Wulfhere of Mercia

Wulfhere or Wulfar was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere extended his influence over much of that region. His campaigns against the West Saxons led to Mercian control of much of the Thames valley. He conquered the Isle of Wight and the Meon valley and gave them to King Æthelwealh of the South Saxons. He also had influence in Surrey, Essex, and Kent. He married Eormenhild, the daughter of King Eorcenberht of Kent.
Wulfhere's father, Penda, was killed in 655 at the Battle of Winwaed, fighting against Oswiu of Northumbria. Penda's son Peada became king under Oswiu's overlordship but was murdered six months later. Wulfhere came to the throne when Mercian nobles organized a revolt against Northumbrian rule in 658 and drove out Oswiu's governors.
By 670, when Oswiu died, Wulfhere was the most powerful king in southern England. He was effectively the overlord of England south of the Humber from the early 660s, although not overlord of Northumbria as his father had been. In 674, he challenged Oswiu's son Ecgfrith of Northumbria, but was defeated. He died, probably of disease, in 675. Wulfhere was succeeded as King of Mercia by his brother, Æthelred. Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid describes Wulfhere as "a man of proud mind, and insatiable will".

Mercia in the 7th century

England in AD 600 was ruled almost entirely by the Anglo-Saxon peoples who had come to Britain from northwestern Europe over the previous 200 years. The monk Bede, writing in about AD 731, considered the Mercians to be descended from the Angles, one of the invading groups; the Saxons and Jutes settled in the south of Britain, while the Angles settled in the north. Little is known about the origins of the kingdom of Mercia, in what is now the English Midlands, but according to genealogies preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglian collection the early kings were descended from Icel; the dynasty is therefore known as the Iclingas. The earliest Mercian king about whom definite historical information has survived is Penda of Mercia, Wulfhere's father.
According to Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, a history of the English church, there were seven early Anglo-Saxon rulers who held imperium, or overlordship, over the other kingdoms. The fifth of these was Edwin of Northumbria, who was killed at the Battle of Hatfield Chase by a combined force including Cadwallon, a British king of Gwynedd and Penda. At the time of this victory, Penda was probably not yet king of Mercia. His children included two future kings of Mercia: Wulfhere and Æthelred.
After Edwin's death, Northumbria briefly fell apart into its two constituent kingdoms - Bernicia and Deira. Within a year Oswald killed Cadwallon and reunited the kingdoms, and subsequently re-established Northumbrian hegemony over the south of England. However, on 5 August 642, Penda killed Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield, probably at Oswestry in the northwest midlands. Penda is not recorded as overlord of the other southern Anglo-Saxon kings, but he became the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kings after he defeated Oswald. On Oswald's death, Northumbria was divided again: Oswald's son Oswiu succeeded to the throne of Bernicia, and Osric's son Oswine to Deira, the southern of the two kingdoms.
The main source for this period is Bede's History, completed in about 731. Despite its focus on the history of the church, this work also provides valuable information about the early pagan kingdoms. For other kingdoms than his native Northumbria, such as Wessex and Kent, Bede had an informant within the ecclesiastical establishment who supplied him with additional information. This does not seem to have been the case with Mercia, about which Bede is less informative than about other kingdoms. Further sources for this period include the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, compiled at the end of the 9th century in Wessex. The Chronicle's anonymous scribe appears to have incorporated much information recorded in earlier periods.

Ancestry

Wulfhere was the son of Penda of Mercia. Penda's queen, Cynewise, is named by Bede, who does not mention her children; no other wives of Penda are known and so it is likely but not certain that she was Wulfhere's mother. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives Penda's age as fifty in 626, and credits him with a thirty-year reign, but this would put Penda at eighty years old at the time of his death, which is generally thought unlikely as two of his sons are recorded as being young when he was killed. It is thought at least as likely that Penda was 50 years old at his death, rather than at his accession. Wulfhere's date of birth is unknown, but Bede describes him as a youth at the time of his accession in 658, so it is likely he was in his middle teens at that time; Penda would then have been in his thirties at the time Wulfhere was born.
Nothing is known of Wulfhere's childhood. He had two brothers, Peada and Æthelred, and two sisters, Cyneburh and Cyneswith; it is also possible that Merewalh, king of the Magonsæte, was Wulfhere's brother. He married Eormenhild of Kent; no date is recorded for the marriage and there is no record of any children in the earliest sources, though Coenred, who was king of Mercia from 704 to 709, is recorded in John of Worcester's 12th-century chronicle as Wulfhere's son. Another possible child is Berhtwald, a subking who is recorded as a nephew of Æthelred, and a third child, Werburh, is recorded in an 11th-century manuscript as a daughter of Wulfhere. An 11th-century history of St. Peter's Monastery in Gloucester names two other women, Eadburh and Eafe, as queens of Wulfhere, but neither claim is plausible.

Accession and overlordship

In 655 Penda besieged Oswiu of Northumbria at Iudeu, the location of which is unknown but which may have been Stirling, in Scotland. Penda took Oswiu's son, Ecgfrith, as hostage, and Oswiu paid tribute, in the form of treasure, to secure Penda's departure. On the way back to Mercia, Oswiu overtook Penda and on 15 November 655 Oswiu and Penda fought on the banks of the River Winwaed. Penda was killed and beheaded by Oswiu, who divided Mercia into northern and southern halves. The northern portion was kept under direct Northumbrian control; the southern kingdom was given to Penda's son Peada, who had married Oswiu's daughter Ealhflæd ca 653.
Peada did not remain king long. He was murdered at Easter in 656, perhaps with the connivance of his wife, Oswiu's daughter. Oswiu then ruled all Mercia himself. Bede lists Oswiu as the seventh and last king to hold imperium over the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Overlordship was a common relationship between kingdoms at this time, often taking the form of a lesser king under the domination of a stronger one. Oswiu went further than this, however, and installed his own governors in Mercia after the deaths of Penda and Peada. This attempt to establish close control of Mercia failed in 658 when three Mercian leaders, Immin, Eafa and Eadbert, rebelled against the Northumbrians. Bede reports that they had kept Wulfhere in hiding, and when the revolt succeeded Wulfhere became king. It has been suggested that the Mercian revolt succeeded because Oswiu may have been occupied with fighting in Pictland, in northern Britain. His nephew the Pictish king Talorgan, son of Eanfrith, had died in 657.
How much direct control Oswiu exerted over the southern kingdoms during his imperium is unclear. Bede describes Oswiu's friendship and influence over Sigeberht of the East Saxons, but generally the pattern in the southeast is of more local domination, with Oswiu's influence unlikely to have been particularly strong. Wulfhere appears to have taken over Oswiu's position in many instances. Bede does not list him as one of the rulers who exercised imperium, but modern historians consider that the rise to primacy of the kingdom of Mercia began in his reign. He seems to have been the effective overlord of Britain south of the Humber from the early 660s, though not overlord of Northumbria as his father had been.
A document called the Tribal Hidage may date from Wulfhere's reign. Drawn up before many smaller groups of peoples were absorbed into the larger kingdoms, such as Mercia, it records the peoples of Anglo-Saxon England, along with an assessment in hides, a unit of land. The Tribal Hidage is difficult to date precisely; it may have been written down in Wulfhere's reign, but other suggested origins include the reign of Offa of Mercia, or Edwin or Oswiu of Northumbria.

A convert king

Britain had been Christianised under the Romans, but the incoming Anglo-Saxons practiced their indigenous religion and the church in Great Britain was limited to the surviving British kingdoms in Scotland and Wales, and the kingdom of Dumnonia in the southwest of England. Missionaries from Rome began converting the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity at the end of the 6th century, and this process was well under way in Penda's reign, though Penda himself remained pagan throughout his life. Records survive of the baptism of other kings at this time—Cynegils of Wessex was baptised in about 640, for example, and Edwin of Northumbria was converted in the mid 620s. However, later kings, such as Cædwalla of Wessex, who ruled in the 680s, are recorded as pagan at their accession.
Bede writes that after Wulfhere became king: "Free under their own king, they gave willing allegiance to Christ their true king, so that they might win his eternal kingdom in heaven". While Wulfhere's father had refused to convert to Christianity, and Peada had apparently converted in order to marry Oswiu's daughter, the date and the circumstances of Wulfhere's conversion are unknown. It has been suggested that he adopted Christianity as part of a settlement with Oswiu. Bede records that two years before Penda's death, his son Peada converted to Christianity, influenced partly by Oswiu's son Ealhfrith, who had married Peada's sister Cyneburh. Peada brought a Christian mission into Mercia, and it is possible that this was when Wulfhere became a Christian. Wulfhere's marriage to Eormenhild of Kent would have brought Mercia into close contact with the Christian kingdoms of Kent and Merovingian Gaul, which were connected by kinship and trade. The political and economic benefits of the marriage may therefore also have been a factor in Wulfhere's Christianisation of his kingdom.
Wulfhere's relationship with Bishop Wilfrid is recorded in Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid. During the years 667–69, while Wilfrid was at Ripon, Wulfhere frequently invited him to come to Mercia when there was need of the services of a bishop. According to Stephen, Wulfhere rewarded Wilfrid with "many tracts of land", in which Wilfrid "soon established minsters for servants of God".
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Wulfhere endowed a major monastery at Medeshamstede, in modern Peterborough. The monastery had initially been endowed by Peada; for the dedication of Wulfhere's gift both Archbishop Deusdedit, and Bishop Jaruman, were present. The endowment was signed by Wulfhere and Oswiu, and by Sigehere and Sæbbi, the Kings of Essex.