Penda (died November 15, 655¹) was a 7th century King of Mercia. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in what is now England, Penda participated in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the battle of Hatfield Chase in 633;² nine years later, he defeated and killed Edwin's eventual successor, Oswald, at the battle of Maserfield. From this point he was probably the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time; he defeated the East Angles, drove the king of Wessex into exile for three years, and continued to wage war against the Bernicians of Northumbria. Thirteen years after Maserfield, he suffered a crushing defeat in the battle of the Winwaed in the course of a final campaign against the Bernicians and was killed.

Descent, beginning of reign, and battle with the West Saxons

Penda was the son of the earlier king Pybba, and thus said to be a descendant of Icel, with a lineage purportedly extending back to Woden. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives his descent as follows:

Penda was Pybba's offspring, Pybba was Cryda's offspring, Cryda Cynewald's offspring, Cynewald Cnebba's offspring, Cnebba Icel's offspring, Icel Eomer's offspring, Eomer Angeltheow's offspring, Angeltheow Offa's offspring, Offa Wermund's offspring, Wermund Wihtaeg's offspring, Wihtlaeg Woden's offspring.³

The Historia Brittonum says that Pybba had 12 sons, including Penda, but that Penda and Eowa were those best known to its author.⁴ (Many of these 12 sons of Pybba may in fact merely represent later attempts to claim descent from him.⁵) Besides Eowa, apparently Penda also had a brother named Coenwalh, from whom two later kings were descended.

The time at which Penda became king is uncertain. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he became king in 626, ruled for 30 years (although this would not exactly correspond to the year the same source gives for his death—655—unless it is considering him to have died in the thirtieth year of his reign⁵), and was 50 years old at the time of his accession.³ That Penda was truly this old has generally been considered doubtful by historians, mainly because of the ages of his children—the idea that Penda, at about 80 years of age, would have left behind children who were still young (his son Wulfhere was "a youth" three years after Penda's death, according to Bede) has been widely considered implausible.⁵ The possibility has been suggested that the Chronicle actually meant to say that Penda was 50 years old at the time of his death, and therefore about 20 in 626.⁶

Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, says of Penda that he was "a most warlike man of the royal race of the Mercians" and that, following Edwin of Northumbria's defeat in 633 (see below), he ruled the Mercians for "twenty-two years with various success."⁷ (633–655²) The noted 20th century historian Frank Stenton was of the opinion that the language used by Bede "leaves no doubt that ... Penda, though descended from the royal family of the Mercians, only became their king after Edwin's defeat".⁸ The Historia Brittonum accords Penda a reign of only ten years,⁴ perhaps dating it from the time of the Battle of Maserfield (see below) around 642, although according to the generally accepted chronology this would still be more than ten years. Given the apparent inconsistencies in the dates given by the Chronicle and the Historia, Bede's account of the length of Penda's reign is generally considered the most plausible by historians.⁶

The question of whether or not Penda was already king during the late 620s assumes greater significance in light of the Chronicle's record of a battle between Penda and the West Saxons under their kings Cynegils and Cwichelm taking place at Cirencester in 628.⁹ If he was not yet king, then his involvement in this conflict might indicate that he was fighting as an independent warlord during this period—as Stenton put it, "a landless noble of the Mercian royal house fighting for his own hand."⁸ On the other hand, he might have been one of multiple rulers among the Mercians at the time, ruling only a part of their territory. The Chronicle says that after the battle, Penda and the West Saxons "came to an agreement."^3,10 It has been speculated that this agreement marked a victory for Penda, ceding to him Cirencester and the areas along the lower River Severn.⁸ These lands, to the southwest of Mercia, had apparently been taken by the West Saxons from the British in 577,³ and the territory eventually became part of the subkingdom of the Hwicce.⁵ It has been argued that the subkingdom was established by Penda,⁸ as a consequence of his apparent victory in 628, although evidence to support this is lacking.⁵

Alliance with Cadwallon and the battle of Hatfield Chase

Main article: Battle of Hatfield Chase

At some point in the late 620s or early 630s, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, the ruler of Gwynedd, became involved in a war with Edwin of Northumbria in which it seems Cadwallon suffered initial defeats and may have spent time in exile in Ireland.⁵ Penda allied with him, although at this time he was probably not yet king—judging from Bede's characterization of his position—and together they defeated the Northumbrians in October 633² at Hatfield Chase.^7,10 Edwin was killed, along with his son Osfrith, and another of Edwin's sons, Eadfrith, fell into Penda's hands.⁷ Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his semi-legendary History of the Kings of Britain, gives a fuller account of the events leading up to the battle, although his history includes a great deal of myth and is quite inaccurate on some of the known details of the history of this period. He says that Penda was conducting a siege of Exeter when he was defeated by the exiled king Cadwallon, who forced him into an alliance.¹¹ Regardless of the accuracy of Geoffrey's account—which should not be taken too seriously considering that Geoffrey also makes the certainly false claim that Cadwallon outlived Penda—Penda is thought to have been the lesser partner in the alliance.⁶

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that, following the victory at Hatfield Chase, "Cadwallon and Penda went and did for the whole land of Northumbria."¹⁰ Certainly Cadwallon continued the war, and according to Bede, he brutally ravaged Northumbrian lands, but the extent of Penda's further participation in the war in uncertain. Bede says that the pagans who had slain Edwin—presumably a reference to the Mercians under Penda—burned a church and town at Campodonum, although the time at which this occurred is uncertain. It may be presumed that Penda withdrew from the war at some point before the defeat and death of Cadwallon at the Battle of Heavenfield, about a year after Hatfield Chase, since he was not present at this battle. Penda's early, successful participation in the war against the Northumbrians may have elevated his status among the Mercians and enabled him to become king, and he may have withdrawn from the war prior to Heavenfield in order to secure or consolidate his position in Mercia. Referring to Penda's successes against the West Saxons and the Northumbrians, D. P. Kirby wrote of Penda's emergence in these years as "a Mercian leader whose military exploits far transcended those of his obscure predecessors."⁵

During the reign of Oswald

Oswald of Bernicia became king of Northumbria after his victory over Cadwallon at Heavenfield.⁷ It has been presumed that Penda acknowledged Oswald's authority in some sense after Heavenfield,¹² although he must have remained an obstacle to Northumbrian supremacy south of the Humber. At some point during Oswald's reign, Penda had Edwin's son Eadfrith killed, "contrary to his oath".⁷ The possibility that his killing was the result of pressure from Oswald—Eadfrith being a dynastic rival of Oswald—has been suggested;¹² since the potential existed for Eadfrith to be put to use in Mercia's favor in Northumbrian power struggles while he was alive, it may not have been to Penda's advantage to have him killed.⁵

It was probably at some point between 635 and 641 that Penda fought with the East Angles and defeated them, killing their king Egric and the former king Sigebert, who had been brought out of retirement in a monastery against his will in the belief that his presence would motivate the soldiers.⁷ Presuming that this battle took place before the battle of Maserfield, it may have been that such an expression of Penda's ambition and emerging power made Oswald feel that Penda had to be defeated in order for Northumbrian dominance of southern England to be secured or consolidated.⁵

Penda's brother Eowa was also said by the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae to have been a king of the Mercians at the time of Maserfield. The nature of kingship among the Mercians at this time is obscure; the possibility certainly exists that Penda and Eowa ruled jointly during the 630s and early 640s,⁵ and joint kingships were not uncommon among Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the period.⁶ They may have ruled the southern and northern Mercians respectively.⁵ Bede's statement implying that Penda's fortunes were mixed during his 22 years in power has led to the suggestion that Penda was perhaps not consistently the dominant figure in Mercia in the years between Hatfield and Maserfield. Eowa may in fact have been superior in status among the Mercians for at least some of the period, possibly as a subject ally of Oswald.⁶

Maserfield

Main article: Battle of Maserfield

On August 5, 642,¹³ Penda defeated the Northumbrians at the battle of Maserfield, which was fought near the lands of the Welsh, and Oswald was killed. Surviving Welsh poetry suggests that Penda fought in alliance with the men of Powys—apparently he was consistently allied with some of the Welsh—perhaps including Cynddylan ap Cyndrwyn.⁶ The site of the battle, traditionally identified with Oswestry, may indicate that it was Oswald who had taken the offensive against Penda.¹⁴ According to Bede, Penda had Oswald's body dismembered, with his head, hands and arms being placed onto stakes;⁷ Oswald was thereafter popularly revered as a saint, with his death in battle as a Christian king against pagans leading him to be regarded as a martyr.

Eowa was killed at Maserfield along with Oswald,⁴ although on which side he was fighting is unknown. It may well be that he was fighting as a dependent ally of Oswald against Penda. If Eowa was in fact dominant among the Mercians during the period leading up the battle, then his death could have marked what the author of the Historia Brittonum regarded as the beginning of Penda's ten-year reign.⁶ Thus it may be that Penda prevailed not only over the Northumbrians but also over his rivals among the Mercians.

The Historia Brittonum may also be referring to this battle when it says that Penda first freed (separavit) the Mercians from the Northumbrians,⁴ although it has been noted that this could not truly have been the first instance of their separation (Cearl must not have been subject to Northumbria when he married his daughter to Edwin, then an enemy of the Northumbrian king, some decades earlier).⁶ In any case, the battle left Penda with a degree of power unprecedented for a Mercian king—D. P. Kirby called him "without question the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to have emerged in the midlands" after Maserfield⁵—and the prestige and status associated with defeating the powerful Oswald must have been very significant. Northumbria was greatly weakened as a consequence of the battle; the kingdom became fractured to some degree between Deira in its southern part and Bernicia in the north, with the Deirans acquiring a king of their own, Oswine, while in Bernicia, Oswald was succeeded by his brother, Oswiu. Mercia thus enjoyed a greatly enhanced position of strength relative to the surrounding kingdoms, and Frank Stenton wrote that the battle left Penda as "the most formidable king in England".⁸

Campaigns between Maserfield and the Winwaed

In 645, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,³ Penda drove Cenwealh of Wessex into exile and "deprived him of his kingdom".¹⁰ Cenwealh had married Penda's sister but had subsequently "repudiated" her and taken another wife instead, according to Bede. Cenwealh fled into exile in East Anglia, where he remained for three years before regaining power.⁷ In 654,³ the East Anglian king Anna was killed by Penda. He was succeeded by a brother, Aethelhere; since Aethelhere was subsequently a participant in Penda's doomed invasion of Bernicia in 655 (see below), it may be that Penda installed Aethelhere in power.⁵ It has been suggested that Penda's wars against the East Angles "should be seen in the light of interfactional struggles within East Anglia."¹⁵ It may also be that Penda made war against the East Angles with the intention of securing Mercian dominance over the area of Middle Anglia, where Penda established his son Peada as ruler.

In the years after Maserfield, Penda also destructively waged war against Oswiu of Bernicia on his own territory. At one point prior to the death of Bishop Aidan (August 31, 651), Bede says that Penda "cruelly ravaged the country of the Northumbrians far and near" and besieged the royal Bernician stronghold of Bamburgh. When the Mercians were unable to capture it—"not being able to enter it by force, or by a long siege"—Bede reports that they attempted to set the city ablaze, but that it was saved by a sacred wind supposedly sent in response to a plea from the saintly Aidan: "Behold, Lord, how great mischief Penda does!" The wind is said to have blown the fire back towards the Mercians, deterring them from further attempts to capture the city. At another point, some years after Aidan's death, Bede records another attack: he says that Penda led an army in devastating the area where Aidan died—he "destroyed all he could with fire and sword"—but that when the Mercians burned down the church where Aidan died, the post against which he was leaning against at the time of his death was undamaged; this was taken to be a miracle.⁷ No open battles are recorded as being fought between the two sides prior to the Winwaed in 655 (see below), however, and this may mean that Oswiu deliberately avoided battle in awareness of his weakness relative to Penda.¹²

Relations with Bernicia; Christianity and Middle Anglia

Despite these apparent instances of warfare, relations between Penda and Oswiu were probably not entirely hostile during this period, since Penda's daughter Cyneburh married Alhfrith, Oswiu's son, and Penda's son Peada married Alhflaed, Oswiu's daughter. According to Bede, who dates the events to 653, the latter marriage was made contingent upon the baptism and conversion to Christianity of Peada; Peada accepted this, and the preaching of Christianity began among the Middle Angles. Indeed, Bede wrote that Penda tolerated the preaching of Christianity in Mercia itself, despite his own beliefs:

Nor did King Penda obstruct the preaching of the word among his people, the Mercians, if any were willing to hear it; but, on the contrary, he hated and despised those whom he perceived not to perform the works of faith, when they had once received the faith, saying, "They were contemptible and wretched who did not obey their God, in whom they believed." This was begun two years before the death of King Penda.⁷

Middle Anglia as a political entity may have been created by Penda as an expression of Mercian power in the area following his victories over the East Angles. Previously there seem to have been a number of peoples inhabiting the region, and Penda's establishment of Peada as a subking there may have marked their initial union under one ruler. The districts corresponding to Shropshire and Herefordshire, along Mercia's western frontier near Wales, probably also fell under Mercian domination at this time. Here a king called Merewalh ruled over the Magonsaete; in later centuries it was said that Merewalh was a son of Penda, but there is little basis for that claim, and Stenton considered more likely that he was a representative of a local dynasty that continued to rule under Mercian authority.⁸

Final campaign and the battle of the Winwaed

Main article: Battle of the Winwaed

In 655,¹ Penda invaded Bernicia with a large army, reported to have been thirty legions strong, with thirty royal or noble commanders (duces regii, as Bede called them), including rulers such as Cadfael ap Cynfeddw of Gwynedd and Aethelhere of East Anglia. Penda also enjoyed the support of Aethelwald, the king of Deira and the successor of Oswine, who had been murdered on Oswiu's orders in 651; Bede says Aethelwald acted as Penda's guide during his invasion.

The cause of this war is uncertain. There is a passage in Bede's Ecclesiastical History that suggests Aethelhere of East Anglia was the cause of the war—auctor ipse belli—but this is "generally regarded as corrupt".⁵ It has been argued that an issue of punctuation in later manuscripts confused Bede's meaning on this point, and that he in fact meant to refer to Penda as being responsible for the war.¹⁶ Although, according to Bede, Penda tolerated some Christian preaching in Mercia, it has been suggested that he perceived Bernician sponsorship of Christianity in Mercia and Middle Anglia as a form of "religious colonialism" that undermined his power, and that this may have provoked the war.¹² Elsewhere the possibility has been suggested that Penda sought to prevent Oswiu from reunifying Northumbria, not wanting Oswiu to restore the kingdom to the power it had enjoyed under Edwin and Oswald;¹⁴ a perception of the conflict in terms of the political situation between Bernicia and Deira could help to explain the role of Aethelwald of Deira in the war, since Aethelwald was the son of Oswald and might not ordinarily be expected to ally with those who had killed his father. Perhaps, as the son of Oswald, he sought to obtain the Bernician kingship for himself.¹²

According to the Historia Brittonum, Penda besieged Oswiu at Iudeu, in the north of his kingdom. Oswiu tried to buy peace: in the Historia Brittonum, it is said that Oswiu offered treasure, which Penda distributed among his British allies;⁴ Bede states that the offer was simply rejected by Penda, who "resolved to extirpate all of [Oswiu's] nation, from the highest to the lowest".⁷ Additionally, according to Bede, Oswiu's son Ecgfrith was being held hostage "at the court of Queen Cynwise, in the province of the Mercians". A great battle was fought near the river Winwaed on November 15; the numerical odds were apparently on Penda's side, and Bede says "it is reported" that Penda's army outnumbered the army of Oswiu and his son Alhfrith by three to one, although the possibility exists that the odds against them were exaggerated for dramatic effect. Although the Mercian force must have been very formidable, it was weakened by desertions: according to the Historia Brittonum, Cadfael of Gwynedd, "rising up in the night, escaped together with his army" (thus earning him the name Cadomedd, or "battle-shirker"),⁴ and Bede says that at the time of the battle, Aethelwald of Deira withdrew and "awaited the outcome from a place of safety".⁷ It has been suggested that Penda's army may have been marching home at the time, and for that reason some of his allies may have been unwilling to fight.⁵ At a time when the Winwaed was swollen with heavy rains, the Mercians were badly defeated and Penda was killed, along with the East Anglian king Aethelhere. Bede says that Penda's "thirty commanders, and those who had come to his assistance were put to flight, and almost all of them slain" and that "many more were drowned in the flight than destroyed by the sword." Penda's body was decapitated,⁷ perhaps in retaliation for the treatment of Oswald's body at Maserfield.⁵

Aftermath and historical appraisal

With the defeat at the Winwaed, Oswiu came to briefly dominate Mercia, permitting Penda's son Peada to rule its southern portion. Two of Penda's other sons, Wulfhere and Aethelred, later ruled Mercia in succession after the overthrow of Northumbrian control in the late 650s. The period of rule by Penda's descendants came to an end with his grandson Ceolred's death in 716, after which power passed to descendants of Eowa for most of the remainder of the 8th century.

Penda was the last great pagan warrior-king among the Anglo-Saxons. After his death, the Mercians were converted to Christianity, and all three of Penda's reigning sons ruled as Christians. His daughters Cyneburh and Cyneswith not only became Christian, but became abbesses and saintly figures; there was purportedly even an infant grandson of Penda named Rumwold who lived a saintly three-day life of fervent preaching. What is known about Penda is primarily derived from the history written by the Northumbrian Bede, a priest not inclined to objectively portray a pagan who engaged in fierce conflict with Christian kings. From the perspective of the Christians who later wrote about Penda, the important theme that dominates their descriptions is the religious context of his wars—the Historia Brittonum says that Penda prevailed at Maserfield through "diabolical agency"—but Penda's greatest importance was perhaps in his opposition to the supremacy of the Northumbrians. According to Stenton, had it not been for Penda's resistance, "a loosely compacted kingdom of England under Northumbrian rule would probably have been established by the middle of the seventh century."⁸ In summarizing Penda, he wrote the following:

He was himself a great fighting king of the kind most honoured in Germanic saga; the lord of many princes, and the leader of a vast retinue attracted to his service by his success and generosity. Many stories must have been told about his dealings with other kings, but none of them have survived; his wars can only be described from the standpoint of his enemies...⁸

Notes and references

• Note 1: Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see Note 2) gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, November 15. R. L. Poole (Studies in Chronology and History, 1934) put forward the theory that Bede began his year on September 1, and consequently November 655 would actually fall in 654; Frank Stenton also dated events accordingly in his Anglo-Saxon England (1943)—see Notes 4 and 5. Others have accepted Bede's given dates as meaning what they appear to mean, considering Bede's year to have begun on December 25 (see S. Wood, 1983: "Bede's Northumbrian dates again"). The historian D. P. Kirby suggested the year 656 as a possibility, alongside 655, in case the dates given by Bede are off by one year (see Kirby's "Bede and Northumbrian Chronology", 1963). The Annales Cambriae gives the year as 657. [1] (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/annalescambriae.html)
• Note 2: Bede gives the year of Hatfield as 633 (along with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle); if the theory that Bede's years began in September is employed (see Note 1), then October 633 would actually be in 632, and this dating has sometimes been observed by modern historians such as Stenton (see Note 5). Kirby suggested that the year may have actually been 634, accounting for the possibility that Bede's dates are one year early (see Note 1). Bede gives the specific date of Hatfield as October 12; Manuscript E of the Chronicle (see Note 10) gives it as October 14.
• Note 3: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and edited by M. J. Swanson (1996). The Winchester (or Parker) Manuscript (Manuscript A).
• Note 4: The Historia Brittonum, Chapters 60, 64, and 65. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html)
• Note 5: Kirby, D. P. The Earliest English Kings (1991), second edition (2000). Chapter five: "The northern Anglian hegemony in the seventh century". ("The Humbrian overlordship of Eadwine", "Eadwine's British wars", "The reign of Oswald", "The battle of the Winwaed".)
• Note 6: Brooks, Nicholas. "The Formation of the Mercian Kingdom", in S. Bassett, The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (1989), pages 165–167.
• Note 7: Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731). Book II: Chapters XIV (627) and XX (633). (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book2.html) Book III: Chapters VII (635), IX (642), XII (642), XVI (651), XVIII (635), XXI (653), and XXIV (655). (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book3.html)
• Note 8: Stenton, Frank M., Anglo-Saxon England (1943), third edition (1971). Chapter II: "The Kingdoms of the Southern English" and Chapter III: "Anglian Northumbria".
• Note 9: The historian D. P. Kirby, in The Earliest English Kings (see Note 5), was of the opinion that the battle "almost certainly" occurred a few years later than 628 (see Note 5), but said that the battle "still reveals the wide-ranging character of Penda's early activities."
• Note 10: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, translated and edited by M. J. Swanson (1996). The Peterborough Manuscript (Manuscript E).
• Note 11: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136). Part eight: "The Saxon Domination"
• Note 12: Higham, N. J. The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England (1997).
• Note 13: The date of Maserfield is subject to a similar sort of uncertainty as that which surrounds the dates of the battles of Hatfield Chase and the Winwaed. Manuscript A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (see Note 1) gives the year as 642, as does Bede; however, if Hatfield actually occurred in 632 (see Note 7), then that would mean Maserfield occurred in 641. D. P. Kirby has suggested 643 as a possibility, allowing for Bede's chronology being one year early (see Note 1). The Annales Cambriae give the year as 644. Bede and the Chronicle (Manuscript E) agree that the date was August 5.
• Note 14: Fisher, D. J. V. The Anglo-Saxon Age (1973), pages 117–118.
• Note 15: Carver, M. "Kingship and material culture in early Anglo-Saxon East Anglia", in S. Bassett, The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms (1989), page 155.
• Note 16: Prestwich, J. O. "King Æthelhere and the battle of the Winwaed", The English Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 326. (January 1968), pages 89–95. Prestwich cites the punctuation of an early version of Bede's history, the Leningrad manuscript (c. 746); he argues that it is more true to Bede's original meaning than the Moore manuscript (c. 737), which he believes was written in a hurried and careless fashion, but which has greatly influenced interpretations of the text.