§ 3. Fluctuations of dominion between Northumberland, Mercia, and Wessex. 577–823

During the seventh and eighth centuries there were many fluctuations in the relative position of the English kingdoms. Not only Essex, but Sussex and East-Anglia, each of which had given the nation a single Bretwalda, sink into insignificance, and even Kent falls into quite a secondary position. Wessex stood higher; but its Kings, occupied with extending their western frontier, made as yet no attempt to win the supremacy of the whole island, and they often had no small difficulty in maintaining their own independence against Northumbrians |Rivalry of Mercia and Northumberland.| and Mercians. The rivalries of these last two powers fill for a long while the most important place in our history. |Greatness of Northumberland at the| At the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh, Northumberland was at the height of its power. Its King Æthelfrith stands forth in the pages of Bæda as |beginning of the period.| the mightiest of conquerors against the Welsh, and as checking an invasion of Picts and Scots at the great battle |603.| of Dægsanstan. It must always be borne in mind that, at this time and long after, Lothian was politically as well as ethnologically English, and that Picts and Scots—whatever was the amount of distinction between them—are to |Dominion of Eadwine. 617–633.| be looked for only north of the Forth. Eadwine, the first Christian King of Northumberland, and who ranks as the fifth Bretwalda, has left his name to the frontier fortress of Eadwinesburh or Edinburgh. Eadwine was a true Bretwalda in every sense of the word, holding a supremacy alike over Teutons and Britons. Five Kings of the |626.| West-Saxons fell in battle against him; but at last |633.| he died at Heathfield in battle against Penda, the |Reign of Penda of Mercia. 627–655.| heathen King of the Mercians. Along with Penda appeared a strange ally, Cadwalla, the Christian King of the Strathclyde Welsh, the last of his race who could boast of having carried on aggressive war, as distinguished from mere plundering inroads, within the territory of any, |641.| English people. Not long afterwards, Oswald, the restorer of the Northumbrian kingdom and the sixth Bretwalda, fell in another battle against the heathen Mercian. The arms of Penda were no less successful against the West-Saxons. |628.| Even before the overthrow of Eadwine, he had most likely annexed to Mercia part of the West-Saxon |644.| lands north of the Thames and Avon; and sixteen years later, Cenwealh, who afterwards appears as an extender of the West-Saxon frontier at the expense of the Welsh, was for a while driven from his kingdom by the same terrible enemy. Penda, in short, came nearer to achieving the |Extent of his dominion.| union of the whole English nation under one sceptre than any prince before the West-Saxon Ecgberht. Everything looked as if the lasting dominion of Britain were destined for Mercia, and even as if the faith of Christ were about to be plucked up out of the land before it had well taken root. But it was impossible that England should now fall back under the rule of a mere heathen conqueror. The dominion of Penda appears in our history as a mere passing tyranny, and, though he must have possessed more real power than any English prince had ever done before him, his name finds no place on the list of Bretwaldas. |Death of Penda. 655.| At last the seventh prince who bore that title, Oswiu of Northumberland, checked him in his last invasion, and slew him in the battle of Wingfield, a name which, obscure as it now sounds, marks an important turning-point in the history of our island. The strife between the creeds of Christ and of Woden was there finally decided; the Mercians embraced the religion of their neighbours, and Northumberland again became the leading power of |Greatness of Northumberland under Oswald, Oswiu, and Ecgfrith. 635–685.| Britain. Under her two Bretwaldas, Oswald and Oswiu, the English dominion was, seemingly for the first time, extended beyond the Forth, and Picts and Scots, as well as English and Britons, admitted the supremacy of the Northumbrian King. But the greatness of Northumberland lasted no longer than the reigns of Oswiu and his son |685.| Ecgfrith. Ecgfrith was slain in battle against the Picts; the northern dominion of Northumberland died with him, and the kingdom itself, which had been for a while the most flourishing and advancing state in Britain, was gradually weakened by internal divisions. It sank into utter insignificance, and stood ready, as we shall soon see, |Greatness of Mercia. 716–819.| for the irruption of a new race of conquerors. After the decline of Northumberland, the Christian Mercians are again seen on the road to that supremacy which had once been so nearly grasped by their heathen forefathers. The |655–656.| fall of Penda carried with it a momentary subjugation of Mercia to Northumberland, but the land almost immediately recovered its independence, and in the next century Mercia again advanced from independence to dominion. |Æthelbald, 716–757. Offa, 757–795. Cenwulf, 796–819.| Under three bold and enterprising Kings, Æthelbald, Offa, and Cenwulf, the armies of Mercia went forth conquering and to conquer, and the periods of momentary confusion which divided these three vigorous reigns seem to have been no serious hindrance to the general advance of the kingdom. Wessex was still engaged in its long struggle with the Welsh, and was in no position to aspire to the dominion of Britain. It was quite as much as the West-Saxon Kings could do to push their conquests against the Welsh on the one hand and to maintain their independence against Mercia on the other. Wessex was more than once invaded by the Mercians; at one time it became actually |752.| tributary; till Cuthred, in the middle of the eighth century, finally secured its independence in the fight of Burford. In the latter half of that century, Offa raised the Mercian kingdom to a greater degree of real power than it had ever held, even during the momentary dominion of Penda. He conquered from the Welsh the lands between the Severn and the Wye, a lasting and useful acquisition for the English nation, which he is said to have secured by the great dyke which still bears his name. On the other side of Britain, all the smaller states, East-Anglia, Essex, Kent, and Sussex, were brought more or less completely under his power. Victorious over all enemies within his own island, Offa, as the mightiest potentate of the West, corresponded on equal terms with the Great Charles, the mightiest potentate of the East. |Influence of Charles the Great| Occasional misunderstandings between the two princes seem not to have seriously interrupted their friendship. It |in English affairs. 808.| is possible that the Kentish Kings applied for help against Offa to the mighty Frank; it is more certain that, after Offa’s death, Charles, now Emperor, procured the restoration of the banished Northumbrian King Eardwulf, and there seems reason to believe that both the Northumbrian and his Scottish neighbours acknowledged themselves the vassals of the new Augustus.

After the death of Offa the greatness of Mercia continued for a while undiminished under the reign of his son Cenwulf. But meanwhile the seeds of a mighty revolution |Accession of Ecgberht of Wessex. 802.| were sowing. A prince, taught in the school of adversity, who had learned the arts of war and statecraft at the feet of the hero of the age, was, in the eighth year after Offa’s death, raised to the throne of the West-Saxons. He was destined to win a dominion for which that narrow and local description seemed all too mean. Once, but seemingly once only, in the hour of victory, did the eighth Bretwalda, the founder of the abiding supremacy of Wessex, venture to exchange his ancestral title of King of the West-Saxons for the prouder style of King of the English.