Summary. King Penda of Mercia ruled a growing kingdom that was more open, fairer, inclusive and diverse than most of the kings displayed on the west front of the cathedral. Although not a Christian his family were.
It was not until the reign of King Penda, c.626–655, that the Mercian kingdom became a great power.[1] His sons brought the kingdom together which then lasted with varying power for around 350 years. Bede described Penda as ‘a most energetic member of the royal house of Mercia, who ruled over that nation for twenty-two years (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has 30 winters) with varying success’.[2] Yet a statue on the front of the cathedral was considered unwarranted by the Victorians and Bede considered him a pagan and together with the whole Mercian race an idolator.[3] Nennius wrote he was victorious through the arts of the Devil.[4] His death was written as being justified. Many writers, including recent ones, have little to say about him and sometimes start their history of Mercia with his sons.[5] There are few artistic images of the king and even confuse him with his son Peada. He deserves more and, perhaps, even a statue on the front of the cathedral.
Penda was the first Mercian warlord to reign over a large kingdom, but how he rose to power with hostility is obscure; blaming his heathenism will not do. He was the son of Pybba[6] (was he ever a king), thought to have been born c. 606, some quote a later date, able to trace his genealogy to Woden (most likely fabricated),[7] and married to Cynewise, who was either a West Saxon or Welsh princess. He had sons named Peada, Wulfhere and Æthelred, and daughters named Cyneburh, Cyneswith and possibly Cynethryth.[8] The name of Penda is obscure with no convincing Early Medieval or Brittonic etymology. His life history has been given in detail, but includes many uncertainties.[9] Documents show he killed five other Saxon kings[10] and was implicated in the death of two others. On average he fought a battle or skirmish every three years of his reign; does this justify calling him a blood-thirsty warrior? His defeat of so many kingdoms and associated plundering, especially in Northumbria, suggest he amassed a large collection of treasure; is this the Staffordshire (Lichfield) Hoard. Knowing his last battle included an army of 30 warbands, each with their royal leader, Bede called them duces regii, of which some were kings, shows he acquired power and status based on a confederation of sub-kingdoms.
His first known battle was with
the West Saxons in 628 at Cirencester where he possibly gained control (imperium)
or tribute from the Gloucestershire area. If his birth date is correct, that
makes him 22 years old and now a recognised tribal leader. The area might
indicate where he hailed from, though a little further north at Worcester has
been suggested. He and his sons could have resided at Repton and this too might
have been his homeland. Penda’s origins have been much considered with no
conclusion.
He supported his brother-in-law,
the Gwynedd King Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Bede called him King of the Britons, at
the battle of Hatfield (Hæthfelth)
Chase in October 633, thought to have been near Doncaster. King Edwin of
Northumbria was killed and this could have meant any tribute was now reversed
and paid to Penda. The kings of Lindsay, Lincolnshire, might also have been
tributaries. Penda captured Eadfrith, the son of Edwin, and gave an oath to
keep him hostage, but a few years later Eadfrith was murdered on Penda's orders.[11]
Between 635 and 642 there were no known conflicts involving the Mercians, they
were formidable and feared.
On 5 August 642 he defeated the
Northumbrians again and killed their King Oswald at the battle of Maserfield at
a site thought to be Oswestry. This was in alliance with the Welsh King
Cynddylan of Powys. The reason for this battle is unclear, but Oswald had
penetrated deep into Mercia and, perhaps, Penda was defending his kingdom or
that of the Welsh. It now encouraged him to greater hostility and he gained imperium
in the south-east, east Anglia and southern parts of Northumbria. Greater Mercia
was now feared over much of England (south coast of Wessex to the river Humber
and perhaps beyond?) and was in a close alliance with Wales. Bede could not
bring himself to describe Penda’s extensive proto-kingdom and covertly show his
pagan gods were more effective at conquering. He omitted Penda from his list of
kings wielding imperium over the southern English. Later Wessex accounts would
not label him a bretwalda or chief-king. Yet Stenton expressed it as Penda the
most formidable king in England.[12]
As Tyler pointed out this was an imperium, not a regnum.[13]
That is, Penda was an overlord receiving tribute and giving out gifts to
his supporters and not a king in control of all matters.[14]
His kingdom contained many sub-kingdoms each with their own royal leader. Penda
never conquered, but instead subjugated.
King Oswiu from a floor roundel in the presbytery.
Penda’s final battle followed
another invasion of Northumbria. He took a large warband with 30 royal leaders
(duces regii triginta) in support. Why this occurred is unclear,
perhaps, he was preventing the Northumbrian King Oswiu from reunifying his
kingdom. He chased Oswiu northwards and besieged him at a place called Iudea.[15] Clearly,
Oswiu was weak and avoiding any battle. The siege was once thought to be at Stirling,
but is now more likely to have been a fortress placed on the southern shore of
the Firth of Forth. Oswiu tried to escape by offering treasure, but in reality,
it was tribute to Penda, described as “an incalculable and incredible store
of royal treasures”, and
according to Bede he did not take it. A Welsh monk, Nennius, writing in the 9th
century believed he took it.[16]
King Oswiu carrying his royal treasure. Statue from the
northwest doorway.
Penda drowning at Winwæd. Shaun Campbell –Scamps
The location
of Winwæd, a river,
river crossing, or field by a river, has teased writers and many suggestions
have been offered.[20]
Here is another. Assuming Penda marched his army southwards along Roman roads
taking the shortest route from Northumbria to Mercia suggests he travelled
along Dere Street and then Ryknild Street. The line of this road is known from
Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire and its passage southwards towards Wetherby.
It probably crossed the river Wharfe at Newton Kyme or Tadcaster. From here the
road is uncertain, but there is a short length of Roman Ridge Road that would
take his army to Castleford, the Saxons called it Casterford, where a Roman
ford crosses the river Aire. Winwæd
has been interpreted to be the Old English words winnan, meaning strife and wæd,
meaning ford and this describes the crossing at Castleford. Crossing was
hazardous and was done on days when the water level was low, otherwise it led
to strife, especially in November.
Location of
the Roman ford crossing of the River Aire at Castleford. Not to be forded
today.
Bede said the Winwæd was “in the region of Loidis”
and this is most likely to be somewhere near Leeds and the Cock Beck. This is a
tributary of the river Wharfe and where it crosses the York Road has been
pinpointed and called Penda’s Fields. It is also likely, Loidis refers
to the people of the river Aire, which then connects with Castleford.
The problem with Bede’s account
of Penda’s battles is he avoids recognition that regicide was frequent and
killing rivals often occurred. Dismembering your arch-rival was a convention,
not some pagan practice. Christian kings also dispatched rivals in barbaric ways.
It might have been a different narrative if Penda had been baptised, but there
was no bishop or known church in Mercia in his time and it would have weakened
his drive for power to have adopted his rival’s faith. Penda was behaving in
ways common to other numerous pre-Christian kings. Despite this Penda allowed
missionaries into his kingdom towards the end of his reign and appears to have
had no objection, politically it had advantages, for his sons (and daughters?)
being baptised. Moreover, Mercia remained a growing Christian community and
unlike elsewhere this did not relapse. The charge of Penda being a Woden-worshipping
heathen is an extrapolation. He was a warrior king defending and increasing his
kingdom; acquiring territory in which he could wield some kind of dominance and
exact tribute. His military success was based on knowing how to hold an army
together and by combining units from across the kingdom.
At the height of his power, c.
650, many of his subjects owed tribute to Penda and would have had to visit
his court. There is no record of this or where his court was located. It is
quite possible his court moved around, an area within the boundaries of
Northampton, Repton/Tutbury, Lichfield, Hereford and Worcester might be
conjectured, that is, the kingdom of the Middle Angles.[21] Perhaps,
this was an integrated collective of warrior-centres, that was absent in
Northumbria and it had better inter-communication than in East Anglia and
Wessex. Penda’s military advantage was in having cooperation from compliant
sub-kings and subjugation of considerable ‘petty-kings.’
There is
a good historical and sociological case for exchanging the statue of King William
the Conqueror from the west front of the cathedral for one of Penda! There is
evidence the Mercian culture under Penda’s kingship was more open, fairer,
inclusive and diverse than ever it was with William.[22] Tyler
expressed his court as probably multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-sectarian.[23] There
is an account of Penda listening to his wife’s advice; women were often held to
be equal to their husband and sons. Penda’s Mercia lasted centuries, whereas William’s
Norman epoch, 1066–1154, did not last a century and it left a very divided
country, with Lichfield marginalised. Penda might be in the list of
disagreeable English monarchs, but he needs judging in the context of his time.
[1]
F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford and New York: 1989), 202.
[2]
J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede. The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People (Oxford: 2008), 104; Historia Ecclesiastica (HE) Book 2, chapter 20.
There is disagreement when his kingship started.
[3]
Ibid 105, HE 2, 20.
[4]
In Historia Brittonum, said to have been written by Nennius, c.
828.
[5]
D. Tyler, ‘An early Mercian hegemony: Penda and over-kingship in the Seventh
Century’. Midland History. (2005), 30, 1, 1–42.
[6]
Somewhere between 594 and 603 King Pybba is thought to have conquered some part
of Mercia. One record stated he had twelve sons.
[7]
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (except version E).
[8]
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, early 12th-century,
214, chapter 180, has different spellings. In his Chronicles of the Kings,
72, chapter 4, he asserts another son called Merewalh.
[9]
A. Whitehead, Mercia. The rise and fall of a kingdom. (Stroud: 2020),
chapter 1; S. Zaluckyj, Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of central England. (Logaston:
2001), chapter 3.
[10]
Edwin of Northumbria in 633, Oswald of Northumbria in 642, Anna of East Anglia c.654,
Ethelwulf, Anna’s brother and Ecgric , kinsman of Rædwald in 637. He had Eadfrith, son of Edwin, murdered, was
implicated in the death of East Anglian kings, 636–7, and forced Cenwealh od
Wessex into exile
[11]
McClure and Collins (2008), 105. H. E. 2, 20.
[12]
Stenton (1989), 83.
[13]
Tyler (2005), 11.
[14]
This might be the cause of his downfall. To keep giving, he had to keep
receiving and this meant frequent plundering. See J. Cambell, The
Anglo-Saxons, (London: 1982), 54–5.
[15]
See Stenton, Anglo=Saxon England, 84, quoting Nennius.
[16]
Taking tribute was the most likely reason for Penda’s advance on Northumbria.
Penda would have had to offer gifts to his supporting kings and their warriors.
Artefacts found in seventh-century barrow burials in the Peak District, the
territory of the Pecsæte, are highly suggestive of gifts given and later buried
according to Tyler (2005), 16.
[17]
The overthrow of Penda meant the end of militant heathenism and the development
of civilization in England is a paraphrased summary from Stenton. See Stenton
(1989), 177.
[18]
For a recent appraisal see P. Dunshea, ‘The road to Winwæd? Penda’s wars against Oswiu of
Bernicia, c. 642 to c. 655. Anglo-Saxon England. (2016), 44, 1–16.
[19]
Does this correlate to Moses and the Red Sea?
[20]
A. Breeze, ‘Notes and documents. The Battle of the Uinued and the River Went,
Yorkshire’, Northern History (2004), 41, 2, 377–383.
[21]
Dumville expresses it as, “A Mercian over-kingdom has seemed to be the work
almost of one man, King Penda, who emerges from Midland proto-history in
league with Britons as an implacable opponent of Bernician and Deiran
expansionism and a voracious conqueror of England between the Thames-Severn
line and the Northumbrian frontier. ‘Greater Mercia’, as his construction has
come to be known. See D. N. Dumville, ‘Origins of the Kingdom of the English’.
In R. Naismith and D. A. Woodman (eds.), Writing, Kingship and Power in
Anglo-Saxon England. (Cambridge: 2017), 71–121. ‘The Tribal Hidage,’
7th–9th century, is essentially an assessment list of peoples in Middle-Anglia,
up to twenty-three often tiny political units stretching in an arc from
southern Lincolnshire to eastern Oxfordshire. It might be a later description
of territory once the homeland of Penda.
[22]
Tyler (2005), 2, considered Penda’s supremacy represented a flexible but
essentially conservative reaction to the new strategies of power which
Christian ideology and Christian churchmen were providing for other
seventh-century kings.
[23]
Ibid, 24.
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