Theroyal court moved around the kingdom without a fixed capital city. Early in its existenceRepton seems to have been the location of an important royal estate. According to theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was from Repton in 873–874 that theGreat Heathen Army deposed the King of Mercia. Slightly earlier,King Offa seems to have favouredTamworth. It was there where he was crowned, and where he resided during multiple Christmases.
For the three centuries between 600 and 900, known asMercian Supremacy or the "Golden Age of Mercia", having annexed or gained submissions from five of the other six kingdoms of theHeptarchy (East Anglia,Essex,Kent,Sussex andWessex), Mercia dominated England south of theHumber estuary. DuringKing Offa's reign, adyke was created as the boundary between Mercia and the Welsh kingdoms.Nicholas Brooks noted that "the Mercians stand out as by far the most successful of the various early Anglo-Saxon peoples until the later ninth century",[4] and some historians, such asSir Frank Stenton, believe the unification of England south of theHumber estuary was achieved during Offa's reign.[5]
King Peada converted to Christianity around 656. TheDiocese of Mercia was founded in this year, with the first bishop (Diuma) based atRepton. The religion was firmly established in the kingdom by the late 7th century. After 13 years at Repton, in 669,Saint Chad (the fifth bishop) moved the bishopric toLichfield and, in 691, the Diocese of Mercia became theDiocese of Lichfield. There has been a diocese based in the city ever since. For a brief period between 787 and 799 or 803 the diocese was anarchbishopric. The current bishop,Michael Ipgrave, is the 99th since the diocese was established.
At the end of the 9th century, following the invasions of theVikings and theirGreat Heathen Army,Danelaw absorbed much of the former Mercian territory. Danelaw at its height included London, all of East Anglia and most of the North of England.
The final Mercian king,Ceolwulf II, died in 879 with the kingdom appearing to have lost its political independence. Initially, it was ruled by a lord orealdorman under the overlordship ofAlfred the Great, who styled himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The kingdom had a brief period of independence in the mid-10th century and in 1016, by which time it was viewed as a province with temporary independence.Wessex conquered and united all the kingdoms into theKingdom of England. The kingdom became anearldom until 1071.
Mercia's exact evolution at the start of theAnglo-Saxon era remains more obscure than that ofNorthumbria,Kent, or evenWessex. Mercia developed an effective political structure and wasChristianised later than the other kingdoms.[6] Archaeological surveys show thatAngles settled the lands north of theRiver Thames by the 6th century. The name "Mercia" isMercian Old English for "boundary folk" (seeWelsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native Brythonic Speaking Romano-BritishWelsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However,Peter Hunter Blair argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier betweenNorthumbria and the inhabitants of theTrent river valley.[7]
The earliest person named in any records as aking of Mercia isCreoda, said to have been the great-grandson ofIcel. Coming to power around 584, he built a fortress atTamworth which became the seat of Mercia's kings.[9] His sonPybba succeeded him in 593.Cearl, a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage toEdwin, king ofDeira, whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince.[10]
The Mercian kings were the only Anglo-SaxonHeptarchy ruling house known to claim a direct family link with a pre-migration Continental Germanic monarchy.[11]
Mercia and the main Anglo-Saxon kingdoms at about 600
The next Mercian king,Penda, ruled from about 626 or 633 until 655. Some of what is known about Penda comes from the hostile account ofBede, who disliked him – both as an enemy to Bede's ownNorthumbria and as apagan. However, Bede admits that Penda freely allowedChristianmissionaries fromLindisfarne into Mercia and did not restrain them from preaching. In 633 Penda and his allyCadwallon of Gwynedd defeated and killed Edwin, who had become not only ruler of the newly unified Northumbria, butbretwalda, or high king, over the southern kingdoms. When another Northumbrian king,Oswald, arose and again claimed overlordship of the south, he also suffered defeat and death at the hands of Penda and his allies – in 642 at theBattle of Maserfield. In 655, after a period of confusion in Northumbria, Penda brought 30 sub-kings to fight the new Northumbrian kingOswiu at theBattle of Winwaed, in which Penda in turn lost the battle and his life.[12]
The battle led to a temporary collapse of Mercian power. Penda's sonPeada, who had converted to Christianity atRepton in 653, succeeded his father as king of Mercia; Oswiu set up Peada as an under-king; but in the spring of 656 he was murdered and Oswiu assumed direct control of the whole of Mercia. A Mercian revolt in 658 threw off Northumbrian domination and resulted in the appearance of another son of Penda,Wulfhere, who ruled Mercia as an independent kingdom (though he apparently continued to render tribute to Northumbria for a while) until his death in 675. Wulfhere initially succeeded in restoring the power of Mercia, but the end of his reign saw a serious defeat by Northumbria. The next king,Æthelred, defeated Northumbria in theBattle of the Trent in 679, settling once and for all the long-disputed control of the formerkingdom of Lindsey. Æthelred was succeeded byCœnred, son of Wulfhere; both these kings became better known for their religious activities than anything else, but the king who succeeded them in 709,Ceolred, is said in a letter ofSaint Boniface to have been a dissolute youth who died insane. So ended the rule of the direct descendants of Penda.[6]
At some point before the accession ofÆthelbald in 716 the Mercians conquered the region aroundWroxeter, known to the Welsh asPengwern or as "The Paradise of Powys". Elegies written in the persona of itsdispossessed rulers record the sorrow at this loss.[13]
A series of maps that illustrate the increasing hegemony of Mercia during the 8th century
The next important king of Mercia, Æthelbald, reigned from 716 to 757. For the first few years of his reign he had to face two strong rival kings,Wihtred of Kent andIne of Wessex. But when Wihtred died in 725, and Ine abdicated in 726 to become a monk in Rome, Æthelbald was free to establish Mercia's hegemony over the rest of the Anglo-Saxons south of theHumber. Æthelbald suffered a setback in 752, when the West Saxons underCuthred defeated him, but he seems to have restored his supremacy over Wessex by 757.[14]
In July 2009, theStaffordshire Hoard ofAnglo-Saxon gold was discovered by Terry Herbert in a field at Hammerwich, near Brownhills and close toLichfield in Staffordshire.[15] Lichfield functioned as the religious centre of Mercia. The artefacts have tentatively been dated by Svante Fischer and Jean Soulat to the 7th–8th centuries.[16] Whether the hoard was deposited byAnglo-Saxon pagans or Christians remains unclear, as does the purpose of the deposit.[17]
After the murder of Æthelbald by one of his bodyguards in 757, a civil war broke out which concluded with the victory ofOffa, a descendant of Pybba. Offa (reigned 757 to 796) had to build anew the hegemony which his predecessor had exercised over the southern English, and he did this so successfully that he became the greatest king Mercia had ever known. Not only did he win battles and dominateSouthern England, but also he took an active hand in administering the affairs of his kingdom, foundingmarket towns and overseeing the first major issues of goldcoins in Britain; he assumed a role in the administration of the Catholic Church in England (sponsoring the short-livedarchbishopric of Lichfield, 787 to 799), and even negotiated withCharlemagne as an equal. Offa is credited with the construction ofOffa's Dyke, which marked the border between Wales and Mercia.[18]
Offa exerted himself to ensure that his sonEcgfrith of Mercia would succeed him, but after Offa's death in July 796 Ecgfrith survived for only five months, and the kingdom passed to a distant relative namedCoenwulf in December 796. In 821 Coenwulf's brotherCeolwulf succeeded to the Mercian kingship; he demonstrated his military prowess by his attack on and destruction of the fortress ofDeganwy inGwynedd. The power of theWest Saxons underEgbert (King of Wessex from 802 to 839) grew during this period, however, and in 825 Egbert defeated the Mercian kingBeornwulf (who had overthrown Ceolwulf in 823) atEllendun.[19]
The Battle of Ellendun proved decisive. At this point, Mercia lost control ofKent,Sussex,Surrey, and possibly alsoEssex.[20] Beornwulf was slain while suppressing a revolt amongst the East Angles, and his successor, a formerealdorman namedLudeca (reigned 826–827), met the same fate. Another ealdorman,Wiglaf, subsequently ruled for less than two years before Egbert of Wessex drove him out of Mercia. In 830 Wiglaf regained independence for Mercia, but by this time Wessex had clearly become the dominant power in England.Circa 840Beorhtwulf succeeded Wiglaf.[21]
The Five Boroughs and English Mercia in the early 10th century[22]
In 852,Burgred came to the throne, and withEthelwulf of Wessex subjugatedNorth Wales. In 868 Danish invaders occupiedNottingham. The Danes drove Burgred from his kingdom in 874 andCeolwulf II took his place. In 877 the Danes seized the eastern part of Mercia, which became part of theDanelaw.[23] Ceolwulf, the last king of Mercia, left with the western half, reigned until 879.[24] From about 883 until his death in 911Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, ruled Mercia under the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred changed his title from 'king of the West Saxons' to 'king of the Anglo-Saxons' to reflect the acceptance of his overlordship of all southern England not under Danish rule. All coins struck in Mercia after the disappearance of Ceolwulf inc. 879 were in the name of the West Saxon king.[25] Æthelred had marriedÆthelflæd (c. 870 – 12 June 918), daughter ofAlfred the Great of Wessex (r. 871–899), and she assumed power when her husband became ill at some time in the last ten years of his life.[26]
After Æthelred's death in 911 Æthelflæd ruled as "Lady of the Mercians", but Alfred's successor as King of the Anglo-Saxons,Edward the Elder (r. 899–924), took control ofLondon andOxford, which Alfred had placed under Æthelred's control. Æthelflæd and her brother continued Alfred's policy of building fortifiedburhs, and by 918 they had conquered the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and Danish Mercia.[26]
When Æthelflæd died in 918, Ælfwynn, her daughter by Æthelred, succeeded as "Second Lady of the Mercians", but within six months Edward had deprived her of all authority in Mercia and taken her to Wessex.[26] Edward was succeeded as king of the Anglo-Saxons by his eldest sonÆthelstan (r. 924–939), who had been brought up in Mercia, and he was immediately accepted as king, but not in Wessex until the following year. In 927 he conquered Northumbria and thus became the first king of all England.[27] Mercia briefly regained a political existence separate from Wessex in 955–959, when Edgar became king of Mercia, and again in 1016, whenCnut andEdmund Ironside divided the English kingdom between themselves, with Cnut taking Mercia.[28] Mercia maintained its separate identity as an earldom until theNorman Conquest in 1066.[29]
For men of the est with men of the west, as it were undir the same partie of hevene, acordeth more in sownynge of speche than men of the north with men of the south, therfore it is that Mercii, that beeth men of myddel Engelond, as it were parteners of the endes, understondeth better the side langages, northerne and southerne, than northerne and southerne understondeth either other...
J. R. R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect ofOld English and introduced various Mercian terms into hislegendarium – especially in relation to theKingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as theMark (a name cognate withMercia). The Mercian dialect is the basis of Tolkien's language of Rohan,[32] and a number of its kings are given the same names as monarchs who appear in the Mercian royal genealogy, e.g., Fréawine, Fréaláf andÉomer (seeList of kings of the Angles).[33]
During the ninth century, Mercia was a major centre for the production of Old English prose texts, including translations of Bede'sEcclesiastical History, Felix'sLife of Guthlac and Gregory the Great'sDialogues, as well as works such as the Old English Martyrology.[31]
The first kings of Mercia were pagans, and they resisted the encroachment of Christianity longer than other kingdoms in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.[34]
Mercian rulers remained resolutely pagan until the reign of Peada in 656, although this did not prevent them joining coalitions with Christian Welsh rulers to resist Northumbria. The first appearance of Christianity in Mercia, however, had come at least thirty years earlier, following theBattle of Cirencester of 628, when Penda incorporated the formerly West Saxon territories of Hwicce into his kingdom.[35]
The conversion of Mercia to Christianity occurred in the latter part of the 7th century, and by the time of Penda's defeat and death, Mercia was largely surrounded by Christian states.Diuma, an Irish monk and one of Oswiu's missionaries, was subsequently ordained a bishop – the first to operate in Mercia. Christianity finally gained a foothold in Mercia when Oswiu supported Peada as sub-king of the Middle Angles, requiring him to marry Oswiu's daughter, Alchflaed, and to accept her religion.[36]
Decisive steps to Christianise Mercia were taken byChad (Latinised by Bede asCeadda), the fifth[37] bishop to operate in Mercia. This controversial figure was given land by King Wulfhere to build a monastery atLichfield. Evidence suggests that theLichfield Gospels were made in Lichfield around 730. As in other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the many small monasteries established by the Mercian kings allowed the political/military and ecclesiastical leadership to consolidate their unity through bonds of kinship.[38]
For knowledge of the internal composition of the Kingdom of Mercia, we must rely on a document of uncertain age (possibly late 7th century), known as theTribal Hidage – an assessment of the extent (but not the location) of land owned (reckoned inhides), and therefore the military obligations and perhaps taxes due, by each of the Mercian tribes and subject kingdoms by name. This hidage exists in several manuscript versions, some as late as the 14th century. It lists a number of peoples, such as theHwicce, who have now vanished, except for reminders in various placenames. The major subdivisions of Mercia were as follows:[39]
Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed withNorthumbria in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control (roughly corresponding to the historic riding of Lindsey inLincolnshire).
Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed withWessex in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control. Smaller folk groups within included theStoppingas aroundWarwick and theArosæte nearDroitwich (roughly corresponding toGloucestershire,Worcestershire and southernWarwickshire).
A people of the Welsh border, also known as the Westerna, under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included theTemersæte nearHereford and theHahlsæte nearLudlow (roughly corresponding toHerefordshire and southernShropshire).
A people of the Welsh border under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included theRhiwsæte nearWroxeter and theMeresæte nearChester (roughly corresponding to northernShropshire,Flintshire andCheshire).
After Mercia was annexed by Wessex in the early 10th century, the West Saxon rulers divided it intoshires modelled after their own system, cutting across traditional Mercian divisions. These shires survived mostly intact until 1974, and even today still largely follow their original boundaries.
The term "midlands" is first recorded (asmydlonde-shiris) in 1475.[40] John Bateman, writing in 1876 or 1883, referred to contemporaryCheshire andStaffordshire landholdings as being in Mercia.[41] The most credible source for the idea of a contemporary Mercia isThomas Hardy'sWessex novels. The first of these appeared in 1874 and Hardy himself considered it the origin of the conceit of a contemporary Wessex.Bram Stoker set his 1911 novelThe Lair of the White Worm in a contemporary Mercia that may have been influenced by Hardy, whose secretary was a friend of Stoker's brother. Although 'Edwardian Mercia' never had the success of 'Victorian Wessex', it was an idea that appealed to the higher echelons of society. In 1908 Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal ofBirmingham University, wrote to his counterpart atBristol, welcoming a new university worthy of "...the great Province of Wessex whose higher educational needs it will supply. It will be no rival, but colleague and co-worker with this university, whose province is Mercia...".[42]
TheBritish Army has made use of several regional identities in naming larger, amalgamated formations. After the Second World War, the infantry regiments ofCheshire, Staffordshire andWorcestershire were organised in theMercian Brigade (1948–1968). Today, "Mercia" appears in the titles of two regiments, theMercian Regiment, founded in 2007, which recruits in Cheshire,Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Worcestershire, and parts of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, and theRoyal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry, founded in 1992 as part of theTerritorial Army. In 1967, the police forces ofHerefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire were combined into theWest Mercia Constabulary, which changed its name to West Mercia Police in 2009.[43]
Telephone directories across the Midlands include a large number of commercial and voluntary organisations using "Mercia" in their names, and in 2012 a new football league was formed called theMercian Regional Football League.[44]
Hits Radio Coventry & Warwickshire, a commercial radio station, was originally launched in 1980 asMercia Sound, later becomingMercia FM, and thenMercia.[45]
There is no authentic indigenous Mercian heraldic device, asheraldry did not develop in any recognizable form until theHigh Middle Ages.[46]
Thesaltire as a symbol of Mercia may have been in use since the time ofKing Offa.[47] By the 13th century, the saltire had become theattributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia.[48] Thearms areblazonedAzure, a saltire Or, meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The arms were subsequently used by theAbbey of St Albans, founded by King Offa of Mercia. With the dissolution of the Abbey and the incorporation of the borough ofSt Albans the device was used on the town's corporate seal and was officially recorded as the arms of the town at anheraldic visitation in 1634.[49]
The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown fromTamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, to this day.[47]
Giant Mercia flag on Tamworth castle created by community groups in 2024
The flag also appears on street signs welcoming people toTamworth, the "ancient capital of Mercia". It was also flown outsideBirmingham Council House during 2009 while theStaffordshire Hoard was on display in the city before being taken to theBritish Museum in London. The cross has been incorporated into a number ofcoats of arms of Mercian towns, includingTamworth,Leek andBlaby. It was recognised as the Mercian flag by theFlag Institute in 2014.[50]
The silver double-headed eagle surmounted by a golden three-pronged Saxon crown has been used by several units of theBritish Army as a heraldic device for Mercia since 1958, including theMercian Regiment. It is derived from theattributed arms ofLeofric, Earl of Mercia in the 11th century.[51] Leofric is sometimes attributed a black, single-headed eagle instead.[52]
Thewyvern, a type ofdragon, came to have a strong association with Mercia in the 19th century. TheMidland Railway, which used a white (silver) wyvernsans legs (legless) as its crest, having inherited it from theLeicester and Swannington Railway, asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Kingdom of Mercia", and that it was "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester".[53] The symbol appeared on numerous stations and other company buildings in the region, and was worn as a silver badge by all uniformed employees. However, in 1897 theRailway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia".[54] It has been associated withLeicester since the time ofThomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster and Leicester (c. 1278–1322), the most powerful lord in the Midlands, who used it as his personal crest, and was recorded in a heraldic visitation of the town in 1619.[55]
InBram Stoker's 1911 novelThe Lair of the White Worm, explicitly set in Mercia (see above), the Mercian white wyvernsans legs of the Midland Railway was transformed into a monstrous beast, the eponymous worm of the title. The word "worm" is derived fromOld Englishwyrm and originally referred to a dragon or serpent. "Wyvern" derives fromOld Saxonwivere, also meaning serpent, and is etymologically related toviper.[56]
The ultimate source for the symbolism of white dragons in England would appear to beGeoffrey of Monmouth's fictional work,The History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), which recounts an incident in the life of Merlin where a red dragon is seen fighting a white dragon and prevailing. The red dragon was taken to represent the Welsh and their eventual victory over the Anglo-Saxon invaders, symbolised by the white dragon.[57]
The philologist and Tolkien scholarTom Shippey has suggested that the Middle Kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien'sFarmer Giles of Ham, a story dominated by a dragon, is based on Mercia, the part of England where Tolkien grew up. This dragon,Chrysophylax, though mostly hostile, eventually helps Giles found a realm of his own, the Little Kingdom. Shippey states further that "the Mark", the land of theRiders of Rohan – all of whom have names in the Mercian dialect of Old English – was once the usual term for central England, and it would have been pronounced and written "marc" rather than the West Saxon "mearc" or the Latinized "Mercia".[58]
^Roach & Hartman, eds. (1997)English Pronouncing Dictionary, 15th edition. (Cambridge University Press). p. 316; see also J.C. Wells,Longman Pronunciation Dictionary and Upton et al.,Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English.
^MercianOld English:Mercna rīċe, "kingdom of the border people";Latin:Merciorum regnum)
^Brooks, N. (1989). "The formation of the Mercian kingdom". In Bassett, Steven (ed.).The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Leicester. p. 159.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Stenton, F. M. (1970). "The Supremacy of the Mercian kings". In Stenton, D. M. (ed.).Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford. pp. 48–66.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Brooks, Nicholas.Anglo-Saxon myths: state and church, 400–1066. Hill, D. (1981).Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford. map 136.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Hooke, Della (1986).Anglo-Saxon Territorial Organisation: The Western Margins of Mercia. Occasional Paper 22. University of Birmingham, Dept. of Geography. pp. 1–45.
^Shippey, Prof. Tom (2005).The Road to Middle Earth. HarperCollins. pp. 139–140.ISBN0-261-10275-3. Shippey notes that Tolkien uses 'Mercian' forms of Anglo-Saxon, e.g., "Saruman,Hasufel,Herugrim for 'standard' [Anglo-Saxon]Searuman,Heasufel andHeorugrim" Footnote page 140
^Bede.Ecclesiastical History of the English People. pp. Book 3, chapter 21.
^Geoffrey Briggs,Civic & Corporate Heraldry, London 1971 C. W. Scot-Giles,Civic Heraldry of England and Wales, 2nd edition, London, 1953 A. C. Fox-Davies,The Book of Public Arms, London 1915 Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis,The Midland Railway, 1953 Frederick Smeeton Williams,The Midland Railway: Its rise and progress: A narrative of modern enterprise, 1876 The Railway Magazine, Vol. 102, 1897 Dow (1973)[pages needed] Clement Edwin Stretton,History of The Midland Railway, 1901
Hunter Blair, Peter (1948).The Northumbrians and their Southern Frontier. Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series 26. pp. 98–126. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1060107
Thacker, Alan (2005). "England in the Seventh Century". In Fouracre, Paul (ed.).The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. c. 500 – c. 700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0521362917.
Baxter, Stephen (2007).The earls of Mercia: lordship and power in late Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0199230983.
Brown, Michelle; Farr, Carol, eds. (2005).Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe.ISBN0826477658.
Gelling, Margaret (1989). "The Early History of Western Mercia". In Bassett, S. (ed.).The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. pp. 184–201.ISBN978-0718513177.
Walker, Ian W. (2000).Mercia and the Making of England. Sutton.ISBN0-7509-2131-5. Also published asWalker, Ian W. (2000).Mercia and the Origins of England. Sutton.ISBN0750921315.
^Keynes, Simon (2014). "Appendix I: Rulers of the English, c.450–1066". InLapidge, Michael (ed.).The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.ISBN978-0-470-65632-7.
^Kirby, D. P.The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge.ISBN978-0-4152-4211-0.
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