King Penda of Mercia deserves a statue

It was not until the reign of 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 stated 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 some confuse him with Peada, his son, and his statue on the front of the cathedral.

He was the first Mercian warlord to reign over a large kingdom, but how he rose to power and why he went hostile 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 (fabricated?),[7] married to Cynewise (either a West Saxon or Welsh princess) and 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 Anglo-Saxon or Brittonic etymology. His life history has been set out 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 (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 would have amassed a large collection of Anglo-Saxon treasure (Staffordshire Hoard?). Knowing his last battle included a confederation of 30 warbands, each with their royal leader (Bede called them duces regii), of which some were kings, shows he acquired power, status and wealth.

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.  

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 are 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. 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.

 

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, 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 9^th century believed he took it.[16]

King Oswiu carrying his royal treasure. Statue from the northwest doorway.

 According to Bede, Penda now returned southwards and reached the river Winwæd (or Uinued) where some sort of battle with Oswiu ensued on Monday, November 15 in 655 (this date has been queried) and resulted in Penda’s death. His defeat has been explained by being taken by surprise, by his army being weakened with defections, by drowning when the river flooded or by an act of God (Christian antiquarians saw it as the final demise of paganism[17]).  It has been much written about.[18] Bede wrote more were drowned than destroyed by the sword in battle.[19] Bede’s account raises many strategic difficulties. Penda’s army was much larger, it had already chased Oswiu northwards and demanded a reward of treasure and Penda was now exiting the kingdom of Northumbria. We are told Oswiu re-gathered his military, chased Penda southwards, re-engaged him and exacted revenge; a story full of comeuppance and little sense. Bede tempered this reversal of fortune by adding the river was in flood; it was the reason why battles in November were avoided.

 

 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 the 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.

 

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 a barbaric way. 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) to 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 and that determined his kingship is a distortion. He was a warrior king defending and increasing his kingdom; acquiring earthly 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, combining units from across the kingdom.

At the height of his power, c. 650, many of his subjects owing tribute to Penda 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 (over-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 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, William’s Norman epoch, 1066–1154, did not last a century and it left a very divided country, with Lichfield marginalised. In the list of disagreeable English monarchs, Penda is low down.

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[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.