The Dangerous Divorce Of King Cenwalh Of Wessex

Cenwalh succeeded his father, Cynegils, as king of Wessex in 643. He came to power in the midst of a great power struggle in England between the mighty King Penda of Mercia and the powerful kings of Northumbria. The kings of Wessex, the eventual masters of England, were at that time only a minor player in regional politics, hemmed in by the strength of central and northern English kingdoms. Penda of Mercia had invaded Wessex in 628, during the reign of Cenwalh’s father. Unlike many of Penda’s adversaries, the monarchs of Wessex had survived the war, but the peace agreement that resolved the conflict brought them under Penda’s influence. To strengthen the bond between Mercia and Wessex, Penda’s sister married Cenwalh sometime before his ascension to the throne of Wessex in 643. Yet, as was sometimes prone to happen with arranged marriages, Cenwalh and his bride did not get along. As such, within only two years of becoming king of Wessex, Cenwalh made the dangerous decision to divorce himself from his marriage to Penda’s sister.

Cenwalh’s decision would have been safer if he had been related in marriage to a passive and non-aggressive king. Penda, however, was a bloodthirsty and irritable conqueror who would attack his neighbors for little-to-no reason. By the time that Cenwalh became king of Wessex in 643, Penda had already killed at least four rival English kings—Edwin of Northumbria (d. 632), Kings Sigebert and Ecgric of East Anglia (d. 636), and King Oswald of Northumbria (d. 642). This rampaging warrior-king was the wrathful brother of the wife whom Cenwalh wanted to divorce. Yet, despite the obvious possible consequences of his actions, King Cenwalh proceeded with his plan and divorced his Mercian bride.

King Penda responded quickly to the poor treatment of his sister by promptly invading Wessex in 645. Little is known about the battles and military maneuvering that may have taken place during Penda’s campaign into Wessex, but the result of the war was a clear Mercian victory. King Cenwalh was forced to flee from Wessex, whereupon he fled to the court of King Anna of East Anglia.

Penda, however, was a busy man with other lands to invade and kings to kill. He eventually lost interest in punishing King Cenwalh, allowing the refugee monarch of Wessex to return to his kingdom in 648. It was an opportune time for Cenwalh to leave King Anna’s court, as Penda invaded East Anglia in 653 or 654 and killed the East Anglian king.

Fortunately for Cenwalh, Penda’s luck was about to run out. In 655, the Mercians invaded Northumbria, where the forces of King Oswiu (r. 642- 670) finally put a stop to the marauding warlord. King Penda was slain at the Battle of the Winwaed near Leeds in 655. As for King Cenwalh, he remarried and continued to rule Wessex until 672. His second wife, Seaxburg, was said to have ruled in Wessex for a year after Cenwalh’s death.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Augustine of Canterbury preaches to Ethelbert of Kent, painted by    James William Edmund Doyle  (1822–1892), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle translated by Benjamin Thorpe in 1861 and republished by Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (and relevant letters), translated by Leo Sherley-Pride, R. E. Latham and D. H. Farmer. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. 
• The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester translated by Thomas Forester. London: Petter and Galpin, originally published 1854. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cenwalh 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Penda
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sigebert-king-of-the-East-Angles
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Oswald
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oswiu

The Tale Of The Miraculously Chain-Resistant Thane From The Kingdom Of Northumbria

The opposing forces of King Egfrid (or Ecgfrith) of Northumbria and King Ethelred (or Æthelred) of Mercia met around the year 679 to do battle near the River Trent, in England. According to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, King Elfwin (or Ælfwine) of Deira mobilized his own force to assist his brother and liege, King Egfrid of Northumbria, at the battle near the Trent. Ultimately, the battle turned out to be a victory for King Ethelred of Mercia, or at least a costly draw for the Northumbrians. Most importantly, Elfwin of Deira was killed in the fray. Even though Mercia gained the most advantage from the results of the battle, the death of Elfwin also made King Egfrid honor-bound to seek vengeance for the death of his brother. The war only ended when Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, negotiated a reprisal payment to be sent from King Ethelred to King Egfrid, as compensation for the death of Elfwin.

The monk and historian, Bede (c. 673-735), recorded or created an interesting story that related to the battle of Trent. The tale is blatantly folklorish and heavily features religious miracles, yet the tale’s insight into war and life amidst the feuding kingdoms of 7th-century England is deemed valuable by historians.

Bede’s The Tale of Imma

A Northumbrian thane (a rank similar to a knight), known as Imma, was one of the many soldiers that King Elfwin of Deira commanded at the battle near the River Trent. Imma, just like his king, did not fare well in the battle—during the fight, Imma was injured, knocked unconscious, and left for dead on the blood-soaked battlefield. The poor unconscious man spent a day and a night lodged between the dying and the dead. When he finally woke, Imma pulled himself from the decaying corpses and scrounged together a crude bandage. Patched up to the best of his abilities, Imma finally limped away from the field of dead warriors, hoping to meet up with his Northumbrian comrades.

Despite his hopes and wishes, the injured thane instead found himself caught by his enemies, the Mercians. Imma was brought before one of King Ethelred’s noble vassals, who began interrogating the captive. As the battle of the Trent River had been costly for both the Northumbrians and the Mercians, Imma decided to withhold the fact that he, himself, was a nobleman and thane of the late King Elfwin. Instead, he claimed to be a neutral peasant that had been merely a laborer in the Northumbrian army’s baggage train. The Mercian noble may have had a few doubts about the man’s story, but he shrugged his suspicions aside and promised to give the captive food and medical treatment. The Mercian also swore that the captive would not be executed.

Meanwhile, a certain priest named Tunna was searching through the scattered dead that still remained at the site of the battle near the Trent River. The priest had been told that his brother, Imma, had died in the battle, along with King Elfwin. After searching the faces of the slain, Tunna found a battered corpse that looked vaguely like that of his brother. With a heavy heart, the priest brought the body back home for a proper burial and then embarked on a continuous stream of prayers for his brother’s soul.

It was at that moment, when Tunna began to pray for his brother, that the Mercians tried to restrain the captured Imma. Nevertheless, no matter how they tried to fetter the man, no bonds would hold. Ropes would not tie; locks would not shut, clasps refused to stay secure. Imma openly confessed to his captors that he had a theory of what was occurring. Imma guessed that his brother, a priest named Tunna, was praying and delivering masses in honor of his soul, which somehow created in him a divine resistance to fettering.

As the Mercian noble who was questioning Imma listened to this explanation, his suspicions of the prisoner began to reemerge. The captive’s grammar and rhetoric sounded more intelligent than that of a common peasant. The prisoner stood with the aura of command and influence. His clothing, though dirty, was expensive and beyond the price-range of the average peasantry.  Signs such as these convinced the Mercian vassal that the captive was anything but common. When pressed on the issue, Imma confessed that he was a nobleman and a thane to the deceased King Elfwin. The Mercian captor grimly claimed that if he had known this earlier, he would have had Imma executed. Yet, he had already promised that no harm (except imprisonment) would come to the captive.

In the end, the Mercians managed to sell Imma to a buyer from the land of Frisia, who had set up shop in London. Nevertheless, the same problem remained—the thane was a slave who could not be chained. After failing to bind Imma with all of the materials available in London, the Frisian decided to strike up a pact with the enslaved nobleman. He agreed to let Imma leave captivity if the nobleman swore on his honor to return with enough money to buy his own freedom. If Imma failed to produce this ransom money, then he was honor bound to voluntarily return to slavery.

Imma agreed to the deal and left London to meet with King Hlothere of Kent. Hlothere was related to Imma’s deceased liege, and other than King Egfrid of Northumbria, was one of the men most likely to pay Imma’s ransom.  According to the story, the king of Kent did, indeed, give the thane enough money to purchase back his freedom. With money in hand, Imma returned to London to settle his debts with the Frisian, and then traveled as a free man to see his brother, the priest named Tunna.

When Imma reached the monastery in which Tunna was living, he told his brother (and others) about all that had happened to him ever since he was wounded at the battle near the River Trent, including his miraculous resistance to fetters. Bede claimed that his source for this interesting tale was one of the people who personally witnessed Imma recount his odd experience.

Written by C. Keith Hansely.

Top picture attribution: (Bayeux Tapestry - Scenes 29-30-31- (cropped) the coronation of Harold II of England. Depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, c. 1070s, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (and relevant letters), Book 4-Chapter 22, translated by Leo Sherley-Pride, R. E. Latham and D. H. Farmer (Penguin Classics, 2003). 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ecgfrith 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aethelred-king-of-Mercia  

King Penda of Mercia—The Kingslayer of 7th-Century Britain

The two best early sources of information on Penda of Mercia are The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede and the History of the Britons, written by Nennius. The latter author wrote in more detail about Penda, yet, in his own way, Bede clearly characterized the man’s bloody reign.

Even though King Penda was never a major focal point of any of Bede’s chapters, readers cannot help but notice that the man’s name had a habit of appearing whenever Bede described the death of other 7th-century kings. To set the scene, imagine Bede writing about a saintly Christian king of Northumbria—then, seemingly out of nowhere, Penda arrives with an army and slaughters the opposing king in a bloody battle. That is the general way King Penda’s name appears in Bede’s History. Even so, Bede had to write down Penda’s name quite often. After all, Penda’s military campaigns led to the deaths of at least five separate kings.

Penda became the ruler of Mercia (English midlands) in the 620s or early 630s, after the death of King Ceorl (or Cearl) of Mercia. When he ascended to the Mercian throne, not all was to his liking. Although Penda was the ruler of Mercia, Northumbria was technically in control of the region. Despite being subservient to the Kingdom of Northumbria and not yet officially holding the title “king,” Penda did not give up on his own ambitions.

Upon becoming ruler of Mercia, Penda immediately moved for independence.  He began by making strong alliances while also attacking weak targets. In this way, Penda seized Hwicce (approximately Gloucestershire) from the Kingdom of Wessex and formulated a powerful alliance with Cadwallon, the king of Gwynedd. In 633 CE, the combined forces of Cadwallon and Penda faced King Edwin of Northumbria in the Battle of Hatfield Chase. During the battle, King Edwin was killed, throwing Northumbria into instability. With the Northumbrians in chaos, Cadwallon proceeded to ravage the Northumbrian countryside, and Penda succeeded in asserting himself as the independent king of Mercia.

Next, in the 630s or possibly the 640s, King Penda set his sights on East Anglia. There, King Ecgric and the retired (but respected) King Sigebert of East Anglia defended against the Mercian advance. Nevertheless, Penda’s campaign was a great success, and both Ecgric and Sigebert were slain, bringing Penda’s monarch kill-count to at least three.

Around this time, a new ruler in Northumbria was quickly bringing his kingdom back to order. Oswald, a nephew of the slain King Edwin, had returned from exile and claimed the throne of Northumbria. In 634, he killed Penda’s ally, Cadwallon of Gwynedd, and brought the Kingdom of Northumbria back to normalcy. After the initial threats to his kingdom were defeated, King Oswald eventually set out for revenge against Mercia. In 642, King Oswald and the Northumbrians met Penda and his allies in a battle near Owestry, in Shropshire. King Oswald died in the battle, with Penda killing his fourth known king. Following the battle, Penda seized even more Northumbrian land, including the regions of modern Elmet and Lindsey.

With Northumbria momentarily put back in its place, King Penda sought out opportunities in the various kingdoms that bordered his realm. He attacked Wessex and East Anglia, again, and in his campaign against the latter kingdom, he killed his fifth king, this time it was the East Anglian King Anna, who met his end around 654.

Riding upon this wave of successive victories, King Penda likely was feeling invincible. After all, in his military campaigns Penda had killed a minimum of five kings, with two from Northumbria and three from East Anglia. Nevertheless, King Penda wanted even more and decided to launch another military campaign against his greatest rival, the Kingdom of Northumbria. As the proverb goes, those who live by the sword, die by the sword. This saying applied perfectly to King Penda. Spending almost his entire reign in perpetual war, King Penda ultimately died on the battlefield. In 655, King Penda led his army against King Oswiu of Northumbria, brother of the slain King Oswald. The two forces finally clashed at the Battle of the Winwaed River. After asserting Mercia’s independence and making his kingdom a major power in Britain, King Penda died in battle somewhere near Leeds.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture attribution: (Anglo-Saxon helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, c. 7th century, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Source:

• Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (and relevant letters), translated by Leo Sherley-Pride, R. E. Latham and D. H. Farmer (Penguin Classics, 2003).  
• http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/penda.html 
• http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Kings-Queens-of-Mercia/  
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Penda 
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/15/on-this-day-britains-last-great-pagan-king-is-struck-down-by-chr/  
• http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=180596 
• http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_penda.html