Wulfhere or Wulfar (died 675) 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".Colgrave, Life of Bishop Wilfred, c. 20.
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.Bede, HE, I, 15, p. 63. 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.Yorke, Barbara, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown and Farr, Mercia, pp. 15–16 The earliest Mercian king about whom definite historical information has survived is Penda of Mercia, Wulfhere's father.Barbara Yorke, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown and Farr, Mercia, pp. 18–19
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.Bede, HE, II, 5, p. 111. 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.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, pp. 103–4
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.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 83. However, on 5 August 642, Penda killed Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield, probably at Oswestry in the northwest midlands.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 88–90 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.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 105 On Oswald's death, Northumbria was divided again: Oswald's brotherOswiu succeeded to the throne of Bernicia, and Osric's son Oswine to Deira, the southern of the two kingdoms.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 78
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.Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 100 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.Simon Keynes, "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", in Blackwell Encyclopedia, p. 35
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.Stafford, Pauline, "Political Women in Mercia" in Brown and Farr, Mercia, p. 36Bede, HE, III, 24, pp. 183–5. 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 (Wulfhere and Æthelred) 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.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 82. 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.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 113
Nothing is known of Wulfhere's childhood. He had two brothers, Peada and Æthelred, and two sisters, Cyneburh and Cyneswith;Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 93Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 656, p. 29 it is also possible that Merewalh, king of the Magonsæte, was Wulfhere's brother.Yorke, p. 107, accepts the account in the Life of St Mildburh, which makes Merewalh and Wulfhere brothers, as genuine. Kirby, p. 93, expresses doubts. 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.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 128 Another possible child is Berhtwald, a subking who is recorded as a nephew of Æthelred,Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms, p. 108 and a third child, Werburh, is recorded in an 11th-century manuscript as a daughter of Wulfhere.Jane Roberts, "Hagiography and Literature: The Case of Guthlac of Crowland" in Brown and Farr, Mercia, p. 84 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.For details see Baker and Holt, Urban Growth, p. 18. The history is the Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucesteriæ, which incorporates material from as early as the late 11th century.
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 (unidentified) River Winwaed.The Went, a tributary of the River Don, has been suggested as a candidate; see e.g. Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 94–95; other suggestions include an unspecified tributary of the Humber; see e.g. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 29 n. 11. Penda was killed and beheaded by Oswiu, who divided Mercia into northern and southern halves.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 94–95 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.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, p. 96; Bede, HE, III, 24. Oswiu then ruled all Mercia himself. Bede lists Oswiu as the seventh and last king to hold imperium (or bretwalda in the language of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) 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.Bede, HE, III, 25; p. 183. 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.Higham, Convert Kings, p. 245.
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,Bede, HE III, 22, p. 178. but generally the pattern in the southeast is of more local domination, with Oswiu's influence unlikely to have been particularly strong.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp.96–7 Wulfhere appears to have taken over Oswiu's position in many instances.Kirby, Earliest English Kings, pp. 114–5 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.See, for example, Higham, Convert Kings, pp. 249&–50; Keynes; Yorke, pp. 157–9; Williams, Kingship and Government, pp. 20–3.
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.Higham, English Empire, p. 99.Peter Featherstone, "The Tribal Hidage and the Ealdormen of Mercia" in Brown and Farr, Mercia, p. 29
A convert king
Britain had been Christianised under the Romans, but the incoming Anglo-Saxons practiced their indigenous religion (Anglo-Saxon paganism) 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.Campbell, "The First Christian Kings", in Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons, pp. 45–6. Records survive of the baptism of other kings at this time—Cynegils of Wessex was baptised in about 640,Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, pp. 48–50. for example, and Edwin of Northumbria was converted in the mid 620s.Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, p. 78. However, later kings, such as Cædwalla of Wessex, who ruled in the 680s, are recorded as pagan at their accession.Kirby, The Earliest English Kings, p. 118.