coins of Ecgberht as king of the Mercians (with the inscription ECGBERHT REX M, for Rex Merciorum), and a regnal list of Mercia which assigns Ecgberht a reign of one year (see Keynes, "Alfred", p.4, and references there).

The Chronicle notes further that Ecgberht had conquered everything south of the Humber, and so was the eighth king who was Bretwalda, or Brytenwalda; the chronicler then inserts Bede's list of seven kings who held wide powers south of the Humber (HE, ii.5), and adds Ecgberht at the end. This annal has seemed to solidify the idea of overlordship over Southumbrian England into a recognized post, with attendant ramifications and questions (Was the "sceptre" found at Sutton Hoo the symbol of Rædwald's "Bretwalda-ship"? Why are the Mercian overlords from Penda to Offa not counted as "Bretwaldas" number 8-12, making Ecgberht the 13th?). It seems more likely, however, that the word was invented by the chronicler than that it was a long-recognized official title. It appears elsewhere only once, in a forged charter of King Æthelstan (S 427; not even the 9th-century Old English translation of Bede uses "Bretwalda"), and the copyists of the Chronicle seem unsure what the word is (different manuscripts use three different words, Bretwalda, Brytenwalda, and Brytenanwalda; see further Keynes, "Bretwalda", pp.110-16).

After Ecgberht conquered the Mercians, the Chronicle reports that he led an army to Dore (in northern Derbyshire) against the Northumbrians, and they submitted to him there and made peace with him, and parted on those terms. Roger of Wendover in the 13th century writes that Ecgberht took a large army into Northumbria and ravaged the province and made King Eanred pay tribute, but this contradicts earlier accounts and one might expect the Chronicle written in the reign of Ecgberht's grandson to make more of such a conquest if it had taken place.

S. Keynes, "Rædwald the Bretwalda", Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo (Minneapolis: 1992), pp.103-23

S. Keynes, "King Alfred and the Mercians", in M. Blackburn and D. Dumville (edd.), Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage of Southern England in the Ninth Century (Woodbridge: 1998), pp.1-45

830. Wiglaf re-emerges as king of Mercia

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes laconically (after Ecgberht had conquered the kingdom of the Mercians the previous year) that Wiglaf again obtained the kingdom of the Mercians. The surviving evidence gives no indication whether this was the result of a Mercian rebellion or of a new arrangement peacefully agreed between the West Saxons and the Mercians (see further Keynes, p.4 n.14). The fact that Ecgberht led an army (presumably through Mercia) against the Welsh in 830 with no apparent difficulties suggests that the West Saxons and the Mercians were on good terms, or at the very least that the balance of power was in Ecgberht's favour and he could have prevented a Mercian revolt had he wished.

S. Keynes, "King Alfred and the Mercians", in M. Blackburn and D. Dumville (edd.), Kings, Currency and Alliances: History and Coinage of Southern England in the Ninth Century (Woodbridge: 1998), pp.1-45

830. Ecgberht of Wessex defeats the Welsh

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Ecgberht led an army against the Welsh, and reduced them all to submission to him. It is important to note that Ecgberht of the West Saxons was leading this campaign, unlike some earlier campaigns against the Welsh when West Saxon kings may have fought under Mercian supervision (see entries on 726 and 743). The balance of power had clearly shifted in favour of the West Saxons.

835. Vikings ravage Sheppey

836. Ecgberht of Wessex loses to the Vikings at Carhampton

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Ecgberht fought against the crews of 35 ships at Carhampton (on the coast of Somerset), and that there was a great slaughter and the Danes won.

838. Ecgberht of Wessex defeats the Vikings and Cornish at Hingston Down (Cornwall)

838. Council of Kingston: Archbishop of Canterbury pledges support to West Saxons

839. Ecgberht of Wessex dies
Æthelwulf, Ecgberht's son, succeeds to Wessex
Æthelstan, Æthelwulf's son, succeeds to the eastern provinces

840. Ealdorman Wulfheard defeats the Vikings at Southampton
Ealdorman Æthelhelm of Dorset is defeated and killed by the Vikings at Portland

840. Wiglaf of Mercia dies
Beorhtwulf succeeds to Mercia

840s. Æthelwulf of Wessex and Beorhtwulf of Mercia mint coins by same moneyers

841. Viking raids in Lindsey, East Anglia, and Kent

842. Great slaughter in London and Rochester (presumably Vikings)

842. Vikings raid Southampton

This raid is noted in Nithard's History of the Sons of Louis the Pious, written in the 840s (extract, EHD 22). Nithard notes that after ravaging the Continental centre of Quentovic, the Northmen crossed the sea and plundered Southampton and Nordhamwig (perhaps Northam; see Whitelock's note, EHD, p.342 n.3).

843. Æthelwulf of Wessex loses to the Danes at Carhampton

845. Ealdorman Eanwulf of Somerset and Osric of Dorset defeat the Vikings

850. Ealdorman Ceorl of Devon defeats the Vikings

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Ealdorman Ceorl and the men of Devon fought against the Vikings at Wicganbeorg (unidentified, but presumably in Devon), and defeated them. Ceorl was an ealdorman throughout the 840s, witnessing charters in 840 and 846 (S 290 and 298, in which he has the Latin title princeps; he also appears in two dubious charters of 844, S 294 and 322). It may have been the band defeated by Ceorl which moved around to the east coast and took up winter quarters at Thanet (q.v.).

850/1. Vikings first spend winter in England, at Thanet

851. Huge fleet storms Canterbury and London
Puts Beorhtwulf of Mercia to flight
Æthelwulf of Wessex and son Æthelbald defeat the Vikings at Aclea

851. Æthelstan, Æthelwulf's son, defeats the Vikings at Sandwich

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that King Æthelstan and Ealdorman Ealhhere fought a naval battle and defeated a great army at Sandwich in Kent, capturing nine ships and putting the others to flight. This is Æthelstan's last appearance; he was presumably dead by 855, when Æthelwulf divided the kingdom between Æthelstan's two younger brothers. He may have been dead by 853, when Ealdorman Ealhhere alone is reported as leading the people of Kent, but this is not certain.

c.852. Beorhtwulf of Mercia dies
Burgred succeeds to Mercia

853. Æthelwulf of Wessex and Burgred of Mercia together attack the Welsh

853. Burgred of Mercia marries Æthelswith, daughter of Æthelwulf of Wessex

853. Ealhhere of Kent and Huda of Surrey fight the Vikings at Thanet (both killed)

854/5. Vikings winter at Sheppey

855. Æthelwulf of Wessex goes to Rome
Æthelwulf leaves Wessex proper to son Æthelbald, and eastern provinces to younger son Æthelberht

856. Æthelwulf returns, with Judith
Conflict between Æthelwulf and son Æthelbald

858. Æthelwulf of Wessex dies
Æthelbald succeeds to Wessex, and Æthelberht to the eastern provinces
Æthelbald marries Judith, Æthelwulf's widow

860. Æthelbald of Wessex dies
Æthelberht, Æthelbald's brother, succeeds to Wessex (including the eastern provinces)

860. Viking naval force goes inland, storms Winchester; defeated

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that a great naval force came inland and stormed Winchester, and Ealdorman Osric of Winchester and Ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire fought against the army, and put them to flight. The Continental Annals of St Bertin note that this army travelled from the Somme to its defeat by the Anglo-Saxons in 860, and record its return to the Continent in 861.

J. Nelson, The Annals of St-Bertin (Manchester, 1991), pp. 92, 95

864. Vikings camp at Thanet, "make peace" with people of Kent

865. Æthelberht of Wessex dies
Æthelred, Æthelberht's brother, succeeds to Wessex

c.865-75. Burgred of Mercia's "Lunette" coinage, also adopted by Wessex

865/6. Viking "Great Heathen Army" lands in East Anglia, and spends winter there
East Anglians "make peace" with the army

866/7. "Great Heathen Army" moves from East Anglia to Northumbria, takes York

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that at the time of the arrival of the army in Northumbrian York there was great civil strife among that people, who had deposed their king Osberht and taken a king with no hereditary right, Ælle. It was not until late in the year that they united sufficiently to fight against the raiding army. They gathered a large army and attacked the Vikings who held York, but there was an immense slaughter of the Northumbrians, and both kings were killed, and the survivors made peace with the enemy.

Later sources give more details, though of uncertain value: the 12th-century History of the Church of Durham notes that the Vikings took York on November 1, 867 (866 in our reckoning), and that the English tried to take back York on March 21, 867. Simeon of Durham adds in his Historia Regum that after that the Vikings set up Ecgberht as ruler under their dominion of the Northumbrians beyond the Tyne, which was presuambly roughly the same as the ancient kingdom of Bernicia. Simeon adds that Ecgberht died in 873 and was succeeded by Ricsige, and that Ricsige was succeeded in 876 by Ecgberht the second. However, effective power will have been held by the Vikings, who visited in 872, wintered by the Tyne in 874/5, and shared out the land of the Northumbrians in 876.

867/8. "Great Heathen Army" moves from Northumbria to Notthingham in Mercia, winters there

868. Alfred of Wessex marries Ealhswith of the Mercians

Asser records that in 868 Alfred, then called secundarius, married a woman of Mercian noble stock, the daughter of Æthelred Mucil, ealdorman of the Gaini, and of Eadburh, from the royal line of the king of the Mercians.

868. Burgred of Mercia and Æthelred and Alfred of Wessex join forces against the Vikings
Combined English besiege Vikings in Nottingham, but no serious battle, and Mercians "make peace"

868/9. "Great Heathen Army" back to York; stays for a year

869/70. "Great Heathen Army" rides across Mercia to Thetford in East Anglia, winters there
November 20, 869. King Edmund of East Anglia killed by the Vikings
Æthelred succeeds to East Anglia (?)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that after the Danes had the victory and killed Edmund, they conquered East Anglia. As a result of this, the two coins in the name of Æthelred and looking like imitations of East Anglian issues have been taken as probable East Anglian Viking imitations of coins of the West Saxon Æthelred I, just as slightly later Viking issues copy coins of Alfred (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.294). However, the recent discovery of a new coin of Æthelred which matches the coinage of Edmund much more precisely raises the probability that it is a genuine East Anglian coin and that Æthelred was in fact Edmund's successor, and retained (or regained) power in East Anglia for some part of the 870s before Guthrum and his army settled there in 880.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

Spink Coin Auctions, no. 111 (21 November 1995), lot 57 (Early Medieval Corpus no. 1995.1057)

871. "Great Heathen Army" invades Wessex
Battles of Reading, Ashdown, Basing, Meretun

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes this invasion in much more detail than the attacks on Mercia or Northumbria, which shows quite clearly its origins as a West Saxon document. The army came first to Reading, and three days later two Danish earls rode farther inland, where they were met by Ealdorman Æthelwulf at Englefield, and one of the Danes was killed. Four days after that King Æthelred and Alfred led a great army to Reading and there was a pitched battle with great slaughter in which Ealdorman Æthelwulf was killed, and the Vikings were victorious.

Four days after that, Æthelred and Alfred had rallied their troops and fought against the Vikings at Ashdown: this fight continued until nightfall and this time the English put the Vikings to flight. The chronicler adds that the Vikings forces were in two halves: King Æthelred faced the one led by the heathen kings, Bagsecg and Halfdan, and Bagsecg was slain, and Alfred faced the one led by the earls, several of whom (Sidroc the Old, Sidroc the Younger, Osbearn, Fræna and Harold) were slain.

A fortnight later Æthelred and Alfred fought the Vikings at Basing, and this time the Vikings won.

Two months later Æthelred and Alfred fought the Vikings at Meretun (unidentified), and the Vikings won, though only after a long battle and great slaughter; the chronicler notes that the English put the Vikings to flight and were victorious far into the day.

871. "Great Summer Army" comes to Reading

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts this arrival in 871, before Æthelred's death in April. The "Great Summer Army" came to Reading, and presumably joined there the "Great Heathen Army" of 865, which had successfully beaten off an English attack on its camp at Reading earlier in the year. The armies probably campaigned together until 874, when Halfdan (the surviving king from the "Great Heathen Army" noted at the Battle of Ashdown in 871) led part of the army up to Northumbria.

late April, 871. Æthelred of Wessex dies
Alfred, Æthelred's brother, succeeds to Wessex

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelred died after Easter (April 15 in 871). John of Worcester in his 12th-century chronicle gives the date as April 23, but Stevenson points out that this cannot be trusted, since another and a more famous King Æthelred died on April 23 (1016), and the 12th-century chronicler may have found that date in a calendar, without a year or an identification of which King Æthelred was meant (in the form "9 kal. May [23 April]: rex Æthelredus obiit") and applied it to the wrong king (Stevenson, pp.240-1).

W. Stevenson, ed., Asser's Life of King Alfred together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford: 1904)

871. Alfred fights the Vikings at Wilton, and elsewhere
The West Saxons make peace with the Vikings

A month after his accession (so presumably in late May, 871), Alfred led a small force against the Viking army at Wilton, and the Vikings won (though, as in the discussion of the battle at Meretun in 870/1, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts a brave face on it, saying that the English were victorious far into the day, though the Danes won in the end).

Summing up the year 871, the chronicler notes that there were nine large battles (variant figures range from eight to fifteen) against the Danes that year, not counting smaller engagements, that nine Danish earls and one king (Bagsecg, at the Battle of Ashdown) were killed, and only after this does he admit that the West Saxons "made peace" with the Vikings.

871/2. Vikings take winter quarters in London
The Mercians make peace with the Vikings

872/3. Vikings go up to Northumbria; take winter quarters at Torksey in Lindsey
The Mercians make peace with the Vikings

Roger of Wendover, writing in the 13th century, explains the Viking raid on Northumbria by noting that the Northumbrians had expelled King Ecgberht and Archbishop Wulfhere. This is quite in character for the Northumbrians, in view of the civil war they were having in 866/7 and the fluidity of the political situation in the 8th and mid-10th centuries, but it is not recorded by any earlier historians. Simeon of Durham notes only that Ecgberht died in 873.

873/4. Vikings take winter quarters at Repton in Mercia
Burgred of Mercia driven over the sea
Ceolwulf succeeds to Mercia

In the winter of 873/4, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Viking army moved from Lindsey to Repton (in the heart of Mercia), and took up winter quarters there, and drove Burgred of Mercia across the sea, and that he ended up in Rome where he died and was buried. The Chronicle then notes that the army gave the kingdom of the Mercians to Ceolwulf, "a foolish king's thegn", who swore oaths to deliver Mercia up to them whenever they asked.

It should be remembered though that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle here is a West Saxon account written some twenty years later at the West Saxon court, and painting a fair and accurate picture of a defeated ruler of another kingdom was probably not a priority. Such contemporary evidence as exists shows Ceolwulf acting independently as king of the Mercians: he issues charters as king, witnessed by Mercian bishops and nobles; he also issues coins, one type of which, the Cross and Lozenge type, looks like the result of a reform of the coinage carried out by Alfred and Ceolwulf together. So it seems that at the time, Ceolwulf was recognized as the Mercian king by Mercians and West Saxons alike. He was probably also the leader of the English force which killed Rhodri Mawr of Gwynedd in 878, a battle mentioned only in Welsh and Irish annals. The fact that Ceolwulf kept the western parts of Mercia after the partition with the Vikings in 877 -- unlike the other occupied English nations which were completely taken over -- may even suggest that Ceolwulf was a shrewder negotiator than the West Saxon chronicler cared to remember.

874/5. Army leaves Repton
Halfdan takes part of it to Northumbria and takes winter quarters by the river Tyne
Guthrum, Oscetel and Anwend lead the rest to Cambridge, stay for a year
Alfred wins a naval battle against the Vikings

Since Halfdan was one of the kings leading the "Great Heathen Army" in 871, it may be that this division sees the remnants of the "Great Heathen Army" of 865 and the "Great Summer Army" of 871 going their separate ways.

875. Lindisfarne abandoned

c.875. Alfred's first coinage reform

876. Vikings (Guthrum's army) move from Cambridge into Wareham
Alfred makes peace with the Vikings
Halfdan shares out the land of the Northumbrians among his army

876/7. Vikings (Guthrum's army) to Exeter
Alfred pursues Vikings to Exeter, and they make peace there

Autumn, 877. Vikings (Guthrum's army) take over eastern Mercia, leaving Ceolwulf in the west

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in the harvest season the army went into Mercia and shared out part of it, and left the rest for Ceolwulf. (Asser seems to give the month as August, but this chapter in Asser is probably an interpolation; see Keynes and Lapidge, pp.246-7 n.94.) Æthelweard in his version of the Chronicle adds that the Vikings set up camp in Gloucester.

S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth: 1983)

January 878. Vikings (Guthrum's army) to Chippenham, occupy the land of the West Saxons
Alfred reduced to hiding in the marshes

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in midwinter, after twelfth night (i.e., January 878), the Vikings came stealthily to Chippenham, and occupied the land of the West Saxons and settled there, driving most of the English across the sea and conquering many of the rest, and that the people submitted, except for King Alfred, who continued the resistance with a small force in the woods and the fens.

In the same winter, the chronicler notes that the brother of Ivar and Halfdan was in Devon with a naval force, and was killed there with most of his men, and the "Raven" banner was captured. Asser adds the details that the Viking leader came with twenty-three ships from Dyfed in Wales, and that he was slain at the fortress at Countisbury (Life of King Alfred, chapter 23). We do not know this brother's name, though Geffrei Gaimar in the 12th century asserts that it was Ubba, and the legend of St Edmund of East Anglia names Ubba and Ivar as the Viking leaders who martyred King Edmund in 869 (see Ælfric's Life of St Edmund).

March 23 (Easter), 878. Alfred makes a stronghold at Athelney in Somerset
May 878. Battle of Edington: Alfred defeats Guthrum's army
June 878. Guthrum baptized at Aller near Athelney

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that at Easter (23 March), King Alfred with a small troop made a stronghold at Athelney, from which he and the nearby people of Somerset fought against the enemy. In the seventh week after Easter (mid-May) he rode to Ecgberht's Stone (unidentified) east of Selwood, and was there met by the people of Somerset and Wiltshire and Hampshire. The next day he went to Iley, and then to Edington, where he fought the whole army and put it to flight. He pursued them as far as their fortress, and besieged them there for a fortnight. This time it was the Vikings who had to give in and sue for peace. They gave him hostages and swore great oaths to leave the kingdom, and also that their king should receive baptism. They kept both promises: three weeks later (early June?) Guthrum and 30 of his chief men were baptized at Aller, near Athelney, and King Alfred stood sponsor to Guthrum there. Guthrum stayed with Alfred for twelve days, and greatly honoured him and his companions with gifts.

878. English force (led by Ceolwulf?) kills Rhodri Mawr of Gwynedd

This battle is mentioned in the Annales Cambriae, which note under 877 (for 878) that Rhodri and his son Gwriad were killed by the Saxons. There is no indication of who led the English force, but it was probably Ceolwulf of Mercia, both because Mercia was the neighbouring English kingdom (perhaps looking to expand westwards after the partition with the Vikings in 877) and because the West Saxons were coping with a major Viking invasion and near-conquest in 878. Besides which, if Alfred had won a victory over the Welsh in 878 on top of his defeat of the Vikings, one might expect the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to make a note of it, and no English sources mention this battle.

878/9. Guthrum's army goes from Chippenham to Cirencester, where it stays for a year
Another band of Vikings camps at Fulham by the Thames

879/80. Guthrum's army goes from Cirencester to East Anglia, and shares out the land
The army at Fulham goes overseas to the Frankish empire (until 892)

c.880. End of Ceolwulf's authority in Mercia
(Ealdorman) Æthelred succeeds to Mercia, under Alfred of Wessex

The length of Ceolwulf's reign is uncertain. A regnal list kept at Worcester (in the western half of Mercia, and so unaffected by the partition of 877) gives him a reign of five years, which would take it to 879. By 883 (according to S 218), Ealdorman Æthelred was in charge of Mercia, under the overall authority of King Alfred of Wessex. No contemporary sources explain how this came about, though the Viking army which settled in Cirencester in western Mercia for a year in 878/9 might have finally extinguished Ceolwulf's independent Mercian kingdom.

c.880. Alfred's second coinage reform

880. Army from Cirencester to East Anglia
Army settles in East Anglia and shares out the land

882. Alfred wins a naval battle against the Vikings

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 880s follows the career of the Viking army on the Continent, until its return in 892. The entry for 882 also notes that Alfred went out to sea and fought against four Viking ships, and he captured two of them and killed all who were on board, and the other two surrendered. A charter of 882 (S 345) notes that Alfred was also in this year on campaign (in expeditione) at Epsom in Surrey, quite possibly against another Viking incursion, but there are no further details.

883. English encamped against the enemy army at London

885. Viking army arrives, besieges Rochester
Alfred arrives and the Vikings flee (some overseas, some to Viking East Anglia)
East Anglians and new arrivals raid Benfleet in Essex
Alfred raids East Anglia

A part of the army that had gone to the Continent in 880 seems to have returned to England in this year and besieged Rochester. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the city held out until Alfred came with his army, at which point the Vikings fled to their ships. The Chronicle implies they then went back over the sea, but Æthelweard's version of the Chronicle suggests that the army split again, and some went back over the sea and some stayed on, joining up with Guthrum's East Anglians, and the East Anglians and the newly-arrived Vikings attacked Benfleet in Essex. (The main Chronicle confirms that in this year the Viking army in East Anglia broke their truce with King Alfred.) Æthelweard goes on to say that then the new Vikings and the East Anglian Vikings fell out, and some (presumably the newcomers) went back over the sea. Æthelweard and the main Chronicle then agree that Alfred sent a fleet into East Anglia, which was defeated by the Vikings.

886. Alfred occupies London
All the English not under Viking control submit to him (Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons?)
Alfred entrusts London to Ealdorman Æthelred of Mercia

890. Guthrum of Viking East Anglia dies

892. "Great Danish Army" returns from the Continent, in 250 ships
Hasteinn comes with 80 ships
Both armies make fortresses in Kent

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the "Great Danish Army" arrived with 250 ships in the estuary of the Lympne, and rowed four miles inland to the Weald, where they found and occupied a half-built fortress at Appledore. In the same year Hasteinn came with 80 ships up the Thames estuary and made a fortress at Milton. (This Hasteinn is perhaps identical with the Viking chief who was on the Loire in the late 860s and in 882.)

893-6. Northumbrians and East Anglians break truces and join forces with newly-arrived Vikings
Viking raids on remaining English areas
After three years of fighting, the English see off the new arrivals

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives a quite detailed account of the attacks and counter-attacks of these years, and it emerges clearly from this that the England faced by the Vikings in the 890s was very different from the walkover they faced in the 860s. They face well-organized resistance and armies gathered on at least one occasion from large parts of England and Wales, they are chased up and down the country and holed up in sieges, and so it is no surprise that in the summer of 896 they split up, some of them retreating into Viking-held Northumbria and East Anglia, and the others returning to the Continent.

The Chronicle starts by condemning the Northumbrians and East Anglians for siding with the Vikings, even though they had sworn oaths to King Alfred and the East Anglians at least had given hostages. Given that the Northumbrians and East Anglians concerned are presumably the remnants or the descendants of Halfdan's "Great Heathen Army" (which settled Northumbria in 876) and Guthrum's "Great Summer Army" (which settled East Anglia in 880), their loyalty to the newly-arrived Vikings is not surprising.

In 893, after the Vikings had occupied their fortresses in Kent (see 892), Alfred gathered his army and took up a position between the enemy forces, so that he could reach either army if they left their fortresses. What the chronicler only relates later in the annal is that Alfred seems also to have come to an agreement with Hasteinn at this point, by which Alfred gave Hasteinn rich gifts of money, and Hasteinn gave Alfred oaths and hostages, and Hasteinn's two sons were baptized with the sponsorship of Alfred and Ealdorman Æthelred. This was presumably done to make peace with Hasteinn's forces, but Hasteinn then took his army from Milton to Benfleet and ravaged the province. The Vikings at Appledore went on a long raid inland, as far as Wessex, and ravaged Hampshire and Berkshire. They returned, loaded with booty, which they wanted to take back to their ships, but they were cut off at Farnham in Surrey by an army led by Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. Edward's army recovered the spoils and put the Vikings to flight, and eventually caught up with them and besieged them.

Meanwhile, the Vikings of Northumbria and East Anglia gathered a fleet together and besieged Exeter and a fortress on the north coast of Devon. Alfred, who had been going to help besiege the Vikings cut off by his son, turned instead and took most of his army to Exeter, where he attacked the Vikings. Alfred sent part of his army on to London, where they gathered reinforcements and stormed and took Hasteinn's camp at Benfleet, and destroyed or captured all of the ships there. (Hasteinn was away on a raid.)

While Alfred was in Exeter, the other Viking armies assembled at Shoebury in Essex, and built a fortress there, and went up along the Thames, where they received reinforcements from the Northumbrians and East Anglians, and then continued along the Severn. At Buttington by the Severn they were met by the English, led by the ealdormen Æthelred (of Mercia) and Æthelhelm (of Wiltshire) and Æthelnoth (of Somerset), and comprising men from Wessex and Mercia and Wales (the Chronicle notes king's thegns from every fortress east of the Parret, and both west and east of Selwood, and also north of the Thames and west of the Severn). This combined English/Welsh force besieged the Vikings at Buttington for several weeks, starving them out until finally the Vikings had to emerge and they were defeated there by the English and the Welsh: the surviving Vikings fled back to Essex.

The Vikings regrouped in Essex, again collected a large army from Northumbria and East Anglia, placed their women and ships and property in Viking-held East Anglia, and travelled to the deserted city of Chester. The English army could not overtake them before they reached the fortress, but they did besiege the fortress and seize all the cattle outside and burn or consume all the corn in the surrounding districts, so that, as at Buttington, the Vikings were starved out and had to leave the fortification.

The annal for 894 begins with the Viking army leaving Chester and raiding Wales, and then returning from Wales through Northumbria and East Anglia (where the English army could not reach them) to eastern Essex. These Vikings then rowed up the Thames and up the Lea, where they built a fortress, 20 miles above London, and stayed the winter there.

The other Viking army, which had gathered from Northumbria and East Anglia and attacked Exeter and then been besieged by Alfred in 893, also went home this year. Though they stopped and tried to ravage in Sussex near Chichester on the way, the locals put them to flight and killed hundreds of them and captured some of their ships.

In the summer of 895 the English from London and elsewhere marched on the fortress of the Vikings by the Lea, but they were put to flight. In the autumn, though, Alfred camped his army nearby to contain the Vikings, and built two fortresses lower down the river Lea so that the Vikings could not get their ships back out. When the Vikings discovered this, they abandoned their ships and went overland to Bridgnorth on the Severn where they built a fortress. The English army rode after the Vikings, and the men of London (as before with Hasteinn's fleet at Benfleet in Essex) fetched the ships from the camp by the Lea, and destroyed the ones they could not bring away. The Vikings stayed the winter at Bridgnorth.

In the summer of 896, as noted at the beginning of this entry, the Vikings gave up their assaults, and some of them went into East Anglia and some into Northumbria, and the rest went south across the sea to the Seine.

896. Wessex raided from Viking East Anglia and Northumbria
Alfred orders the building of English "long ships"

Though the summer of 896 saw the departure of the Vikings who had come in 892, East Anglia and Northumbria were still Viking-held areas and marauding bands continued to harrass the south coast of Wessex. The Chronicle notes that they were still doing damage, mostly with the warships which they had built many years before, so Alfred ordered the building of bigger ships (almost twice as long as the Viking ships) to defeat them. These new ships were tested when a force of six Viking ships were harrying around the Isle of Wight, and Alfred sent nine of his new ships to contain them. The account of this local skirmish in the Chronicle is interesting because of the significant proportion of Frisians in the English force: casualty figures for one pitched battle record 62 "Frisians and English" and 120 Danes. Asser, in chapter 76 of his Life of King Alfred, mentions the Frisians among several other races who received a warm welcome at Alfred's court.

October 26, 899. Death of King Alfred
Succession of King Edward (the Elder)
Revolt of Æthelwold, son of Alfred's brother Æthelred

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Alfred died on October 26, and that his son Edward succeeded to the kingdom. However, the ætheling Æthelwold, son of Alfred's elder brother Æthelred (king of the West Saxons 865-71), refused to accept Edward's lordship and rode instead and seized royal residences at Wimborne (Dorset) and at Christchurch (Hants), against the will of the king. Edward took his army to Badbury near Wimborne, and Æthelwold barricaded himself within Wimborne with his men and a nun he had kidnapped, saying that he would live there or die there. The stage seems set for another set-piece of loyalty and heroism like the fights of Cynewulf and Cyneheard (see entry for 786), but instead Æthelwold fled by night and went to the Viking army in Northumbria, who accepted him as king and swore allegiance to him.

The earliest record of King Edward being called senior ("the Elder") is near the beginning of a Life of St Æthelwold from the end of the 10th century, presumably to distinguish him from the more recent King Edward (the Martyr, of 975-8).

M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (edd.), Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St Æthelwold (Oxford: 1991), pp.2-3

901. Foundation of the New Minster, Winchester

We can deduce that the New Minster was founded in 901 from charters (S 365, 366, and 1443) and from an entry in the late version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (dated 903, but other events in that annal took place in 901). It seems clear that Edward intended the new foundation to look after the spiritual interests of his family: two of the initial charters (S 366 and 1443) mention this in general terms, while the third (S 365) notes that a grant of land is made on condition that prayers are said at the monastery every day for Edward, his father, and his ancestors.

For the first quarter of the 10th century, the New Minster also functioned as a royal mausoleum: Alfred's body was moved from its place in the Old Minster to the New Minster, Alfred's wife Ealhswith was buried at the New Minster on her death in 902, as were Edward's younger brother Æthelweard on his death in 920/922, Edward himself in 924, and Edward's son Ælfweard (also in 924). King Æthelstan preferred Malmesbury for royal burial in his reign, and the tradition was broken, but King Eadwig was also buried at the New Minster at his death in 959.

It may be that the New Minster, built not twenty feet from the Old Minster which had stood there since the West Saxon Cenwealh ordered its construction in the mid-7th century (see entry on 660), was also a tangible statement that Alfred and Edward were at the head of a new dynasty, kings of the Anglo-Saxons rather than just the West Saxons.

S. Keynes, "The West Saxon Charters of King Æthelwulf and His Sons", English Historical Review 109 (1994), pp.1109-49

S. Keynes, The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester (Copenhagen: 1996)

S. Miller, Charters of the New Minster, Winchester (Oxford: 2001)

B. Yorke, "Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century", Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988), pp.65-88

901. Æthelwold, Æthelred's son, comes to Essex

Nothing is heard of Æthelwold between his revolt and flight to Northumbria at the end of 899 and his return south, in the fall of 901. There are Northumbrian coins in the name of Alvaldus from about this period: these may be coins of Æthelwold, which would corroborate the Chronicle's assertion that he was accepted as king by the Northumbrian Vikings (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.321).

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

902. Æthelwold, with the East Anglians, harries Mercia and into Wessex
December 13, 902. Battle of the Holme: Edward defeats Æthelwold

In the fall of 902 Æthelwold induced the East Anglian Vikings to break the peace and they harried all over Mercia as far as Cricklade in Wiltshire. When Æthelwold and his forces crossed the Thames into Wessex and raided Braydon (also in Wiltshire), King Edward pursued them with his army, and harried Essex and East Anglia (or as the Chronicle puts it, "all their lands between the Dykes and the Ouse, as far north as the fens"). Then Edward tried to stage an orderly withdrawal, but the men of Kent lingered behind against his command. The Chronicle notes that Edward had sent seven messengers to them, which implies that, like Nelson much later, they were turning a blind eye... The Danish army overtook the men of Kent at the Holme (unidentified) and fought them there, and very many people were killed on both sides, including Æthelwold. (The Chronicle names the most important of the dead as the ealdormen Sigewulf and Sigehelm, the thegn Eadwold, abbot Cenwulf, Sigeberht Sigewulf's son, Eadwold Acca's son, and on the Danish side king Eohric, ætheling Æthelwold, Brihtsige son of the ætheling Beornoth, Ysopa and Oscetel.) Æthelweard in his Chronicle dates the battle to December 13. The Chronicle admits that the Danes won the victory, though more of them than of the English were killed, but the death of the rebel Æthelwold will have been the most important result of the battle as far as Edward was concerned.

It would be interesting to know more about Brihtsige son of the ætheling Beornoth: the name (alliterating on B- like the names of the 9th-century Mercian kings, Beornwulf and Beorhtwulf and Burgred) suggests that he might have been the son of a prince of the Mercians. It is possible that in the uncertainty of the disputed succession after Alfred the Mercians attempted to claim independence from Edward and his kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons: a Mercian charter of 901 (S 221) issued by Æthelred and Æthelflæd has somewhat grander titles than usual and makes no mention of Edward's overall authority. However, there is no clearer evidence of Mercian independence at this point (no coins have survivied in the names of Æthelred or Æthelflæd, for example), and by 903 they were appearing in charters very much as the subordinates of Edward (S 367).

906. Edward makes peace with the East Angles and the Northumbrians

Nothing is reported of English / Danish hostilities between the Battle of the Holme in December 902 and 906: that there were ongoing troubles is suggested by the fact that in 906 the Chronicle reports that Edward made peace at Tiddingford (Berks.) with the Northumbrians and the East Anglians. One version of the Chronicle notes that he did this "from necessity", a formula which suggests that Edward was hard-pressed and might even suggest the "making peace" of an earlier generation by paying for the East Anglians and Northumbrians to cease harrying. The "restoration" of Chester in the following year suggests that hostilities continued in spite of the peace, and it was in 909 that the campaigns which led to the reconquest of the Danelaw began.

907. Chester was restored

This is recorded in the Mercian annals incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. No details are given of who restored it or from whom. Chester is described as deserted when the Vikings occupied it briefly in 894, but the English army starved them out. It may be that the inhabitants of the Danelaw recaptured Chester early in the 10th century, in the unrecorded battles which presumably led to Edward making peace with the East Angles and Northumbrians in 906.

909. Further subdivision of West Saxon bishoprics

For the earlier history of the West Saxon bishopric, see entry on 705, in which year the original see was split in two, Winchester and Sherborne. The further split of 909, which added the new sees of Ramsbury, Wells, and Crediton, is recorded in two documents of the later 10th century, dealing with disputes between the West Saxon see of Crediton and the neighbouring see of Cornwall (see EHD 229, and Whitelock, Councils & Synods, no. 35). The division can confidently be dated to 909, because new bishops are appointed to replace Denewulf of Winchester (who last appears in 908) and Asser of Sherborne (who dies in 909), and one of the new appointees, Frithestan of Winchester, first appears in 909.

Whitelock (ed.), Councils & Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, I: 871-1066 (Oxford: 1981)

909. Edward sends a West Saxon and Mercian army to harry Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edward sent an army of West Saxons and Mercians to the territory of the northern army (i.e. Northumbria), and that they spent five weeks there, killing many of the Danes and their cattle.

It is noteworthy that Edward is commanding both the West Saxons and the Mercians: this lends substance to the claim that he was in overall charge of all of the Anglo-Saxons.

910. Northumbrians harry in Mercia
August 5/6, 910. Battle of Wednesfield/Tettenhall: West Saxons and Mercians defeat Northumbrians

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, conveniently ignoring Edward's campaign of the previous year, claims that the Northumbrians broke the peace and ravaged Mercia, and that Edward, who was in Kent at the time, sent an army of West Saxons and Mercians against them. Æthelweard gives more details, noting that the Northumbrians harried Mercia as far as the river Avon and the West Saxon border, that they then crossed the Severn into the west country, and were returning home with rich spoil and crossing back over the Severn at Bridgnorth when the troops of the Mercians and the West Saxons suddenly appeared against them. Battle was joined at Wednesfield (according to Æthelweard) or Tettenhall (according to the Chronicle; the two are only about four miles apart). The English won and killed very many of the Northumbrians ("many thousands of men", according to the Chronicle), and put the rest to flight. Æthelweard tells us the battle is said to have taken place on August 5, while one of the versions of the Chronicle prefers August 6.

A very important result of this battle is that the Northumbrian Danes remained north of the Humber from then on: there are no records of the Northumbrian Vikings becoming involved in southern battles until (presumably) Brunanburh in 937, which enabled Edward and his Mercian allies, Æthelred and Æthelflæd, to concentrate on the Danish armies south of the Humber.

910. Æthelflæd builds a fortress at Bremesbyrig (unidentified)

911. Death of Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in this year Ealdorman Æthelred of the Mercians died and Edward succeeded to London and Oxford and all the lands which had belonged to them. Although this is clearly a sign of Edward taking more direct control over the Mercian territories, it should be emphasized that he was king of the Anglo-Saxons (including the Mercians) from the beginning: coins were minted in his name, not those of Æthelred or Æthelflæd, and charters from as early as 903 (S 367) note explicitly that Æthelred and Æthelflæd hold the governance of the Mercians under the authority of Edward. (It may be worth noting though that the Mercian annals in the Chronicle mention Æthelred's death without mentioning Edward's succession to London and Oxford, and it is tempting -- especially in light of more pointed remarks in 918 -- to read Mercian dissatisfaction into this omission.)

November 11, 911. Edward orders fortress built at Hertford

The date is given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ("around Martinmas"). This fort would block the southern advance of East Anglian Danes from Bedford and Cambridge, and its position near the river Lea would place it near the camp where the Vikings wintered in 894/5.

912. Death of Eadwulf of Bamburgh
Ealdred, son of Eadwulf, succeeds to Bamburgh (?)

This is recorded by Æthelweard, and also by the Annals of Ulster, which call him "king of the North Saxons". The last known ruler of what was probably Bernicia before this was Ecgberht the second, whose accession Simeon of Durham reports in 876; Eadwulf presumably succeeded some years after that, but there is no way of knowing when. That the rulers of Bernicia were no longer the puppet-kings of the Northumbrian Vikings, as the first appointee Ecgberht had been in 867, is suggested from the comment in the History of St Cuthbert (extracts at EHD 6) that there was a warm friendship between Eadwulf and King Alfred.

912. Edward takes army to Essex, builds fortress at Witham, receives submissions from Essex
Æthelflæd builds fortresses at Scergeat and Bridgnorth

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that in the summer Edward went with some of his forces to Maldon in Essex, and camped there while a fortress was built at Witham, and many of the people who had been under Danish rule submitted to him. Little is known of Essex since Benfleet there was used as a Viking base in the 893-6 campaign and Æthelwold landed there in 901, but from this context it seems likely that it fell under the control of the East Anglian Danes, and that 912 marks a stage of its recapture by the English. The fort at Witham would block the westwards advance of Danes from Colchester. Meanwhile, another part of Edward's army built a second fortress at Hertford.

The Mercian annals note that Æthelflæd built a fortress at Scergeat (unidentified), and another at Bridgnorth (which is where the Vikings had crossed the Severn in 910 before meeting the English at Wednesfield/Tettenhall).

913. Raiding parties from Northampton and Leicester
Æthelflæd builds fortresses at Tamworth and Stafford

The main Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recording Edward's campaign, notes no fortress-building this year, but only the activities of armies from Northampton and Leicester which raided around Hook Norton and Luton. The people of the district defeated the raiding band and put them to flight and recaptured their booty.

Æthelflæd, meanwhile, built the fortress at Tamworth in the early summer, and another before August at Stafford. These fortresses would shore up the northeastern boundaries of English Mercia against the Danish armies in the Five Boroughs.

c.914. Battle of Corbridge: Ragnall defeats the Scots and the English Northumbrians

F. Wainwright, "The Submission to Edward the Elder", History, n.s., 27 (1952), 114-30

914. Viking fleet comes from Brittany, ravages in Wales and along the southwest
Edward builds fortresses at Buckingham, receives submissions from Bedford and Northampton

Æthelflæd builds fortresses at Eddisbury and Warwick

The Viking fleet from Brittany was led by two earls, Ohter and Hroald, and they arrived at the Severn estuary and ravaged in Wales and around the coast. They went inland into Herefordshire, but the men of Hereford and Gloucester and the nearest fortresses met them and put them to flight and killed Hroald and Ohter's brother, and besieged them until they gave hostages and promised to leave. After this, Edward arranged that men were stationed along the south side of the Severn estuary, to deter attacks. The Vikings nonetheless did manage twice to steal inland, once to Watchet and once to Porlock . On both occasions, however, they were caught and heavy casualties were inflicted. They were camped on the island of Steepholme, and they remained there until the autumn when they grew very short of food, at which point they went on to Dyfed, and from there to Ireland.

Also in the same year, before Martinmas (November 11), Edward stayed at Buckingham with his army, and built two fortresses there, and the Earl Thurcetel submitted to him there, as did the principal lords of Bedford and many of those at Northampton. Edward took his army to Bedford and occupied the borough and stayed there four weeks and ordered another fortress to be built there.

Æthelflæd meanwhile built a fortress at Eddisbury in the early summer (which would block raids into northern Mercia from the Mersey) and another at Warwick in the early autumn (another fortress, like Tamworth and Stafford, on the northeastern border of English Mercia, against the Five Boroughs).

915. Æthelflæd builds fortresses at Chirbury and at Weardburh and at Runcorn

The fort at Chirbury was on the Welsh / Mercian border, that at Weardburh is unidentified, and that at Runcorn, like that at Eddisbury, was presumably designed to block raids into northern Mercia from the Mersey.

916. Edward builds fortress at Maldon
Earl Thurcetel leaves England for France

The main Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edward built the fortress at Maldon, and that Earl Thurcetel, who had submitted to Edward late in 914, went with his followers across the sea to France.

916. Æthelflæd sends an army into Wales, destroys Brecenanmere (Llangorse Lake, near Brecon)

The Mercian annals meanwhile reveal that Æthelflæd, in addition to dealing with the Danes, had conflicts with the Welsh. The innocent abbot Ecgberht was slain with his companions on June 16, presumably by the Welsh; in retaliation Æthelflæd sent an army into Wales three days later, and destroyed Brecenanmere (Llangorse Lake, near Brecon), and captured the king's wife and 33 others. These events, and the building of the fortress at Chirbury in 915, should perhaps be seen as parts of ongoing Welsh / English hostilities that are otherwise unrecorded -- like the English attack on Gwynedd in 878.

917. Edward builds fortresses at Towcester and Wigingamere
Much campaigning: Edward receives submissions of armies of Northampton, East Anglia, Cambridge
Æthelflæd takes the borough of Derby (one of the Five Boroughs)

In 917, before Easter, Edward ordered a fort built at Towcester (which would block the southern advance of Danes from Northampton), and another at Wigingamere (unidentified).

In the summer, the Danes of Northampton and Leicester and the area to the north stormed the new fort at Towcester but were repelled; they then successfully raided a less well-protected area, near Aylesbury. Meanwhile, the Danish army of Huntingdon and East Anglia built a fortress at Tempsford, some ten miles south of Huntingford, abandoning Huntingford because Tempsford was closer to the English border. The Danes of Tempsford attacked the nearby English fortress at Bedford, but were repulsed. Another Danish army from East Anglia and Mercia gathered, and attacked the fortress at Wigingamere, but were repulsed.

In the English counterattack, Edward gathered an army and attacked the Danish fortress at Tempsford and took it by storm, killing the king and Earl Toglos and his son, Earl Manna. Another English host assembled in the autumn from Kent, Surrey, and Essex and the nearest fortresses on all sides, and besieged the Danish fortress of Colchester and took that and killed all the people within.

In the autumn, an army of East Anglians and Vikings went to Maldon and attacked the fortress, but more English troops came from outside, and the Danes were put to flight. (This East Anglian army may have been fragmenting, since their king and many nobles had been killed at Tempsford.)

Shortly afterwards, in that same autumn, Edward brought the army of the West Saxons to Passenham, and stayed there while the fortress of Towcester was given a stone wall. Then Earl Thurferth submitted to him, as did the army of Northampton. The English army went on to restore the fortresses at Huntingdon and Colchester (abandoned by and taken from the Danes earlier in the year), and many of the people who had been under Danish rule in East Anglia and Essex submitted to him, as did the Danish army in East Anglia, and the army of Cambridge.

These decisive English victories are partly the result of the system of fortifications that had been perhaps a decade (counting from the restoration of Chester in 907) in the making, and partly also of the fact that the Danes were actually under attack from both sides. While Edward was holding the southward advance from the Five Boroughs and advancing westwards from East Anglia, his sister Æthelflæd took Derby, one of the Five Boroughs, and all that belonged to it. The Mercian annals report that this took place before Lammas (August 1).

918. Second Battle of Corbridge: Ragnall against the Scots and the English Northumbrians

918. Æthelflæd peacefully obtains control of Leicester and receives pledges from the people of York
Edward takes Stamford and Nottingham

In the first half of the year, Æthelflæd peacefully obtained control of Leicester (another of the Five Boroughs), and also received pledges from the people of York that they would be under her direction. It is not certain whether the "people of York" at this point were English or Danes or whether they were already a mixed people, but they seem to be displaying the political pragmatism seen among the Northumbrians of the 8th century and later in the mid-10th century. The submission to Æthelflæd was probably designed to gain a strong southern ally against the depradations of Ragnall and his Norse Vikings: if with Æthelflæd's help they could defend themselves more successfully against the Norse, then so be it. Very shortly after this, Æthelflæd died.

Also in the first half of 918, Edward took his army to Stamford, and started to build another fortress there, and Stamford submitted to him (third of the Five Boroughs to fall). On Æthelflæd's death Edward went back south to Tamworth (see next entry), but after that he came back and captured Nottingham and ordered it to be repaired and manned with both Englishmen and Danes. The Chronicle concludes that all the people who had settled in Mercia, both Danish and English, submitted to him. This implies that Edward also took Lincoln, the last of the Five Boroughs. However, the existence of a Viking coinage of Lincoln in the early 920s suggests either that Edward did not recapture Lincoln, or that it regained its independence almost immediately (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.323).

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

June 12, 918. Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, dies at Tamworth
Edward occupies Tamworth, receives submissions of all the English Mercians (and some Welsh kings)
December 918. Ælfwyn, Æthelflæd's daughter, taken into Wessex

On June 12, 918, Æthelflæd died at Tamworth, seven years after the death of her husband Æthelred in 911. The Mercian annals note that this was in the eighth year in which with lawful authority she was holding dominion over the Mercians, and that she was buried at Gloucester. They continue in their next annal that three weeks before Christmas, Ælfwyn, daughter of Æthelred, lord of the Mercians, was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken into Wessex.

The main body of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (or what can more properly be called the West Saxon version) states only that Edward's sister Æthelflæd died and that Edward occupied Tamworth and all the Mercians who had been subject to Æthelflæd submitted to him, as did also three Welsh kings, Hywel, Clydog and Idwal. As far as West Saxon observers were concerned, Æthelflæd was to be the last separate ruler of Mercia.

It is clear from several sources that Edward was in overall charge of both Wessex and Mercia in the first twenty years of the 10th century, and the change in 918 was not so much Edward taking over Mercia as Edward removing an intermediate level of government between himself and his Mercian subjects. Edward commanded armies of West Saxons and Mercians in 909 and 910; he seems to have issued coins in his own name throughout Wessex and Mercia (no coins survive in the names of Æthelred and Æthelflæd); the charters make clear that Æthelred and Æthelflæd hold their power under Edward's authority (e.g. S 367 of 903).

However, the references to Æthelflæd's "legitimate authority" and Ælfwyn being "deprived of all authority" in the Mercian annals make it equally clear that at least one Mercian observer expected that the Mercians would keep their own governor. It is most unfortunate that no royal diplomas survive from the period, so we have no evidence of whether Ælfwyn ever exercised authority in Mercia. A charter from the second half of 918 in Ælfwyn's name, witnessed by the members of her court, might offer a fascinating glimpse into the politics of the period. (The West Saxon version of the Chronicle, which states that all the Mercians submitted to Edward shortly after Æthelflæd's death, implies that the West Saxons would see any attempt by Ælfwyn to issue charters in her own name as a revolt -- but the way the Mercian annals suggest that Ælfwyn was deprived of authority may suggest the attempt was made.)

The most tantalizing question about Mercian politics in 918 is what part was taken by Edward's son Æthelstan. Pre-Conquest sources tell us little about Æthelstan's upbringing, but the 12th-century William of Malmesbury notes that he was brought up at the court of Æthelred and Æthelflæd. If this is so, he may have played a key part in these events, either for Edward or for Ælfwyn, and his actions here might well relate to his own apparently problematic succession in 924/5.

918. Edward builds and occupies a fortress at Thelwall (Cheshire)
Edward orders a Mercian army to occupy and repair the fortress at Manchester in Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts these events "after autumn", so towards the end of 918. Edward takes the army to Thelwall (the new fortress is just northeast and east of Æthelflæd's fortresses of Runcorn and Eddisbury, defending the northern border of Mercia), and orders a Mercian army to go farther northeast (this time north of the Mersey) to build another fortress at Manchester. The Danelaw south of the Humber may have been almost entirely under Edward's control, but the Norse Vikings north of the Humber were still a threat, as Ragnall's storming of York in 919 and Sihtric's storming of Davenport in Cheshire in 920 would make clear.

919. Ragnall takes York

920. Edward takes army north and builds second fortress at Nottingham, and another at Bakewell
The Scots, Ragnall, the sons of Eadwulf, all the Northumbrians, and the Strathclyde Britons submit to Edward

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edward built this second fortress at Nottingham before midsummer (he had taken the existing fortress from the Danes in 918), and a bridge across the Trent between the two fortresses. Then he took his army to Bakewell in the Peak District, built another fortress, and received the general submission of the people of the north, who "chose him as father and lord". The Chronicle mentions the king of the Scots, all the people of the Scots, Ragnall (the Norse Viking), the sons of Eadwulf and all the Northumbrians, English and Danish, Norsemen and others, and the king of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh. While a peace may have been agreed, the fact that Ragnall's brother Sihtric was issuing coins in his own name in the 920s (see CTCE p.107) shows that the agreement of 920 did not give Edward effective control of the north.

C. Blunt, I. Stewart, S. Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England (Oxford: 1989)

920. Ragnall dies
Sihtric, Ragnall's brother, takes over York
Sihtric takes Davenport in Mercia

921. Edward builds a fortress at Cledemutha (the mouth of the Clwyd in Cheshire?)

July 17, 924. Edward dies
Ælfweard, Edward's son, succeeds (in Wessex?)
August 924. Ælfweard dies
Æthelstan, Edward's son, succeeds
September 4, 925. Æthelstan's coronation

Pulling together information from several pre-Conquest sources we can say that Edward died on July 17, 924, at Farndon in Mercia. His son Ælfweard was recognized as king at least in Winchester (the Liber Vitae of the New Minster at Winchester calls him king, and one version of the West Saxon regnal list includes his reign), but he died either 16 days or 4 weeks later (either way, in the first half of August 924). Both Edward and Ælfweard were buried at the New Minster. No version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions Ælfweard's kingship: the West Saxon branch says only that Edward died and Æthelstan succeeded, while the Mercian annals say that Edward died, Ælfweard died shortly after (without suggesting that Ælfweard was king), the Mercians chose Æthelstan as king, and he was consecrated at Kingston. A charter issued on the day of Æthelstan's coronation gives us the date, September 4, 925 (S 394).

The puzzle in all this is why was the coronation delayed for over a year, from Ælfweard's death in August 924 until September 925? Pre-Conquest sources shed no light on this problem, so later sources must be cautiously invoked. From William of Malmesbury's writings in the 12th century come hints that the delay should be seen in terms of a division between the Mercians and the West Saxons.

First of all, William adds the detail that Edward died shortly after putting down an English and British revolt in Chester (in Mercian territory; Farndon, where the Mercian annals report Edward died, is nearby). Unfortunately the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is blank for the last three years of Edward's reign, so there is no contemporary corroboration of this revolt, but in view of the apparent resentment in the Mercian annals of the treatment of Ælfwyn in 918, a Mercian revolt is plausible. (Another reason for revolt might be the reorganization of western Mercia into shires, which it has been suggested took place in the last years of Edward's reign, after his assertion of direct control over Mercia in 918; see Gelling, p.141. These new boundaries ran rough-shod over the older divisions of Mercia, and the rearrangement would probably have caused at least as much outrage in the 10th as it did in the 20th century.)

William also notes that Æthelstan was brought up at the court of Æthelred and Æthelflæd. This might have made him more acceptable as a ruler to the Mercians, though this might well depend on what part he played (if any) in the suppression of Ælfwyn in 918 and the Mercian revolt at Chester in 924 (if this really happened). If he had sided with the Mercians against his father on either occasion, it might also have made him less acceptable as a ruler to the West Saxons. That some of the West Saxons did object to Æthelstan is suggested by William's note that there was a conspiracy, led by a certain Alfred, to have Æthelstan blinded at Winchester. William reports that Alfred's conspiracy was based on the assertion that Æthelstan was illegitimate, the son of a concubine. This suggests that there may have been a faction, based perhaps at Winchester, which favoured the accession of Ælfweard's brother Edwin after Ælfweard's death in August 924. (According to William of Malmesbury, Ælfweard and Edwin were sons of Edward and Ælfflæd, while Æthelstan was the son of Edward and Ecgwynn.)

Perhaps the Mercians chose Æthelstan as king immediately after Ælfweard's death in August 924, and the West Saxons chose Edwin, and it was the resolution of this conflict that delayed the coronation. (The only document of Æthelstan's reign witnessed by Edwin is a charter of the New Minster of Winchester, S 1417, which may strengthen the case that support for Ælfweard and Edwin was based at Winchester.) Edwin lived on until 933, when he was driven abroad by troubles in the kingdom and died at sea; later legend (perhaps inevitably) suggested that Æthelstan was somehow to blame.

D. Dumville, "The West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List: Manuscripts and Texts", Anglia 104 (1986), pp.1-32 [for Ælfweard see p.29]

M. Gelling, The West Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester: 1992)

B. Yorke, "Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century", Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988), pp.65-88

January 30, 926. Æthelstan and Sihtric of Northumbria meet at Tamworth

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes this meeting, and states that Æthelstan gave Sihtric his sister in marriage. This attempt to ensure peace with Northumbria came to nothing because Sihtric died the following year.

927. Sihtric of Northumbria dies
Guthfrith succeeds to Northumbria, but is driven out by Æthelstan

Sihtric's death is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. One manuscript goes on to say that Æthelstan succeded him without mentioning any other claimants, while another notes that Æthelstan drove out a King Guthfrith. Sihtric left a son, Olaf Cuaran, who would return to seize York after Æthelstan's death in 939. Guthfrith was Sihtric's brother and Olaf's uncle, and after being expelled from York by Æthelstan went back to being king of Dublin.

R. Mynors and others, William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford: 1998)

A. Smyth, Scandinavian York and Dublin (Dublin: 1975-8)

July 12, 927. Æthelstan's great meeting at Eamont
Æthelstan's title becomes Rex Anglorum, King of the English

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in this year Æthelstan succeeded to Northumbria, and that he brought under his rule all the kings of the island, Hywel of the West Welsh, Constantine of the Scots, Owain of Gwent, and Ealdred, son of Eadwulf of Bamburgh. At a meeting at Eamont (in Cumbria) on 12 July they made peace with pledge and oaths. William of Malmesbury in the 12th century mentions a meeting at Dacre where Constantine of the Scots and Owain of Strathclylde pledged peace to Æthelstan, so it may be that Owain of Strathclyde should be added to the Eamont list (GRA, ii.134.2).

Michael Lapidge has demonstrated that a Latin poem about Æthelstan, the Carta Dirige Gressus, was composed in the immediate aftermath of the council at Eamont (see Lapidge, pp. 90-93). The poem agrees with the triumphal tone of the Chronicle entry, noting that England was now "made whole" (perfecta Saxonia), and there are other indications that the victory of 927 was seen as a turning point. Æthelstan's coins after 927 often bear an abbreviation of the style Rex Totius Britanniae, "King of the Whole of Britain", and coins in Æthelstan's name are minted all over the country, including Northumbria. Charters also show the change to the perfecta Saxonia: the king's style changed from the Rex Angul-Saxonum, "King of the Anglo-Saxons", used by Alfred and Edward and Æthelstan in his earliest years and implying rule over the West Saxons and the Mercians, to the simpler Rex Anglorum, "King of [all] the English". In the early 930s, the style expanded to "King of the English and by Grace of God Leader of all Britain". The witness-lists of some charters from 928 to 935 include the attestations of Welsh and Scottish rulers (Hywel Dda of Dyfed, Idwal of Gwynedd, Constantine of the Scots), who appear as sub-kings (subreguli) of Æthelstan.

C. Blunt, "The coinage of Athelstan, 924-939", British Numismatic Journal 42 (special vol., 1974), pp.35-160

M. Lapidge, "Some Latin poems as evidence for the reign of Athelstan", Anglo-Saxon England 9 (1981), pp.61-98

R. Mynors and others, William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford: 1998)

933. Edwin, Edward the Elder's son, dies at sea

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes only that the ætheling Edwin was drowned at sea. The Acts of the Abbots of St Bertin's, written by Folcuin in the mid-10th century (extract at EHD 26), note that King Edwin, driven by a disturbance in his kingdom, took ship to the Continent but the ship was wrecked by a storm, and the body was washed ashore and brought to the monastery of St Bertin's for burial.

No contemporary English source explains the disturbance in the kingdom that caused Edwin to flee the country. William of Malmesbury in the 12th century hesitantly advances the theory that Edwin was accused of plotting against Æthelstan, and though Edwin denied the charges under oath he was driven into exile. Moreover, Æthelstan compelled Edwin to go to sea with only a single companion in a boat without oars or oarsmen and rotten with age, as if to make assurance double sure (GRA, ii.139.3-4; 140).

William's account of the basic situation (if not perhaps his description of the boat) seems plausible enough. If there had been even the rumour of a faction at Winchester that favoured the accession of Edwin (Ælfflæd's son) rather than Æthelstan (Ecgwynn's son) after Ælfweard's death in 924, then wily courtiers could use such rumours to their own advantage. It will probably never be clear whether there was a pro-Edwin party in Winchester early in Æthelstan's reign, though the fact that the near-contemporary Folcuin calls Edwin a king rather than a prince may suggest that he got his information from such a supporter of Edwin.

R. Mynors and others, William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford: 1998)

934. Constantine of Scotland rebels
Æthelstan's Scottish campaign

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelstan went to Scotland with both a land force and a naval force, and ravaged much of it. Presumably Constantine had rebelled; William of Malmesbury in the 12th century, describing the run-up to Brunanburh in 937, notes that Constantine was rebelling "for the second time" (GRA, ii.131.4). Because Æthelstan's charters for the period give unusually precise dating information, we can follow Æthelstan's movements. On May 28 he was in Winchester (S 425), on June 7 he had moved up to Nottingham (S 407), and on September 12 he was back in Buckingham (S 426). Since the Buckingham charter was witnessed by Constantine, it is likely that Æthelstan broke the rebellion over the summer and brought Constantine back into line.

R. Mynors and others, William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum (Oxford: 1998)

937. Battle of Brunanburh

The battle of Brunanburh is commemorated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by an Old English poem. From that poem we learn that Æthelstan and his brother Edmund won a victory at Brunanburh (unidentified), against Constantine of Scotland and Olaf, that they slew five young kings and seven of Olaf's earls, and a numberless host of seamen and Scots. The prince of the Norsemen was driven back to Dublin, and Constantine also returned to his own land.

The Olaf who was defeated at Brunanburh was not the Olaf Cuaran (son of Sihtric) whom Guthfrith came to York to support in 927, but Guthfrith's own son, somewhat confusingly also called Olaf. This Olaf Guthfrithsson became king of Dublin in 934, when his father died, and so appropriately is driven back to Dublin at battle's end (see Stenton, pp.342-3).

F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford: 1971)

October 27, 939. Æthelstan dies
Edmund, Edward the Elder's son, succeeds to England
c. November 29, 939. Edmund consecrated king

Edmund was the son of Eadgifu and Edward the Elder, and half-brother to Æthelstan. He was the first king to succeed to all of England, including Northumbria, but he soon lost Northumbria and most of Mercia; he spent a good part of his reign recovering them (see entries on 939, 942, 944). He also faced down a Welsh revolt in the process (942), and went on to ravage Strathclyde when he was done (see entry on 945). He died in 946.

Edmund was twice married. By his first wife, Ælfgifu (who died in 944) he had two sons, Eadwig and Edgar. She was a benefactress of Shaftesbury, where a cult of St Ælfgifu developed. Edmund's second wife was Æthelflæd of Damerham.

939. Olaf Guthfrithsson becomes king in York
939/40. Olaf expands southwards, takes Five Boroughs, to Watling Street

Olaf Guthfrithsson, who was defeated by Æthelstan at Brunanburh in 937, returned from Dublin to England in the two months between Æthelstan's death and the end of 939 (see Beaven, p.2, drawing on Irish chronicles), and had probably occupied York by the end of 939. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that the Northumbrians were false to their pledges and chose Olaf from Ireland as their king, which suggests there was no resistance.

The Chronicle notes that Olaf next took Tamworth by storm, and carried away much plunder from there. Then King Edmund besieged King Olaf and Archbishop Wulfstan at Leicester, and could have taken them if they had not escaped by night. Simeon of Durham, writing in the 12th century, adds some details, noting that Olaf marched south from York to Northampton, and when that siege failed he went on to Tamworth, and ravaged the area. On his return to Leicester and meeting with Edmund, serious fighting was averted by the two archbishops, Oda and Wulfstan, who reconciled the kings and helped conclude a truce. By the terms of the truce, Watling Street became the boundary between Edmund's kingdom and Olaf's.

Since Oda was not transferred from Ramsbury to Canterbury until 941 (see S 475 and 476), it may be that his presence at Leicester as archbishop in 940 is a literary embellishment of Simeon's to balance the other archbishop. But that the boundary was returned to Watling street is shown independently from Edmund's reconquests of 942 and 944.

The return of the border to Watling Street meant that in a single year Olaf Guthfrithsson had reversed the reconquest of the Danelaw which Edward and Æthelflæd had managed in the 910s, and Æthelstan had apparently sealed in the 920s and 930s. It is also worth noting that Wulfstan, archbishop of York, was acting on behalf of the Norse king: his taking of sides here makes it easier to understand why King Eadred would order Wulfstan's arrest in 952 when another Norse king was in charge of York (q.v.).

M. Beaven, "King Edmund I and the Danes of York", English Historical Review 139 (1918), pp.1-9

c.940?946. Edmund makes Dunstan abbot of Glastonbury

N. Brooks, "The Career of St Dunstan", in N. Ramsay and others (edd.), St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult (Woodbridge, 1992), pp.1-23

941. Olaf Guthfrithsson raids Bernicia; dies shortly afterwards
Olaf Sihtricsson succeeds

Simeon of Durham in the 12th century records that Olaf ravaged the church of St Bealdhere and burnt Tyninghame, and perished shortly afterwards, that the men of York laid waste Lindisfarne in revenge and killed many people, and that Olaf Sihtricsson succeeded to the Northumbrians.

One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records King Olaf's death in 942, but this is contradicted by Celtic chronicles, which support the 941 date (see Beaven, p.5). Tyninghame is on the south coast of the Firth of Forth, and so it seems that Olaf, having been checked by the king of the English to the south, turned around to see how far he could get against the Bernicians. Celtic annals suggest that Olaf Sihtricsson came to York late in 940 at Olaf Guthfrithsson's invitation (see Beaven, p.6), and it may be that Sihtricsson's succession on Guthfrithsson's death was helped by the fact that his father Sihtric had previously ruled in York (920-7).

M. Beaven, "King Edmund I and the Danes of York", English Historical Review 139 (1918), pp.1-9

942. Edmund defeats Idwal of Gwynedd

The Annales Cambriae record that Idwal and his brother Eliseg were killed by the Saxons in 943. (For the re-dating of this annal to 942, and the ordering of the revolt of the Welsh and the retaking of the Five Boroughs, see Beaven, p.7.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes no mention of this incident, but since Idwal was the king of Gwynedd this must have been a major uprising and Edmund was presumably responsible for crushing it.

M. Beaven, "King Edmund I and the Danes of York", English Historical Review 139 (1918), pp.1-9

942. Edmund recaptures the Five Boroughs

Edmund's recapture of the Five Boroughs, which removed the border with the Vikings back to the Humber, is celebrated by a short and triumphal poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

943. Edmund stands sponsor to King Olaf, and much later to King Ragnall

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that Edmund stood sponsor to King Olaf at baptism, and then much later the same year to King Ragnall at confirmation. The next annal calls Ragnall a son of Guthfrith, and if he is the brother of Olaf Guthfrithsson he was presumably claiming to be king of York: contemporary coins of York in Ragnall's name support this claim (see Grierson and Blackburn, p.324, which also mentions an otherwise unknown king Sihtric striking coins at York in this period). It is uncertain how King Ragnall's reign related to King Olaf's, though Simeon of Durham's 12th-century note that the Northumbrians drove out Olaf in 943 may suggest that Ragnall took over for 943-4. Since Olaf was still in Northumbria to be driven out by Edmund in 944, it may be that the two kings were fighting over the leadership when the English invaded, much as the (English) Northumbrians had done when faced with Viking attack in 866.

P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage, 1: The Early Middle Ages (5th-10th centuries) (Cambridge: 1986)

944. Edmund recaptures Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edmund reduced all Northumbria under his rule, and drove out both kings, Olaf Sihtricsson and Ragnall Guthfrithsson.

945. Edmund ravages Strathclyde, and grants it to Malcolm, king of the Scots

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edmund ravaged all Cumberland (i.e., the British kingdom of Strathclyde), and granted it to Malcolm, king of the Scots, in return for his alliance. (The identification of the Chronicle's Cumberland with Strathclyde is confirmed by the Annales Cambriae, which note the devastation of Strathclyde by the Saxons.) The new lines drawn were not permanent, as Dunmail was shortly ruling in Strathclyde once more, but it does show Edmund's recognition that Northumbria was the most northerly part of the kingdom of England (see Stenton, p.359). Edmund may also have been trying to cut the link between Scandinavian York and Dublin.

F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford: 1971)

May 26, 946. Edmund dies (stabbed in a brawl)
Eadred, Edmund's brother, succeeds to England
August 16, 946. Eadred consecrated king

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Edmund died on St Augustine's day (26 May), stabbed by Leofa in a brawl at Pucklechurch. John of Worcester, writing in the 12th century, adds that Edmund was trying to rescue his seneschal from being killed by a robber, and that he was buried at Glastonbury by St Dunstan (JW, pp.398-9).

It was only in Eadred's reign that Northumbria became a permanent part of the kingdom of England, almost three decades after Æthelstan conquered Northumbria and declared the perfecta Saxonia (q.v.). His dealings with the Northumbrians took up most of his reign (see entry on 947-54).

Eadred is not known to have married or had children, and seems increasingly remote in his last years: less than a third of the charters of 953-5 are witnessed by the king, and the prevalence of "Dunstan B"-type charters may suggest that Dunstan took over some of the production of charters in this period (see Keynes, pp.185-6).

The earliest Life of St Dunstan, written towards the end of the century, deals with King Eadred in chapters 19 and 20 (extracts at EHD 234). It describes a very good relationship between Eadred and Dunstan, such that Dunstan was one of Eadred's favourite counsellors, and that Eadred entrusted the best of his treasures to Dunstan. This fits the possibility that Dunstan took over some of the charter-production in 953-5, and Eadred's will, in which Abbot Dunstan appears on a level with bishops and the archbishop of Canterbury, confirms that Eadred held Dunstan in high esteem (S 1515; see EHD 107). The will also confirms that some of Eadred's treasures were distributed among the ecclesiastics (a sum put aside for the use of Bishop Oscytel of Dorchester is said to be in the possession of Bishop Wulfhelm of Wells). The Life of Dunstan also notes that Eadred suffered from an unpleasant-sounding but unidentified disease, which eventually killed him. He died in 955.

R. Darlington and others, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, II: The Annals from 450 to 1066 (Oxford: 1995)

S. Keynes, "The 'Dunstan B' Charters", Anglo-Saxon England 23 (1994), pp.165-93

W. Stubbs, Memorials of St Dunstan (London: 1874) [A new edition of the Life of St Dunstan is being prepared by M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom]

947-54. Eadred and the Northumbrians

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 947 Eadred came to Tanshelf, where Wulfstan, archbishop of York, and all the councillors of the Northumbrians pledged themselves to the king. Very shortly afterwards, they betrayed their oaths, and took the Norwegian Erik Bloodaxe as their king. In 948 Eadred ravaged Northumbria, and burnt down St Wilfrid's minster at Ripon. While Eadred was on his way home, the army of York overtook him at Castleford and inflicted heavy losses. This so enraged Eadred that he threatened to march back into Northumbria and destroy it utterly, at which point the Northumbrians deserted Erik and paid Eadred compensation. In 949 Olaf Cuaran came back to Northumbria, and the implication seems to be that he was accepted as king, because in 952 the Northumbrians drove out King Olaf and took back Erik. Also in 952 Eadred ordered the imprisonment of Archbishop Wulfstan of York. In 954 the Northumbrians drove out Erik, and Eadred finally succeeded to Northumbria. Contemporary sources do not record what happened to Erik, but Roger of Wendover in the 13th century records that he was betrayed by Earl Oswulf and treacherously killed by Earl Maccus at Stainmore.

The information of the Chronicle is contradicted on one point by the evidence of contemporary charters, some of which (the so-called "alliterative" charters) include very detailed royal titles. Such charters survive for the years 946 (S 520), 949 (S 544, 548-50), 950 (S 552a), 951 (S 556-7), and 955 (S 566, 569), and Eadred is specifically called king of the Northumbrians in charters for 946, 949, 950, and 955. (The fact that he is not called king of Northumbria in 951 may well be a tacit admission that he had lost the province by that time, but the charters give no evidence on the control of Northumbria between 946-9 and 951-5.) Since Eadred was in control of Northumbria in 950, either Olaf's arrival should be moved from 949 to 950 or at least some part of Northumbria remained loyal to Eadred in the first year of Olaf's presence.

A second point of apparent contradiction between the Chronicle and the charters comes in the note in the Chronicle under 954 that Wulfstan received a bishopric again, in Dorchester. This has been taken to mean that Wulfstan was incarcerated from 952-4, which would be contradicted by the fact that he witnesses a charter in 953 (S 560). However, Eadred may well have preferred to have the treacherous archbishop of York under house arrest at his own court rather than up in Northumbria consorting with foreign kings, which would account for Wulfstan's arrest in 952, his witnessing of a charter in 953, and his restoration to his bishopric in 954 after Erik had been exiled for the last time and the crisis was over.

952. Eadred orders slaughter in Thetford

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes this slaughter in the borough of Thetford was made in vengeance for the abbot Eadhelm, who had been slain in Thetford.

November 23, 955. Eadred dies
Eadwig, Edmund's son, succeeds to England
c. January 26, 956. Eadwig consecrated king
Eadwig dispossesses Eadgifu, exiles Dunstan

Eadwig was the son of King Edmund and Ælfflæd (q.v.), and the nephew of King Eadred. His reign looks like an energetic attempt to distance himself from the advisors of the previous generation, and set up a new group of advisors who were loyal to him; the attempt failed, and history has judged him somewhat harshly as a result.

The tension in Eadwig's reign is apparent from the beginning. Eadred's will has survived (S 1515), and granted large sums of money as well as estates to several religious houses and to his mother Eadgifu. The money cannot be traced, but there is no evidence that any of the religious houses held the estates they were bequeathed, and more positive proof that the will was disregarded comes from a charter of Eadgifu's issued in 959 (S 1211), in which she notes that when Eadred died she was robbed of all her property, and it was only returned on King Edgar's accession in 959. It also seems from the wording of his will that Eadred intended his body to rest somewhere other than the Old Minster at Winchester, where he was buried. (The will mentions, but does not name, the place where he intended to be buried, and seems to distinguish it from Winchester which he mentions in another context.)

Within months of his accession Eadwig had also quarrelled with Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, who had been a favourite of Eadred's and may have taken on some of the production of charters in Eadred's illness in 953-5 (q.v.). Dunstan witnesses only a handful of Eadwig's charters, from early in 956 (see Keynes, pp.49 and 59). The earliest Life of St Dunstan explains the exile with a story that Eadwig left his coronation feast to pursue his own pleasures, and was dragged back by St Dunstan, as a result of which Dunstan won the enmity both of the young king and of the two noblewomen who were his companions, and had his possessions seized and was exiled shortly thereafter (chapters 21-3; extracts in EHD 234, p.901). While there is nothing inherently unlikely in this account, it must be remembered that since Eadwig exiled the protagonist of his story, the author of the Life of St Dunstan would be duty-bound to show him in the worst light possible. (For a different light on the coronation feast, see the account in J. K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.) One wonders, for instance, if some of the treasures of Dunstan that were seized according to the Life were in fact treasures of King Eadred which Dunstan had failed to return to Eadred's successor Eadwig, or if Dunstan and Eadwig fought over the overturning of Eadred's will (especially if Eadred had originally intended to be buried at Dunstan's Glastonbury).

With the possessions of Dunstan and Eadgifu (and quite possibly other important courtiers of previous administrations) in hand, Eadwig was in a position to benefit new followers. There are an unprecedented sixty or so charters from 956 (for most years, five or fewer charters survive), and the most likely explanation is that Eadwig, having dispossessed the old guard, was trying to create a group of followers whose first loyalty was to him. A less flattering explanation would be that Eadwig was being manipulated by courtiers who had not advanced under Edmund and Eadred in a settling of old scores. The Life of St Dunstan (chapter 24; EHD 234, p.901) is predictably dismissive, saying that Eadwig acted foolishly, getting rid of wise and cunning counsellors and replacing them with the ignorant and those like himself. Æthelwold, in his account of King Edgar's establishment of monasteries (EHD 238), suggests that Eadwig had through the ignorance of childhood dispersed the kingdom and divided its unity, and distributed the lands of churches to rapacious strangers.

Barbara Yorke has demonstrated that some of the people favoured by Eadwig, his wife Ælfgifu among them, were a close-knit family descended from Alfred's older brother Æthelred, and suggested that the older established families, such as those of Æthelstan "Half King" (chief ealdorman in Eadwig's time and foster-father of Edgar) and Dunstan himself, were alarmed by these developments and moved to stop them (Yorke, pp.75-7). If Ælfgifu is correctly identified as a descendent of King Æthelred (q.v.), Edgar himself might have been still more alarmed, as a child born of two royal parents might have been seen as more throne-worthy than Edgar himself. This was probably part of the reason for Æthelbald's revolt when Æthelwulf came back with a Frankish princess as a bride in 856, and it is unlikely that Edgar was any happier with the situation a hundred years later.

However and by whomever they were put in motion, moves to stop Eadwig were forthcoming. In 957, Eadwig's brother Edgar was given enhanced power as the king of the Mercians, though the evidence of charters and coins suggest that Eadwig was still in overall charge of the kingdom. Also in that year or the next (q.v.), Eadwig was divorced from his wife Ælfgifu, ostensibly because they were too closely related. It is unlikely that the relationship was suddenly discovered in 957, so "consanguinity" was probably a cover for more pragmatic motives. Eadwig died without issue in 959, and his brother Edgar succeeded to the whole kingdom.

Æthelweard in his version of the Chronicle notes that Eadwig was called "All-Fair" by the common people on account of his great beauty, and that he ruled for four years and deserved to be loved. However, since Æthelweard may have been the brother of Eadwig's wife Ælfgifu (q.v.), his comments should probably command as much caution as those of the Life of St Dunstan.

A. Campbell (ed.), The Chronicle of Æthelweard (London: 1962)

S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "The Unready" 978-1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge: 1980)

B. Yorke, "Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century", Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988), pp.65-88

957. Edgar becomes king of the Mercians

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the ætheling Edgar succeeded to the kingdom of the Mercians. The earliest Life of St Dunstan portrays this division as a result of Eadwig's misgovernment, and notes that the river Thames formed the boundary between the two kingdoms (chapter 24). Contemporary charters confirm this line of division, as bishops and ealdormen with responsibilities south of the Thames remained at Eadwig's court, while those with sees or territory north of the Thames moved to Edgar's court (see Keynes). This division seems too neat geographically to be the result of the popular uprising suggested in Dunstan's Life. On Eadwig's death in 959, the two courts recombined as if the division had never happened.

Charters suggest that Eadwig was still considered to be the king of the English: while his royal style avoids the flourishes seen in his earlier charters, where he may be "King of the English and of the other surrounding peoples" (e.g. S 588 of 956), he remains solidly rex Anglorum, with its implication "King of [all of] the English" (e.g. S 660 of 959). Further support for this is seen in the coins, which seem to have been issued in Eadwig's name over the whole country in 955-9, even in those parts ruled by Edgar after 957 (see CTCE, pp.278-80).

It is an interesting coincidence that Æthelstan "Half King", chief ealdorman of Eadred's reign and also in the first part of Eadwig's, and incidentally Edgar's foster-father, continued to witness charters until the division in 957, at which point he retired to become a monk at Glastonbury. (The nickname "Half King" is first reported in Byrhtferth's Life of St Oswald of the end of the 10th century. That Æthelstan was Edgar's foster-father is noted in the Ramsey Chronicle; see Hart, p.579.) It is tempting to wonder whether Æthelstan was looking after Edgar's interests at court, and deliberately stayed on until Edgar was safely enthroned in Mercia and Northumbria, at which point he felt his work was done and he could retire.

C. Blunt, I. Stewart, S. Lyon, Coinage in Tenth-Century England (Oxford: 1989)

N. Brooks, "The Career of St Dunstan", in N. Ramsay and others (edd.), St Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult (Woodbridge: 1992), pp.1-23

C. Hart, "Athelstan 'Half King' and his Family", The Danelaw (London: 1992), pp.569-604

S. Keynes, "England 900-1016", in T. Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History III (Cambridge: forthcoming)

W. Stubbs, Memorials of St Dunstan (London: 1874) [A new edition of the Life of St Dunstan is being prepared by M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom]

B. Yorke, "Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century", Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988), pp.65-88

957/8. Archbishop Oda divorces Eadwig from Ælfgifu

One version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Archbishop Oda separated King Eadwig and Ælfgifu, because they were too closely related. (The date given is 958, but since the previous annal, dated "957", gives events of 956, and the following annal, dated "959", gives events of 959, it is not clear whether the divorce actually took place in 957 or 958.) Since the relationship between them was most likely known when they were married (and indeed, one would expect that Oda of Canterbury performed the marriage), it seems more likely that this divorce stemmed from political reasons than religious ones. It may even be that Eadwig and Ælfgifu were not in fact too closely related by the church definition.

There is no other information on the kinship of Eadwig and Ælfgifu in Eadwig's reign. In Edgar's reign, a woman called Ælfgifu who is described as a matrona (i.e., a married woman) and a kinswoman of Edgar (as Eadwig's queen would be, by marriage) receives two estates in 966 (S 737 and 738), and her will also survives, though unusually it mentions no living husband or descendents (S 1484). If it is assumed that this Ælfgifu was Eadwig's queen, then we can determine precisely how closely related Eadwig and Ælfgifu were, because the Ælfgifu of the will was the sister of Æthelweard the Chronicler, who records that he was the great-grandson of King Æthelred (865-71). This would make Ælfgifu the great-granddaughter of Æthelred, and since Eadwig was the great-grandson of Æthelred's brother Alfred, the two would fall within eight "degrees of propinquity".

This gets a bit technical. The old Roman system recognized a cognatio, or kindred, as people within seven "degrees of propinquity". To find out the number of degrees, one counts up to the nearest common ancestor and then back down again. Pope Gregory II, in the 721 Synod of Rome, stated simply that marriage was forbidden within the cognatio, or within seven degrees of propinquity: on which basis Eadwig and Ælfgifu would be perfectly legitimate.

The Germanic system, in contrast, counted the number of generations from the common ancestor: on that basis, Ælfgifu and Eadwig, sharing a great-great-grandfather, would be in the fourth generation. Synods in the second half of the 8th century (e.g. Compi?gne and Verberie) translate Gregory's ruling by declaring marriage null and void within the first three generations.

The crux comes with the first Anglo-Saxon legislation on the subject, in a code of Æthelred from 1008, which states that marriage is forbidden "within six degrees, that is to say, four generations" (VI Æthelred 12). This is not in fact the same thing: six degrees would be three generations. The distinction only matters to people within the fourth generation, but unfortunately for them, Eadwig and Ælfgifu fell into that category. If a similar law had been in place in the 950s when Eadwig and Ælfgifu got married, one might imagine that they were given the benefit of the doubt as not being within six degrees. And perhaps it was only when Eadwig began making changes and antagonizing people (q.v.) that people remembered, and chose to apply, the stricter interpretation of the letter of the law.

M. Deanesly and P. Grosjean, "The Canterbury Edition of the Answers of pope Gregory I to St Augustine", The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 10 (1959), pp.1-49

N. Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester: 1984), pp.225-6

October 1, 959. Eadwig dies
Edgar, Eadwig's brother, succeeds to all England
Dunstan becomes archbishop of Canterbury

On Eadwig's death, divorced from his wife and with no heirs, his brother Edgar succeeded to all England, which reunited as if the split of 957 had never been. Unusually for the 10th century there is no record of Edgar's consecration a few months after his accession, but this is probably because he sacked the archbishop of Canterbury who had been elected in Eadwig's reign and installed Dunstan instead. Dunstan went to Rome to get his pallium, perhaps to cover his entirely uncanonical transfer to Canterbury from another see (in fact, from two other sees, Worcester and London, which he had received from Edgar in 957-9; see Brooks, p.21), and the papal privilege for Dunstan survives and is dated 21 September 960 (Whitelock, Councils & Synods, no. 25). So Edgar may not have been consecrated king before Dunstan's return in late 960 or early 961, years for which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is blank. Given the excellent relations between Edgar and the English church, and the fact that consecration strengthened the position of the king, it is most unlikely that Edgar would have remained unconsecrated for long after Dunstan's return (see Nelson, pp.297-300).

John of Worcester in the 12th century regularly calls Edgar Rex Anglorum pacificus (in annals for 964, 967, 969, 972, 973). If John is recording a nickname Edgar bore in his lifetime, it is much more likely pacificus meant "the Peace-making" than "the Peaceable": the ravaging of Thanet on the king's orders in 969, and the violent reaction after his death in 975, both suggest that the peace of Edgar's reign came from strict control backed by military force, not serenity of character.

The show of violence probably helped to keep the country free of Viking activity, which seems to have ceased between 954, when Erik Bloodaxe finally left York, and 980, when the Vikings returned in Æthelred's reign. It is probably also the case that Edgar worked to keep the Northumbrians happy, so that they would be less eager to welcome Scandinavian adventurers: one of his law codes recognizes that the Danes can make their own laws (IV Edgar 2.1; see EHD 41), and his ravaging of Thanet in 969 may have been because the people of Thanet had robbed some merchants from York. That the rest of the country may have been less than happy with this approach is suggested by a note in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 959, which in the midst of a general panegyric on Edgar's reign notes that he did one misdeed too greatly: he loved unseemly foreign manners, and brought heathen customs into the land too firmly (a possible reference to IV Edgar?), and brought foreigners and harmful people into the country.

Edgar is remembered as the champion of the monastic reform movement. The most dramatic act was probably the move in 964 spearheaded by Edgar and Æthelwold to oust (perhaps forcibly) the priests from the Old Minster and the New Minster in Winchester, and from Chertsey and Milton Abbas, and have them replaced with monks. There were many more monasteries founded or refounded in Edgar's reign, and Æthelwold offers enthusiastic praise in his account of Edgar's establishment of monasteries (EHD 238). The king's position is put uncompromisingly in the splendid gold-lettered refoundation charter for the New Minster at Winchester, probably also drafted by Æthelwold (S 745, issued in 966 to commemorate and reinforce the installation of monks in 964). While the charter is partly for the New Minster, it is also a general statement that Edgar expelled clerics and installed monks in monasteries throughout his kingdom, for the pragmatic reason that the prayers of the monks were effective while those of the secular clerics were not.

Edgar's family relations are complicated, as he was twice or perhaps three times married. He was involved with (perhaps not married to) Wulfthryth, who later became a nun and abbess of Wilton: their daughter was St Edith (see Ridyard, pp.42-3). He was (first?) married to Æthelflæd, and with her or by Wulfthryth had a son Edward. In 964/5 he married Ælfthryth, and with her had two sons, Edmund (who died in 971) and Æthelred. The New Minster refoundation charter of 966 (S 745) makes quite clear that Ælfthryth's children would be preferred over Æthelflæd's (in the witness-list, Edward is called clito, "ætheling", but his younger half-brother Edmund witnesses above him as legitimus clito, "legitimate ætheling"), but it is not surprising that a conflict broke out on Edgar's death in 975. Edward the Elder, who had also had three wives and sons by different mothers, left a similar problem at his death in 924. (For more on Ælfthryth and Æthelflæd, see Yorke, p.81.)

962. "A very great mortality"; great fire in London

The mortality and the fire are mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the plague also appears in the Irish annals. One of Edgar's law codes (IV Edgar: see EHD 41) is presented as a response to the sudden pestilence which caused great hardship far and wide in the kingdom; it is tempting to associate it with this plague, and so date it to 962 or shortly afterwards.

963. Æthelwold becomes bishop of Winchester

B. Yorke (ed.), Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988)

964. Æthelwold and Edgar expel secular clerics from monasteries in Winchester, Chertsey, Milton

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edgar drove the priests from the Old and New Minsters of Winchester, and from Chertsey and Milton Abbas, and had them replaced with monks. The Life of St Æthelwold from the end of the 10th century notes that Æthelwold expelled secular clerics from the Old and New Minsters (chapters 18 and 20), but that the king sent one of his agents, Wulfstan of Dalham, who used royal authority to command the canons either to give way to the monks or become monks themselves (on Wulfstan, see Lapidge and Winterbottom, p.32 n.2).

M. Lapidge and M. Winterbottom (edd.), Wulfstan of Winchester: Life of St Æthelwold (Oxford: 1991)

964/5. Edgar marries Ælfthryth

A couple of manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record this event in 965, but two charters show that Ælfthryth may already have been queen in 964 (S 731 is a 12th-century forgery, but S 725 may be authentic). For more on Edgar's family, see entry on 959.

966. Thored, Gunnar's son, ravages Westmorland
Oslac succeeds to ealdormanry of Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Thored, Gunnar's son, ravaged Westmorland (part of British Strathclyde), and in the same year Oslac succeeded to the ealdormanry. This annal may be misdated, like the 964 annal on Edgar's marriage: while Oslac appears fairly regularly in charters after 966 (from 968 to 975), he also seems to witness charters as ealdorman earlier, in 963 and 965. Oslac was exiled in 975.

967. Ælfhere ravages Gwynedd

The Annales Cambriae record that the Saxons, led by Ælfhere (ealdorman of Mercia), ravaged the kingdom of the sons of Idwal (Gwynedd).

969. Edgar orders ravaging of Thanet

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions this event without explanation. Roger of Wendover, writing in the 13th century, explains that it was because merchants from York were taken prisoner on Thanet and robbed of their goods. If this explanation were accepted it might point to antagonism between the English of old Wessex and English Mercia and the Anglo-Danish peoples of the Danelaw, the sort of mood which led to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's comment under 959 that Edgar was too welcoming to foreigners and foreign customs.

971. Edgar's son Edmund dies

The death of Edmund, elder son of Edgar and Ælfthryth, is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The title of legitimus clito which was given to Edmund in the 966 New Minster foundation charter (S 745; see entry on 959) presumably descended to Edmund's younger brother Æthelred.

May 11, 973. Edgar's (second) consecration, at Bath

Edgar's consecration at Bath at Pentecost in 973 is reported in a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and described at some length in Byrhtferth's Life of St Oswald. He was probably consecrated shortly after his accession (see entry on 959), which would make this his second consecration.

It may be that Edgar was laying claim to a larger realm, or a larger vision of his realm, than his predecessors, just as one of the reasons for Edward the Elder's foundation of the New Minster in 901 may have been a desire to give tangible expression to his kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons. It is worth noting that Edgar's consecration took place at Bath, not Kingston-upon-Thames, which was the site for most of the known royal consecrations in the 10th century (see Keynes, pp.270-1). Kingston was an old West Saxon royal estate in Surrey, while Bath was not only an Alfredian burh (fortress) on the Mercian / West Saxon border, but a town whose impressive Roman remains were still visible in the 10th century (see Nelson, p.301), and may have conjured up images of old Roman Britannia.

Certainly other events of the year involve conspicuous displays of royal power and unity over the whole country. Two manuscripts of the Chronicle note that after the consecration at Bath the king took his whole naval force to Chester, where six kings met him and pledged to be his allies on sea and on land. Ælfric in his nearly-contemporary Life of St Swithun says there were eight kings, Cumbrians and Scots (extract at EHD 239(g)), and John of Worcester in the 12th century names them as Kenneth of Scotland, Malcolm of Cumbria, Maccus of the Isles, and five others, Dufnal, Siferth, Hywel, Iacob, and Iuchil, and adds the detail that the eight kings rowed him along the river Dee, while Edgar held the rudder. It was likely in the same year (q.v.) that a reform of the coinage removed the regional variation that had existed and standardized Edgar's coinage across the whole kingdom. (See further Nelson, pp.302-3.)

That a real change had occurred between the 950s and 973 that might justify such a ceremony is suggested by the fact that in 975, as also in the 950s, there were two princes who seemed to expect to inherit the kingship, but there was no question in 975 of dividing the kingdom. The partition of the kingdom in 1016 was the result of English defeat in battle after over three decades of Viking raids, and is more analogous to the Vikings sharing out Mercia with Coenwulf in 877 than a partition between rival princes on the same side; in 1035, when there were two claimants to the throne on a more equal footing, there was again no question of division.

S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "The Unready" 978-1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge: 1980)

J. Nelson, "Inauguration Rituals", Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London: 1986), pp.283-307

c.973. Edgar's coinage reform
c.973-1066. Late Anglo-Saxon coinage

Overview:

In about 973, quite probably as another manifestation of royal power to be associated with the second consecration, Edgar implemented a reform of the coinage. This enforced a standard coinage over the whole kingdom, replacing the regional variants which had existed. Over the next half-century new types of coin (i.e., coins with new designs on the obverse and reverse) were introduced every six years or so, and earlier types were taken out of circulation. (In addition to the standard six-year issues, a few types, such as the Agnus Dei coins which appear to belong only to 1009, were issued for much shorter periods.) The relative chronology of the types is well-understood: the absolute chronology, however, has been the subject of a great deal of debate over the past thirty years. In the most developed version of the system, presented by Michael Dolley, changes took place every sixth year at Michaelmas, but several alternative systems have been suggested. Further, there is no irrefutable evidence of dating except where a change of type coincides with a change in reign, so that the king's name changes. It is probably simplest to assume that changes took place approximately every six years.

In the second quarter of the 11th century, changes of type took place about twice as often: there are three types to fit into the seven years of the reigns of Harold and Harthacnut (1035-42), and ten types to fit into Edward the Confessor's twenty-four years (1042-66).

The best recent summary of the subject is Metcalf's Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds (1998).

Table of types and dates (type names describe the designs on the coins):

Edgar's Reform type (Small Cross)	c.973-5
Edward's Small Cross	975-8
Æthelred's First Small Cross	c.978-9
Æthelred's First Hand	c.979-85
Æthelred's Second Hand	c.985-91
Æthelred's Benediction Hand	c.991
Æthelred's Crux	c.991-7
Æthelred's Small Crux	c.995-7
Æthelred's Intermediate Small Cross	c.996 or earlier
Æthelred's Long Cross	c.997-1003
Æthelred's Helmet	c.1003-9
Æthelred's Agnus Dei	c.1009
Æthelred's Last Small Cross	c.1009-16
Cnut's Quatrefoil	c.1016-23
Cnut's Pointed Helmet	c.1023-9
Cnut's Short Cross	c.1029-35
Harold Harefoot's Jewel Cross	1036-c.1038
Harold Harefoot's Fleur-de-Lis	c.1038-40
Harthacnut's Jewel Cross	1036-7
Harthacnut's Arm-and-Sceptre	1040-2
Edward's Pacx	1042-c.1044
Edward's Radiate Small Cross	c.1044-6
Edward's Trefoil Quadrilateral	c.1046-8
Edward's Short Cross (Small flan)	c.1048-50
Edward's Expanding Cross	c.1050-3
Edward's Pointed Helmet	c.1053-6
Edward's Sovereign / Eagles	c.1056-9
Edward's Hammer Cross	c.1059-62
Edward's Facing Bust / Small Cross	c.1062-5
Edward's Pyramids	c.1065-6
Harold Godwinesson's Pax	1066

More detailed notes: Reform c.973

The only documentary reference to the coinage reform comes in the 13th-century work of Roger of Wendover, who notes that Edgar "ordered a new coinage to be made throughout the whole of England, because the old was so debased by the crime of the clippers that a penny hardly weighed a halfpenny in the scales". It is generally agreed that "the crime of the clippers" was a 13th-century problem and Roger's introduction of it to the 10th century is an anachronism: Dolley and Metcalf have shown that Edgar's pre-reform coinage was not noticeably lighter than the reform coinage (1961, p.166, n.2). This also discredits Roger's comment about the weight, but it may be that Roger was misinterpreting a source which noted that the silver content of Edgar's coins was about half what it had been in Alfred's day (as demonstrated by Blackburn, 1991 p.156). It has been argued that the whole comment can be dismissed, as a borrowing from earlier or later law codes which include phrases like "he ordered a new coinage to be made throughout the whole of England" (Brand 1984 pp.12-3), but this founders against the numismatic evidence that a new coinage was introduced towards the end of Edgar's reign.

Roger of Wendover mentions the coinage reform under the year 975, but as it appears in a general retrospective of Edgar's reign placed after the note of his death this cannot be used as dating evidence, any more than the panegyric on Edgar's reign which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle puts in the year of his accession, 959. As the standardizing of the coinage would involve a significant assertion of royal power, it is tempting to associate it with all the other carefully-orchestrated conspicuous displays of royal power around Edgar's second coronation in 973, but there is admittedly no documentary evidence.

Stewart (1990 p.462) and Jonsson (1987 p.84) discuss the possibilities and problems of dating the reform from the numismatic evidence, the surviving Small Cross coins of Edgar, Edward, and Æthelred. Based on the fact that some moneyers seem to have got through several coin dies (the patterns used to stamp new coins) in Edgar's part of the issue, Jonsson concludes that the new coinage must have begun a few years before 975, and agrees that c.973 appears likely. Stewart suggests c.972 based on the surviving number of coins, though he admits that this is based on assumptions that the surviving material is representative and that coinage was at a steady rate, neither of which is necessarily true (there might, for instance, have been a larger-than-usual production in 973 to launch the new system).

Short of a newly-discovered piece of documentary evidence to fix the dating more precisely (for instance, a dated law code of Edgar to promulgate the reform), c.973 seems the most reasonable estimate for the date of Edgar's reform.

Small Cross to First Hand c.979

The first type, Small Cross, was used by Edgar, Edward the Martyr, and Æthelred. It was replaced early in Æthelred's reign (far fewer coins of Æthelred survive than of Edgar or Edward) by the First Hand type.

The more precise date c.979 is based on the contents of a hoard found at Chester in 1914, which contained 111 Small Cross coins (of Edgar, Edward, and Æthelred) and 11 First Hand coins. If this hoard was deposited in response to the Viking raids on Cheshire of 980 (see Metcalf and Dolley, 1961 pp.152-3), then the very small proportion of First Hand coins in the hoard would imply that the type had just been introduced in 980, hence c.979 for the changeover date.

First Hand to Second Hand c.985

Dolley suggested that Second Hand was introduced by 986, on the grounds that a hoard found at Iona with both First and Second Hand coins should be associated with the Viking raid on Iona of 986 (Petersson 1969 pp.75-6). As Petersson notes, the association is plausible but not certain. Stewart (1990 p.478) argues that the mid-980s is a likely time for the introduction of Second Hand, whether or not the Iona context is correctly identified.

Some numismatists have argued that Second Hand was not a distinctive new type, but only a variant of First Hand. They have practically the same reverse design (the Hand of God descending from a cloud, flanked by alpha and omega), which, it is argued, would make it needlessly difficult for moneyers to tell the issues apart. However, it is likely that political iconography (the Hand of God emphasizing divine support for Æthelred's reign) would be considered more important than the convenience of moneyers. It should also be remembered that the Hand types occur near the beginning of the reform, quite possibly before all the details had been worked out: perhaps it was the experience of confusion between First and Second Hand which ensured that more substantial changes were made between types in subsequent issues.

Another curious point about Second Hand is that very few coins of the type survive from northern mints: there are only two known from York, and none from Lincoln. If the currently-known finds are an accurate reflection of the situation in the tenth century, it may be that these mints were closed in the Second Hand period, or that they did not receive new dies to produce Second Hand. It is worth noting that there are seven known First Hand coins from York with blundered inscriptions, which might suggest that First Hand dies were re-used in York after the withdrawal of the issue elsewhere. The English narrative histories shed no light on northern affairs in the later 980s, but the reference in the Annals of Ulster to a raid on Iona in 986 show that there were Vikings in the area, and a series of unrecorded punishing raids on Northumbria that disrupted mint activity would help explain the scarcity of northern Second Hand coins.

Second Hand to Crux c.991?

Crux to Long Cross c.997?

The evidence for the dating of these changes is much less clear than elsewhere in the series, because there is no point where numismatic evidence can clearly be linked with historical records. See Metcalf's Atlas for further discussion.

Jonsson (p.191) makes the interesting suggestion, not taken up elsewhere, that the introduction of Crux should be placed in 993, the year which marks the end of Æthelred's "irresponsible phase". 993 might also mark the end of the tenure of Earl Thored of Northumbria (who last witnesses a charter in 992), and might therefore be an appropriate moment for strong royal control and the single currency to be reintroduced in the north of England. This suggestion would tie the change of type much more closely to the political background, but as our knowledge of the period is so incomplete, and as the numismatic evidence is so inconclusive, it cannot be insisted upon.

Long Cross to Helmet c.1003

The change from Long Cross to Helmet is traditionally dated to about 1003, because the Wilton mint was closed temporarily between the end of Æthelred's Long Cross issue and the first issue of Cnut, and this has been associated with the destruction of Wilton recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 1003 (Dolley and Metcalf, p.153). Three of the four Wilton moneyers are recorded at a new mint in Salisbury, whose first issue is Æthelred's Helmet type.

The dating is not conclusive: other towns were destroyed in 1003-4 but their mints still produced Æthelred's Helmet type (Metcalf, Atlas p.126, lists Exeter, Norwich and Thetford), which shows that the mints either were not destroyed in the first place or could be started up again fairly quickly. The move of the mint from Wilton to the more defensible hill-fort site of Salisbury (Old Sarum, not modern Salisbury) is plausibly associated with the recorded burning of Wilton in 1003, but this is as usual a case of a plausible explanation rather than proof.

Helmet to Last Small Cross c.1009

An argument supporting this dating was advanced by Lyon (1966), who noted that Last Small Cross coins of Oxford and Wallingford were very rare, and suggested that the mints were in fact closed for part or most of the Last Small Cross period. He associated this with the burning of Oxford noted by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under 1009.

The burning of Oxford in 1009 provides a plausible context for a break in production of the Oxford mint, though as the evidence of Exeter, Norwich and Thetford shows (all three ravaged in 1003-4 but still producing Æthelred's Helmet issue), this is not proof. One could argue that the effects of Vikings attacks on already-battered areas would become more severe as the years of raiding went on, and that the English administrative systems would become less able to cope with emergencies. So it is plausible, if not demonstrable, that the destruction of Oxford in 1009 would have had more far-reaching effects than that of Exeter in 1003.

Later issues (Cnut, Harold, Harthacnut, Edward)

After Æthelred's reign, it becomes more difficult to date the changes of coinage, because there are fewer deposited hoards with externally-dated reference points. The relative chronology, the order of the types, is known and accepted, but in most cases the only available evidence for dating is on the change of reign. Thus the two changes of type in Cnut's reign are spaced one-third and two-thirds of the way through his reign, and Edward's reign is divided into two- and three-year periods to fit his ten types into his twenty-four years. It is reasonable to assume roughly equal periods for the issues in Cnut's and Edward's reigns because there are no huge imbalances in the number of surviving coins of different types, such as might suggest that one issue was larger (and so perhaps issued over a longer period) than the others.

The more exact dating of the issues of Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut is possible because both narrative and numismatic sources offer clearer information. In 1036 Harold became regent of all England for himself and his half-brother, and coins of the Jewel Cross type appear in the names of both Harold and Harthacnut. In 1037 Harold became sole ruler, so presumably Harthacnut's Jewel Cross issue ceased: however, there are so many more of Harold's Jewel Cross coins than of Harthacnut's that it seems likely that his issue continued into the following year. The next issue, Fleur-de-Lis, was solely in Harold's name and so can be dated from the end of Harold's Jewel Cross (presumably 1038) until his death in 1040, and the issue after that, Harthacnut's Arm-and-Sceptre, was solely in Harthacnut's name so can be dated to his reign after Harold's death, 1040-2.

M. Blackburn, "Æthelred's coinage and the payment of tribute", in D. Scragg (ed.), The Battle of Maldon AD 991 (Oxford: 1991), pp.156-69

J. Brand, Periodic Change of Type in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman Periods (Rochester: 1984)

M. Dolley, "Roger of Wendover's Date for Eadgar's Coinage Reform", British Numismatic Journal 49 (1979), pp.1-11

M. Dolley and M. Metcalf, "The Reform of the Englsih Coinage under Eadgar", in M. Dolley (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Coins (London: 1961), pp.136-68

K. Jonsson, The New Era: The Reformation of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage (London: 1987)

S. Lyon, "The Significance of the Sack of Oxford in 1009/10 for the Chronology of the Coinage of Æthelred II", British Numismatic Journal 35 (1966), pp.34-7

M. Metcalf, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds 973-1086 (London: 1998)

B. Petersson, Anglo-Saxon Currency: King Edgar's Reform to the Norman Conquest (Lund: 1969)

K. Jonsson (ed.), Studies in Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage (Stockholm: 1990), esp. articles by B. Petersson ("Coins and weights. Late Anglo-Saxon pennies and mints c.973-1066") and I. Stewart ("Coinage and recoinage after Edgar's reform")

973. Edgar cedes Lothian to Kenneth of Scotland (?)

The earliest source for this is the 13th-century account of Roger of Wendover. See discussion at Stenton, p.370. If it took place, then Edgar's cession of the English lands between the Tweed and the Forth to gain the allegiance of the Scottish king is another demonstration that the English recognized the northern border of Northumbria as the northern limit of the kingdom of England, like Eadred's grant of Strathclyde to Malcolm of Scotland in 945. It would also be our only hint of the negotiations and politicking that may have been behind the formal show of eight Celtic kings submitting to Edgar after his consecration at Bath on May 11, 973.

F. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford: 1971)

July 8, 975. Edgar dies
Edward (the Martyr), Edgar's son, succeeds to England

Edgar died in 975 and left two sons, by different mothers. The older, Edward, was son of Wulfthryth or Æthelflæd and was probably somewhere between eleven and sixteen (born before the second marriage of 964, but not much before because Edgar himself was only about 20 in 964; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes he was 29 in 973). The younger, Æthelred, was son of Ælfthryth, and probably nine or younger (as the second son of a marriage of 964). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Edward succeeded.

The succession of the oldest son is not in itself surprising, though it was not guaranteed in Anglo-Saxon England, as is seen from the succession of Æthelstan's younger brother Ælfweard after the death of Edward the Elder in 924. What makes the succession of Edgar's son Edward surprising is the fact that there had been clear signs while Edgar was alive that the kingship was expected to pass to a son of Ælfthryth (see note under Edgar's accession, 959). While the Chronicle notes no dissent to Edward's succession, the near-contemporary Life of St Oswald notes that there was a conflict, with some nobles preferring the king's elder son, and others the younger, partly because the younger seemed gentler in speech and deeds while the older inspired terror both with words and with blows (extract at EHD 236, p.914). The Life does not give the names of nobles in the opposing camps, but some of the parties can be reconstructed: Æthelwold bishop of Winchester, Ælfthryth Edgar's widow, and Ælfhere ealdorman of Mercia were on Æthelred's side, while Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelwine ealdorman of East Anglia and Byrhtnoth of Essex favoured Edward (see Keynes, Diplomas, p.166, and Yorke, pp.81-5). Since the two princes were both very young, it is likely that family loyalties played at least as much part in the choosing of sides as the perceived throne-worthiness of either boy.

There was continuing unrest in Edward's reign, but it is hard to know how much of this is resistance to Edward and how much a more general reaction to a loosening of the repressive control of Edgar's reign. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in Mercia and elsewhere, nobles including Ealdorman Ælfhere plundered and destroyed many of the monasteries founded in Edgar's reign. But it seems that the establishment of the monasteries had sometimes encroached on secular rights, and the nobles were more probably trying to recover what they saw as their own property than to blot out the monastic reform. A charter of Æthelred's records that some of the land Edgar granted to the monastery at Abingdon had been land set aside for the æthelings, and that after Edgar's death and Edward's accession it was recovered and given to Æthelred for his use (S 937; translated as EHD 123). (For further examples, see Keynes, "900-1016", p.00.)

Aside from the unrest, almost nothing is known of Edward's reign. He was murdered in 978.

S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "The Unready" 978-1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge: 1980), pp.163-6

S. Keynes, "England 900-1016", in T. Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History III (Cambridge: forthcoming)

B. Yorke, "Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century", Bishop Æthelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge: 1988), pp.65-88

975. Oslac of Northumbria exiled

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Oslac was deprived of his lands and driven from the country, but without details. It is unknown whether he had supported either Edward or Æthelred in the succession crisis, or whether his exile was part of the throwing off of Edgar's more repressive controls. One of Edgar's codes does note Oslac's responsibility for enforcing the laws within his ealdormanry (IV Edgar 15; EHD 42, p.437).

976. Great famine in England

March 18, 978. Edward the Martyr killed

There has been some confusion on the dates of Edward's murder and Æthelred's consecration, but it seems likeliest that Edward died in 978 and Æthelred was consecrated in 979; see Keynes, p.233 n.7. One version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle adds the details that the killing took place at Corfe in the evening of 18 March, and that Edward was buried at Wareham without royal honours. In the following year Ealdorman Ælfhere (of Mercia) fetched the king's body from Wareham and bore it with great honour to Shaftesbury.

The nearly-contemporary Life of St Oswald adds the details that the murder was committed by some zealous thegns of Æthelred, who surrounded and killed Edward when he had come to visit his half-brother Æthelred and Ælfthryth (see EHD 236, pp.914-5). The Life calls Edward a martyr of God, and adds that he was taken to the house of an unimportant person and left there under a mean covering, until a year later Ælfhere came and found the body uncorrupted and buried it honorably.

The late 11th-century Passion of St Edward adds that it was Ælfthryth who plotted the killing, so that her son could be king (Fell, pp.3-4; on the date, see Fell, p.xx). This may be a truth that was known at the time and suppressed in the Life of St Oswald for fear of royal displeasure, but could just as well be the first stage in the transformation of Ælfthryth from a historical person into a fairy-tale wicked stepmother (at the extreme end of which she is reduced to using magic potions and torturing abbots with hot irons; see Wright, pp.158-60). At this distance, without clearer information, the mystery of who plotted Edward's death remains unsolved. (See further Keynes, pp.166-74.)

A cult of St Edward soon developed: Æthelred called his half-brother a saint in a charter of 1001 (S 899), and stated that St Edward's festival was to be celebrated over all England on 18 March in one of his law codes (V Æthelred 16, issued 1008; see EHD 44, p.444, and references at Ridyard, p.157 n.71).

C. Fell, Edward King and Martyr (Leeds: 1971)

S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "The Unready" 978-1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge: 1980), pp.163-74

S. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge: 1988), pp.44-50 and 154-75

D. Rollason, "The cults of murdered royal saints in Anglo-Saxon England", Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1982), pp.1-22

C. Wright, The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1939)

978. Æthelred, Edgar's son, succeeds to England
May 4, 979. Æthelred consecrated king

Æthelred came to power in 978 after the murder of his half-brother Edward on 18 March 978; he was probably twelve or younger. From the regnal years of some of his charters we know he was already acting as king in 978, but he seems not to have been consecrated until 979 (see Keynes, Diplomas, p.233). We have no means of knowing why there was a delay of over a year between Æthelred's accession and his coronation, but if Edward's body was really hidden and in an uncertain location for a year after the death it was perhaps thought inappropriate to consecrate a successor; it may not even have been absolutely certain that Edward was dead.

From a study of Æthelred's charters, Simon Keynes has divided the internal affairs of the reign into four periods (see Keynes, Diplomas). In his teenage years (978-84) he seems to have been carefully guided by his mother Ælfthryth and Æthelwold, the bishop of Winchester. Æthelwold died in 984 and his mother disappeared from his charters until 993; in this period, called by Keynes the period of "youthful indiscretion", Æthelred seems to have been manipulated by counsellors to alienate church lands in ways that by 993 he admits he regrets. In 993 a new group of witnesses became prominent in the charters, Æthelred was making amends to the churches, and were it not for the Viking raids from without this might have come down to us as a period of peace and prosperity. In about 1006 there seems to have been another abrupt change in the witnesses of charters, coincident with the emergence in 1007 of Eadric as ealdorman of Mercia. Eadric is increasingly prominent in the closing years of Æthelred's reign.

Æthelred's reign is however much better known for the Viking raids, which resumed in 980. They seem to have become more serious in 991, when after the battle of Maldon it was first decided to pay tribute to the Vikings to try to get them to leave. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records five "national" payments in Æthelred's reign (?10,000 in 991, ?16,000 in 993, ?24,000 in 1002, ?36,000 in 1007, ?48,000 in 1012), but there were probably also many unrecorded "local" payments (like the ?3,000 from Canterbury and East Kent in 1009). Sometimes these payments did gain the English a respite, but the escalating amounts and the repeated return visits show that the situation was out of control. Æthelred was driven from the country at the end of 1013; though he returned early in 1014 and drove the Vikings out, they returned the following year. At his death in 1016 the Danish Vikings were over-running the country, and by the end of that year Cnut the Dane was king of all England.

Most of our narrative sources for Æthelred come from the end of the reign and so are understandably grim. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for Æthelred's reign seems to have been written after Cnut's conquest, and may project more gloom than was actually present in the earlier years (a contemporary annal for 1001 survives from one version of the Chronicle, and is much less doom-laden than the annal for 1001 in the sequence composed after 1016). Wulfstan of York's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos of 1014 reads like a catalogue of all that is wrong with England, but like the Chronicle it is reporting on a society after three decades of invasion, and this should not be extended back over the thirty-eight years of Æthelred's reign. Wulfstan is also writing in a self-centred tradition in which foreign invasions are explained not by the needs or desires of the foreigners, but by the sins of the natives, which have caused God to turn his face from them and allow them to be chastised. In this context it is not surprising that Wulfstan does not mention the flowering of literature (works by Ælfric, by Byrhtferth of Ramsey, by Wulfstan of Winchester), illuminated manuscripts (see The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, nn.33-58), and other artwork (Golden Age, nn. 74-5, 118-9) that can be dated to the turn of the 10th/11th centuries.

Æthelred was twice married, and all his sons were given the names of earlier English kings. By his first wife, Ælfgifu, he had Æthelstan (who died in 1014 and left a will, S 1503, EHD 129), Ecgberht, Edmund Ironside (who was king in 1016), Eadred, Eadwig (killed by Cnut in 1017), Edgar, Edith (who married Ealdorman Eadric after 1006), Ælfgifu, and perhaps three other daughters. (Two 12th-century sources state that Æthelred's first wife Ælfgifu was the daughter of an ealdorman, but since they name different ealdormen, Æthelberht and Thored, and it is not clear which is more trustworthy, Ælfgifu's parentage remains uncertain. See Barlow, Edward the Confessor, p. 28 n. 5.) In 1002 Æthelred married Emma of Normandy, and they had three surviving children: Edward (the Confessor, who became king in 1042), Alfred (killed in 1036), and a daughter, Godgifu, who married Drogo the count of the Vexin, and then after Drogo's death in 1035 married Eustace the count of Boulogne.

Æthelred's nickname, "the Unready", only appears centuries after his death. It is first recorded in the late 13th century as "Unrad", a comment on his reign meanaing "no counsel" or "ill-advised counsel", and intended as a contrast to the literal meaning of Æthelred's name, "noble counsel". By the fifteenth century the pun was no longer understood and the meaning came closer to the modern "Unready" (see Keynes, "Declining Reputation", in Hill 1978). Since Æthelred himself admits in 993 that counsellors had been able to take advantage of his ignorance, and later in his years of maturity he placed his trust in the treacherous Eadric, it seems undeniable that he was at times a poor judge of character.

J. Backhouse and others, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966-1066 (London: 1984)

F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor, 2nd edn (London: 1997)

D. Hill (ed.), Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference (Oxford: 1978)

S. Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred "The Unready" 978-1016: A Study in their Use as Historical Evidence (Cambridge: 1980)

S. Keynes, "The Vikings in England", The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (Oxford: 1997), pp.48-82

980. Return of the Vikings: Southampton, Thanet, and Cheshire ravaged

981. Vikings ravage Devon and Cornwall

982. Vikings ravage in Portland (Dorset), burn London

983. Ælfhere of Mercia ravages Dyfed

The Annales Cambriae record that the Saxons, led by Ælfhere (ealdorman of Mercia), ravaged the lands of Einion ab Owain (Dyfed).

984. Æthelwold of Winchester dies
Beginning of Æthelred's "irresponsible phase"

985. Ealdorman Ælfric exiled

985-7. Abbo of Fleury teaches at Ramsey

986. Æthelred lays waste the diocese of Rochester

986. Vikings raid Iona

988. Vikings ravage Watchet (Somerset)

March 1, 991. Peace treaty between England and Normandy

From a letter from Pope John XV of this date (translated at EHD 230) we learn that there were strained relations between Æthelred of England and Richard of Normandy in the late 980s or early 990s. (The letter is the only surviving record of these difficulties.) The Pope received many reports of this enmity and finally sent a legate, Leo of Trevi, with letters for both Æthelred and Richard. Both kings confirmed the peace at Rouen on 1 March 991, and it was set out in these terms: that if either of them or any of their people did wrong to the other, it should be atoned for with fitting compensation, that the peace should remain forever unshaken, and that the duke should receive none of the king's men, or of his enemies, nor the king any of the duke's, without their seal.

The stricture against the duke of Normandy receiving Æthelred's enemies may suggest that the Vikings had been using Normandy as a base for their raids against England in the 980s.

S. Keynes, "Introduction to the 1998 Reprint" of Alistair Campbell (ed.), Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge: 1998), at p.xvi

August 10/11, 991. Battle of Maldon
Tribute payment to the Vikings: ?10,000

D. Scragg (ed.), The Battle of Maldon, AD 991 (Oxford: 1991)

992. English fleet gathered at London
Ealdorman Ælfric deserts

993. Vikings sack Bamburgh, and Lindsey and Northumbria
English army gathered, but leaders flee
Æthelred has Ælfgar, son of Ealdorman Ælfric, blinded

September 993. Olaf and Sveinn come to London with 94 ships, but are repulsed
Vikings ravage along the coast and Essex, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, etc
Tribute payment to the Vikings: ?16,000
Vikings winter at Southampton

993. End of Æthelred's "irresponsible phase"

997. Vikings attack Cornwall, Wales, Devon

998. Vikings attack Dorset, terrorize Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Sussex

999. Vikings ravage West Kent

1000. Æthelred ravages Cumberland

Summer 1000. Vikings to Normandy

1001. Vikings ravage Hampshire, Devon, etc.

1002. Tribute payment to the Vikings: ?24,000

Spring 1002. Æthelred marries Emma of Normandy

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that the Lady (hlæfdige), Richard's daughter (daughter of Richard I, count of Rouen 942-6), came to England. Emma of Normandy was given the English name Ælfgifu (which is, confusingly, also the name of Æthelred's first wife); she was witnessing the king's charters already by the second half of 1002.

S. Keynes, "Introduction to the 1998 Reprint" of Alistair Campbell (ed.), Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge: 1998)

November 13, 1002. St Brice's Day Massacre: Æthelred decrees death of all Danes in England

1003. Sveinn and his army take Exeter, harry Wessex to Wilton and Salisbury, then return to sea

1004. Sveinn lands with fleet in East Anglia, sacks Norwich, Thetford
English under Ulfcytel Snilling attack; lose, but hard fight

1005. Great famine in England
Sveinn and his fleet return to Denmark

1006. Danish fleet returns, takes Sandwich, Isle of Wight
Much devastation (Hampshire, Berkshire, Reading, Wiltshire)

1007. Tribute payment to the Vikings: ?36,000

1007. Eadric Streona appointed ealdorman of the Mercians

1008. Æthelred orders concentrated ship-building

1009. English fleet stationed off Sandwich
After internal conflicts, remnants of fleet stationed at London

August, 1009. Thorkell's army arrives at Sandwich
Canterbury and East Kent buy off the Vikings for ?3,000
Vikings move on to Isle of Wight, ravage Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire
November, 1009. Vikings take winter quarters on the Thames, in Kent, often attack London

January (?), 1010. Vikings burn Oxford
May, 1010. Vikings storm Ipswich, defeat Ulfcytel
Vikings burn Thetford and Cambridge, Bedford and Tempsford, Northampton, etc.

1011. Danish raids all over;
Ælfheah, archbishop of Canterbury, captured; later martyred

April, 1012. Tribute payment to Vikings: ?48,000
Thorkell swears allegiance to Æthelred

1012. Eadric ravages Dyfed

The Annales Cambriae record that Eadric and Ubis (?), the Saxons, ravaged Menevia (Dyfed).

1013. Danish Sveinn returns with his fleet
Sveinn accepted as king by most of England
Sveinn besieges London

Christmas 1013. Æthelred escapes to Normandy
London surrenders

February 3, 1014. Death of Sveinn
Crews of Danish ships elect Cnut
English approach Æthelred in Normandy

April 1014. Æthelred returns, puts Cnut to flight

1015. Eadric betrays and kills Sigeferth and Morcar of the Seven Boroughs
Edmund Ironside, Æthelred's son, marries Aldgyth, Sigeferth's widow, against his father's wishes
Edmund takes submission of the Seven Boroughs

August 1015. Cnut's fleet returns to England
Edmund and Eadric raise armies against the Danes
Eadric turns coat to follow Cnut
West Saxons submit to Cnut

1016. Edmund joins forces with the Northumbrian Uhtred
Edmund and Cnut ravage
Cnut's army closes on York, and Uhtred and the Northumbrians submit to Cnut

April 23, 1016. Æthelred dies
Edmund Ironside chosen as king by London, and besieged there
Cnut chosen as king by the rest of England at Southampton (?)
Edmund retakes Wessex
Battles of Penselwood, Sherston, Brentford -- Eadric switches sides

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelred died on St George's day (April 23), and that after that Edmund was chosen as king by all the counsellors who were in London. The allegiance of the rest of the country is not discussed in the Chronicle, but John of Worcester in the 12th century explains that the chief nobles of the rest of the country renounced the line of Æthelred and concluded a peace with Cnut at Southampton. The facts that in the Chronicle's account the Vikings could besiege Edmund in London with impunity, and that Edmund had to re-take possession of Wessex, tend to support John of Worcester's statement.

Edmund did break out of London and take back Wessex, and receive the submission of the West Saxons. Shortly afterwards he fought Cnut's army at Penselwood near Gillingham, and then again after midsummer at Sherston -- the Chronicle notes that in the battle of Sherston Eadric Streona and Ælfmær Darling were supporting the Danes. Edmund then gathered the West Saxon army and took them to London and relieved the siege and sent the Danes back to their ships. Two days later, Edmund fought the Danes at Brentford and put them to flight, and then he returned to Wessex and collected his army.

Once Edmund had left the Danes besieged London again, but they were successfully repulsed, and went instead into Mercia, and ravaged there, and gathered again in the Medway. Edmund brought his army to Kent, and fought the Danes at Otford according to John of Worcester, and the Danes fled to Sheppey. Eadric switched back to Edmund's side at Aylesford, and the Chronicle records Edmund's acceptance with the doleful comment, "no greater folly was ever agreed to than that was". The Danes meanwhile went back inland into Essex. Edmund overtook them in Essex at the hill called Ashingdon, and fought them there on October 18.

The fate of the other members of Æthelred's family after his death in April 1016 is less certain. A contemporary German observer, Thietmar of Merseburg, records that Emma and her two sons were in besieged London, and that the Danes offered Emma peace if she would give up her sons and pay an appropriate ransome. Thietmar adds that after long deliberation Emma agreed to this, but in the confusion the two brothers slipped away. Later Norse sources credit Edward (the future Confessor) with fighting alongside Edmund Ironside in the battles of 1016, though his presence was probably only symbolic (he can have been no more than 13 years old, since his parents were married in 1002). Edward makes no impression on the contemporary English sources, and a charter he witnesses at Ghent at Christmas 1016 suggests that he was in Flanders by the end of 1016, perhaps on his way back to Normandy after Edmund's death and Cnut's triumph in November 1016. It is uncertain where the other children of Æthelred and Emma (Alfred and Godgifu) were in the course of 1016, but all three of them were in Normandy after 1016 (see further entry on 1033/4).

F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor, 2nd edn (London: 1997)

S. Keynes, "The Æthelings in Normandy", Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1991), pp.173-205

October 18, 1016. Battle of Ashingdon: Cnut defeats Edmund
Terms at Alney: Edmund keeps Wessex, Cnut takes everything else

On October 18, Edmund's army overtook Cnut's at Ashingdon in Essex and they fought there. Eadric betrayed the English by starting a rout with the Magonsæte (the people of Herefordshire), and the Chronicle notes that he thereby "betrayed his liege lord and all the people of England". Cnut won the victory and casualties on the English side were heavy -- the Chronicle names a bishop, an abbot, three ealdorman (Ælfric of Hampshire, Godwine of Lindsey, Ulfcytel of East Anglia), and continues "all the nobility of England were there destroyed".

Edmund survived, and Cnut followed him with his army to Gloucester. Eadric and other counsellors advised that the kings should be reconciled, so hostages were exchanged and a meeting took place at Alney, at which the kings established their friendship with an oath, fixed the payment for the Danish army, and divided the kingdom so that Edmund would succeed to Wessex and Cnut to Mercia (and presumably the rest of England).

Then the Danish army went to their ships, and the Londoners came to terms with them and bought peace from them, and the Danish army took up winter quarters in London.

In 1020, Cnut and Archbishop Wulfstan and Earl Thorkell and many bishops returned to witness the consecration of a minster at Ashingdon, commemorating the site of the victory much as William would later establish the abbey at Battle.

November 30, 1016. Edmund dies
Cnut becomes king of all England

The Chronicle records Edmund's death on St Andrew's day (November 30), and adds that he was buried at Glastonbury. Cnut then succeeded to the whole of England.

1017. Cnut consolidates his position (A wedding and four funerals)
July, 1017. Cnut marries Emma, Æthelred's widow
December 25 (?), 1017. Cnut orders four executions

The Chronicle records that after Cnut succeeded to all England he divided it into four, keeping Wessex (the traditional royal power base) for himself, giving East Anglia to Thorkell (who had come as a viking raider in 1009 and sworn allegiance to Æthelred in 1012), Mercia to Eadric (effectively reinstating him as ealdorman of Mercia), and Northumbria to Erik (confirming his appointment of 1016). It adds that several people were killed in that year, including Eadric, Northman the son of Ealdorman Leofwine, Æthelweard the son of Ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout, and Brihtric the son of Ælfheah of Devonshire. John of Worcester, writing in the 12th century, dates these four executions to Christmas. The Chronicle also notes that Cnut had the ætheling Eadwig (son of Æthelred) exiled and later killed, and that before 1 August he ordered the widow of King Æthelred, Richard's daughter, to be fetched as his wife.

Eadric's execution, after his multiple betrayals in 1015-6, would doubtless have been widely applauded by Danes and English alike; one manuscript of the Chronicle notes that he was killed "very rightly", and John of Worcester reports the killing of the "perfidious ealdorman" in London and adds that Cnut ordered the body be thrown over the city wall and left unburied. We know less about the other three executed nobles. Cnut may have feared that they would betray him if an English prince appeared and tried to win back the kingdom. Cnut then did his best to ensure that there would be no such English pretenders, exiling and killing Eadwig, who seems to have been the only surviving son of Æthelred's first marriage to Ælfgifu, and also exiling Edmund Ironside's two young sons (see the note on Edward the Exile's return in 1057). This left Æthelred's sons by his second marriage to Emma, in exile in Normandy and out of Cnut's reach, and it was probably partly to neutralize them that Cnut married Emma in turn. The Encomium Emmae Reginae, written at Emma's behest in 1041/2, records that Emma refused to marry Cnut unless he agreed that he would never set up the son of any other wife to rule after him, if they had a son (II.16); presumably it was also part of the deal that Emma renounced the claim of her sons by her earlier marriage.

S. Keynes, "Introduction to the 1998 Reprint" of Alistair Campbell (ed.), Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge: 1998)

1018. Tribute payment to Vikings: ?72,000, plus ?10,500 from London
Most of Viking fleet returns to Denmark
Agreement at Oxford

A. G. Kennedy, "Cnut's Law Code of 1018", Anglo-Saxon England 11 (1983), 57-81

1019/20. Cnut winters in Denmark

1021. Cnut outlaws Earl Thorkell

1022/3. Cnut winters in Denmark

1023. Cnut reconciled with Thorkell

June 8, 1023. Translation of St Ælfheah to Canterbury

1026/7. Cnut to Denmark, then on to Rome

1028/9. Cnut to Norway
Cnut drives out King Olaf (of Norway) and takes over Norway

1033/4. Normans plan to invade England in support of Edward the Confessor?

Simon Keynes discusses the fate of "The Æthelings in Normandy" (the children of Æthelred and Emma: Edward the Confessor, Alfred, and Godgifu) in his article of the same name. Godgifu married Drogo, the count of the Vexin, shortly after their arrival in 1016, and Edward and Alfred witness Norman charters in the 1030s, in the reign of Duke Robert of Normandy (1027-35). In two of these charters, discussed by Keynes, Edward attests as "King Edward", and even "Edward, by the grace of God King of the English". There seems then to have been a feeling at the Norman court that Edward, and not Cnut, was the rightful king of the English.

William of Jumi?ges, a Norman writing in the 1060s, records that Duke Robert sent envoys to Cnut, complaining of the long exile of Edward and Alfred and demanding that they be restored, and that when Cnut would do nothing the Norman duke launched an expedition against England. A fleet assembled at F?camp in Normandy, but was blown off course and ended up ravaging Brittany instead. William of Jumi?ges reports that in his final illness Cnut sent envoys to Robert, offering to restore half of the kingdom to the sons of Æthelred to establish peace for his lifetime (perhaps mirroring the earlier settlement between Cnut and Edmund of 1016), but nothing came of it, and both Cnut and Robert died in 1035.

S. Keynes, "The Æthelings in Normandy", Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1991), pp.173-205

November 12, 1035. Cnut dies

Assembly at Oxford: "joint rule" of Cnut's sons Harthacnut and Harold Harefoot

The Chronicle notes that at Cnut's death there was a divided succession. The two candidates were Harthacnut, the son of Cnut and Emma, who was then ruling in Denmark, and Harold, apparently a son of Cnut and Ælfgifu of Northampton, an earl's daughter, though the Chronicle records doubts about Harold's parentage. At an assembly at Oxford, Earl Leofric of Mercia and most of the nobles north of the Thames (the Mercians and Northumbrians) and the shipmen of London wanted Harold to rule, as a regent for himself and his absent brother Harthacnut. Earl Godwine of Wessex and the nobles of Wessex opposed this as long as they could, because they wanted Harthacnut to succeed, but could not prevent it. It was determined that Emma should stay in Winchester with Harthacnut's housecarls and keep Wessex for Harthacnut, and Godwine was her most loyal supporter. However, the Chronicle continues, Harold was full king over all England, and he had seized many of Emma's treasures into the bargain.

1036 (?). Emma switches allegiance from Harthacnut to the æthelings in Normandy
Godwine switches allegiance from Harthacnut to Harold
Edward and Alfred return to England; Edward repulsed at Southampton, Alfred captured
February 5, 1037. Alfred, Æthelred's son, dies at Ely

Things might have been very different if Harthacnut had returned to England immediately after Cnut's death in 1035. Unfortunately, Harthacnut's position in Denmark was threatened by Magnus of Norway, and he did not in the end leave until 1039. It seems that Harthacnut's continued absence made Emma realise her position as regent for Harthacnut (her son by Cnut) was untenable, and so she shifted her allegiance to Edward and Alfred (her sons by Æthelred), inviting them to return to England. This however would be a threat to Godwine, who owed his position to Cnut's favour and might expect less advancement under a son of the previous ruler than under Cnut's son Harthacnut, so Godwine seems to have shifted his allegiance to Harold.

The reasoning is conjecture, but both Edward and Alfred did return from Normandy to England in 1036. Edward's return is not recorded in English sources, but Norman sources note that he arrived at Southampton with a (Norman) fleet of forty ships, and was repulsed (presumably by English forces loyal to Harthacnut or Harold), and returned quickly to Normandy. Alfred, according to one version of the Chronicle, came to the country wanting to visit his mother in Winchester, but Godwine would not allow it, because feeling was veering towards Harold. Godwine captured Alfred, killed most of his companions in gruesome ways, blinded Alfred and set him down at Ely, where he dwelt until he died. (One manuscript of the Chronicle is written from a pro-Godwine viewpoint, and does not mention the death of Alfred at all.)

The Chronicle's note that feeling was veering towards Harold, "although that was not right", is corroborated by a letter written in July or August 1036 from one continental cleric to another, which mentions reports from English messengers to Harthacnut's sister Gunnhild, that Ælfgifu of Northampton and her son Harold are trying to corrupt the English by entreaty and bribery so that they will swear oaths to support Harold, and that one of the nobles so approached was so incensed that he sent messengers off to Harthacnut, urging him to return quickly. The process of the suborning of the southwest can also be followed in the coinage. In the first year of the joint rule (1035-6), coins were being minted in the name of Harthacnut south of the Thames (i.e. in Wessex), and in the name of Harold north of the Thames (i.e. in Mercia and Northumbria), with mints on the Thames operating apparently for both Harold and Harthacnut. However, over the course of the second year of the joint rule (1036-7), more and more of the coinage was being issued in Harold's name, and mints south of the Thames (in "Harthacnut's" territory) also began operating for Harold. It was perhaps the beginnings of this process that convinced both Emma and Godwine that waiting for Harthacnut was a losing tactic, and more desperate measures were needed.

S. Keynes, "Introduction to the 1998 Reprint" of Alistair Campbell (ed.), Encomium Emmae Reginae (Cambridge: 1998), at pp.xxx-xxxiv

1037. Harold Harefoot becomes king of all England

With the Norman æthelings killed or repulsed and Harthacnut still away in Denmark, Harold was finally chosen as king over the whole country, and Emma was driven into exile, and fetched up at the court of Count Baldwin of Flanders.

March 17, 1040. Death of Harold Harefoot
Harthacnut becomes king of all England

When Harold died, the English counsellors sent to Flanders for Harthacnut, and he returned to rule England, with his mother Emma. The Chronicle has nothing good to say about his reign, noting that he started by imposing a very severe tax, and went on to have the body of his dead half-brother Harold dug up and thrown into a fen. His ravaging of Worcestershire the following year (q.v.) cannot have increased his popularity, nor his betrayal of a safe-conduct that same year, and it was probably in order to protect his reign from open revolt that he invited Edward the Confessor to return from Normandy and share the rule with him (q.v.). Shortly after this (in 1041/2) the Encomium Emmae Reginae was commissioned and written, as another strand of a campaign to engage public support and sympathy for Emma and Harthacnut.

1041. Harthacnut orders the ravaging of Worcestershire

The Chronicle records that this ravaging of all Worcestershire was ordered because two of Harthacnut's housecarls, who had been in charge of exacting that "severe tax", had been killed by the citizens of Worcester.

1041. Harthacnut invites Edward the Confessor to share rule

It was soon after the ravaging of Worcestershire, probably as a face-saving exercise, that Edward the Confessor, who the Chronicle notes was Harthacnut's brother on his mother's side (i.e., another son of Emma), returned to England. The Chronicle adds that he was sworn in as king in its entry under 1041, and the Encomium Emmae notes that Harthacnut invited Edward to come and share the rule of the kingdom with him.

June 8, 1042. Harthacnut dies
Edward the Confessor becomes king of all England
Easter (April 3), 1043. Edward consecrated king at Winchester

A more detailed account of Edward the Confessor's reign will be provided in a later edition. For the moment, in addition to the skeletal notes presented here, see the primary sources (conveniently collected in EHD II) and the other items on the bibliography; note especially the Life of King Edward, which was written 1065-6 and commissioned by Edward's queen Edith.

The two main points of Edward's reign are perhaps the rival importances of the House of Godwine and of the Normans.

The Godwines (Godwine, earl since 1018, and his daughter Edith, who married the king, and sons Swein, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Wulfnoth) at times controlled much of the country. A guarded Biblical allusion in the Life of King Edward suggests that they were quite determined to provide Edward's successor, either as a child of Edward and Edith or (when that marriage was childless) more directly by providing the next king on Edward's death. Edward was not fond of the Godwines, and exiled the whole lot of them in 1051 when he had the chance, but they were too strong and came back the following year.

Edward's support for the Normans, bewailed by later patriotic historians, is probably the natural result of his having been exiled to Normandy during Cnut's reign and apparently beat back there when he tried to return to England in 1036. Especially if Godwine was directly responsible for the death of Edward's brother Alfred in 1036/7, it would be hard for Edward to avoid the conclusion that the Normans were his friends and supporters and the House of Godwine was powerful and unfortunately inescapable (after he tried and failed to oust them in 1051/2), but nonetheless nothing but trouble.

D. Douglas and G. Greenaway (eds), English Historical Documents II: 1042-1189 (London: 1953)

F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor, 2nd edn (London: 1997)

F. Barlow (ed.), The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster, 2nd edn (Oxford: 1992)

S. Keynes, "The Æthelings in Normandy", Anglo-Norman Studies 13 (1991), pp.173-205

November 16, 1043. Edward seizes Emma's lands and property

The three variant strands of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle note that King Edward seized his mother Emma's lands and treasures because she had withheld them too firmly from him. The most detailed version (D) notes that the seizure took place after the king took advice, that he rode from Gloucester with the Earls Leofric and Godwine and Siward and came upon Emma by surprise at Winchester, and that the seizures were made because Emma had formerly been very hard on Edward, and had done less for him than he wished both before and after he became king. Another version (C) adds the detail that Stigand, appointed bishop of East Anglia earlier in 1043, was deprived of his see because he was belived to be one of Emma's closest advisors, but Stigand was reinstated in 1044.

Edward's disenchantment with Emma can be understood in terms of her apparent abandonment of him to the Danes in 1016, her willingness to abandon his claim to that of a future child of her marriage with Cnut in 1017, the fact that she seems not to have considered him for the succession in 1035, or until her preferred candidate, Harthacnut, would clearly not be able to keep the throne, and the fact that there was not enough support on his arrival in 1036 to enable him to stay. Not all of these may have been Emma's fault, but they are enough to explain why Edward would have preferred, after his accession, to limit Emma's influence over English affairs, just as Cnut had had very little time for Eadric Streona. A late 11th-century Canterbury source even records a rumour that Emma was plotting to have Magnus of Norway invade and supplant Edward. While this was perhaps a scare-story concocted to force Edward to act against his mother, on Emma's previous record it is not entirely implausible.

January 23, 1045. Edward marries Edith, Godwine's daughter

October 29, 1050. Death of Eadsige, archbishop of Canterbury

On the death of Eadsige there arose a dispute over the succession to Canterbury. The monks at Canterbury, according to the Life of King Edward, elected to the office a monk of their community called Æthelric, a kinsman of Earl Godwine's. In Lent of 1051, however, the king appointed one of his Norman friends to the archbishopric, Robert of Jumi?ges, previously the bishop of London. This decision probably brought forward the showdown between Edward and Godwine that erupted later in 1051.

1051. Eustace of Boulogne in a fight at Dover
Edward orders Godwine to ravage Dover

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Eustace of Boulogne and his men got into a fight at Dover by trying to get lodgings by force, and there were killings on both side which escalated out of control. Then Eustace went to king Edward and told him what had happened, and according to one version of the Chronicle Edward ordered Godwine to ravage Dover because Eustace told him that the fight was the fault of the townspeople. Godwine refused to ravage Dover at the king's command, and this seems to have triggered the showdown between Edward and Godwine.

1051. Fall of the House of Godwine
1052. Return of the House of Godwine

April 15, 1053. Death of Godwine
Harold Godwinesson becomes Earl of Wessex

1054. Earl Siward of Northumbria invades Scotland and routs King Macbeth

1054. Bishop Ealdred to Cologne on the king's business (to recall Edward the Exile?)

The Chronicle records that Bishop Ealdred went to overseas to Cologne on the king's business, and was received with great honour by the Emperor and stayed for nearly a year, entertained by both the Emperor and the bishop of Cologne. While the Chronicle does not explain the king's business, John of Worcester in the 12th century reports that Ealdred proposed to the Emperor, on King Edward's behalf, that an embassy be sent to Hungary to bring back Edward the Exile. Edward did return to England in 1057.

F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor, 2nd edn (London: 1997), pp.215-7

1055. Tostig Godwinesson becomes Earl of Northumbria

1057. Edward the Exile returns to England
April 19, 1057. Edward the Exile dies, leaving son Edgar

Edward the Exile was the son of Edmund Ironside, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1057 records that he had been banished by Cnut to Hungary to betray him, but that instead this Edward married Agatha, a kinswoman of the Emperor. He returned to England in 1057, but for some reason was unable to visit King Edward before he died. One version of the Chronicle, by noting "we do not know for what reason it was brought about that he was not allowed to visit his kinsman King Edward", might perhaps hint that he was held captive by a court faction.

John of Worcester in the 12th century adds more details to the story. He notes that in 1017 Eadric advised Cnut to kill the young æthelings, Edward and Edmund, sons of King Edmund Ironside, and that Cnut sent them to the king of Sweden with orders that they be killed there. The king of Sweden sent them instead to the king of Hungary, and in time Edmund died in Hungary. Edward, however, married Agatha, and they had three children, Margaret, later Queen of Scots, Christina, a nun, and the ætheling Edgar. John adds further that it was King Edward who requested Edward's return in order to establish him as heir to the throne, but that he died shortly afterwards in London.

1057. Leofric of Mercia dies

1063. Harold Godwinesson campaigns in Wales against Gruffydd ap Llewelyn

1064. Harold Godwinesson to Normandy

January 5, 1066. King Edward the Confessor dies
January 6, 1066. Harold Godwinesson succeeds

1066. Harold goes out with a naval force against William

This event is mentioned only in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E.

April 24, 1066. Comet

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that "some said it was the star 'comet' which some call the star with hair"; today we call it Halley's comet.

1066 (soon after comet). Tostig harries Isle of Wight, Sandwich, Humber.
Edwin and Morcar drive Tostig to Scotland

Summer 1066. Harold gathers huge naval and land forces against possible Norman invasion
September 8, 1066. Harold's armies disbanded, as provisions run out

September 25, 1066. Battle of Stamford Bridge: Harold defeats Tostig and Harald Hardrada of Norway

September 28/29, 1066. William of Normandy lands at Hastings

October 14, 1066. Battle of Hastings

December 25, 1066. William of Normandy consecrated king at Westminster