Penda of Mercia - Aftermath and Historical Appraisal

Aftermath and Historical Appraisal

With the defeat at the Winwaed, Oswiu came to briefly dominate Mercia, permitting Penda's son Peada to rule its southern portion. Two of Penda's other sons, Wulfhere and Æthelred, later ruled Mercia in succession after the overthrow of Northumbrian control in the late 650s. The period of rule by Penda's descendants came to an end with his grandson Ceolred's death in 716, after which power passed to descendants of Eowa for most of the remainder of the 8th century.

Penda's reign is significant in that it marks an emergence from the obscurity of Mercia during the time of his predecessors, both in terms of the power of the Mercians relative to the surrounding peoples and in terms of our historical awareness of them. While our understanding of Penda's reign is quite unclear, and even the very notable and decisive battles he fought are surrounded by historical confusion, for the first time a general outline of important events regarding the Mercians becomes realistically possible. Furthermore, Penda was certainly of great importance to the development of the Mercian kingdom; it has been said that his reign was "crucial to the consolidation and expansion of Mercia".

Penda was the last great pagan warrior-king among the Anglo-Saxons. Higham wrote that "his destruction sounded the death-knell of English paganism as a political ideology and public religion." After Penda's death, the Mercians were converted to Christianity, and all three of Penda's reigning sons ruled as Christians. His daughters Cyneburh and Cyneswith became Christian and were saintly figures who according to some accounts retained their virginity through their marriages. There was purportedly even an infant grandson of Penda named Rumwold who lived a saintly three-day life of fervent preaching. What is known about Penda is primarily derived from the history written by the Northumbrian Bede, a priest not inclined to objectively portray a pagan Mercian who engaged in fierce conflict with Christian kings, and in particular with Northumbrian rulers. Indeed, Penda has been described as "the villain of Bede's third book" (of the Historia Ecclesiastica). From the perspective of the Christians who later wrote about Penda, the important theme that dominates their descriptions is the religious context of his wars—for instance, the Historia Brittonum says that Penda prevailed at Maserfield through "diabolical agency"—but Penda's greatest importance was perhaps in his opposition to the supremacy of the Northumbrians. According to Stenton, had it not been for Penda's resistance, "a loosely compacted kingdom of England under Northumbrian rule would probably have been established by the middle of the seventh century." In summarising Penda, he wrote the following:

He was himself a great fighting king of the kind most honoured in Germanic saga; the lord of many princes, and the leader of a vast retinue attracted to his service by his success and generosity. Many stories must have been told about his dealings with other kings, but none of them have survived; his wars can only be described from the standpoint of his enemies ...