Penda (died 15 November 655) was a 7th-century king of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the defeat of the powerful Northumbrian king Edwin at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633.
Nine years later he defeated and killed Edwin's eventual successor, Oswald, at the Battle of Maserfield; from this point he was probably the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the time, laying the foundations for the Mercian Supremacy over the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. He repeatedly defeated the East Angles and drove Cenwalh, the king of Wessex, into exile for three years. He continued to wage war against the Bernicians of Northumbria. Thirteen years after Maserfield he suffered a crushing defeat by Oswald's successor and brother, Oswiu, and was killed at the Battle of the Winwaed in the course of a final campaign against the Bernicians.
The fullest and earliest datable source for Penda's life is Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731, but his account was very biased against Penda as a pagan. Penda also appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whose sources and reliability for this period are unclear, and in the early ninth-century Historia Brittonum, in what is possibly the most reliable section of that work, and it adds a very small amount to Bede's account. Penda seems also to be mentioned, as Panna ap Pyd, in the perhaps seventh-century Welsh praise-poem Marwnad Cynddylan, which says of Cynddylan: 'pan fynivys mab pyd mor fu parawd' ('when the son of Pyd wished, how ready was he'). Penda and his family seem to have given their names to a number of places in the West Midlands, including Pinbury, Peddimore and Pinvin.
The etymology of the name Penda is unknown. Penda of Mercia is the only person recorded in the comprehensive Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England with this name.
Suggestions for etymologies of the name are essentially divided between a Celtic and a Germanic origin.
The names of members of a Northumbrian [spiritual] brotherhood are recorded in the ninth-century Liber vitae Dunelmensis; the name Penda occurs in this list and is categorised as a British (Welsh) name. John T. Koch noted that "Penda and a number of other royal names from early Anglian Mercia have more obvious Brythonic than German explanations, though they do not correspond to known Welsh names." These royal names include those of Penda's father, Pybba, and of his son Peada. It has been suggested that the firm alliance between Penda and various British princes might be the result of a "racial cause".
Continental Germanic comparanda for the name include a feminine Penta (9th century) and a toponym Penti-lingen, suggesting an underlying personal name Pendi.
Descent, beginning of reign, and battle with the West Saxons
Penda was a son of Pybba of Mercia and said to be an Icling, with a lineage purportedly extending back to Wōden. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives his descent as follows:
Penda was Pybba's offspring, Pybba was Cryda's offspring, Cryda Cynewald's offspring, Cynewald Cnebba's offspring, Cnebba Icel's offspring, Icel Eomer's offspring, Eomer Angeltheow's offspring, Angeltheow Offa's offspring, Offa Wermund's offspring, Wermund Wihtlæg's offspring, Wihtlæg Woden's offspring.
The Historia Brittonum says that Pybba had 12 sons, including Penda, but that Penda and Eowa of Mercia were those best known to its author. (Many of these 12 sons of Pybba may merely represent later attempts to claim descent from him.) Besides Eowa, the pedigrees also give Penda a brother named Coenwalh from whom two later kings were said to descend, although this may instead represent his brother-in-law Cenwalh of Wessex.
The time at which Penda became king is uncertain, as are the circumstances. Another Mercian king, Cearl, is mentioned by Bede as ruling at the same time as the Northumbrian king Æthelfrith, in the early part of the 7th century. Whether Penda immediately succeeded Cearl is unknown, and it is also unclear whether they were related, and if so how closely; Henry of Huntingdon, writing in the 12th century, claimed that Cearl was a kinsman of Pybba. It is also possible that Cearl and Penda were dynastic rivals.
According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Penda became king in 626, ruled for 30 years, and was 50 years old at the time of his accession. That he ruled for 30 years should not be taken as an exact figure, since the same source says he died in 655, which would not correspond to the year given for the beginning of his reign unless he died in the thirtieth year of his reign. Furthermore, that Penda was truly 50 years old at the beginning of his reign is generally doubted by historians, mainly because of the ages of his children. The idea that Penda, at about 80 years of age, would have left behind children who were still young (his son Wulfhere was still just a youth three years after Penda's death, according to Bede) has been widely considered implausible. The possibility has been suggested that the Chronicle actually meant to say that Penda was 50 years old at the time of his death, and therefore about 20 in 626.
Bede, in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, says of Penda that he was "a most warlike man of the royal race of the Mercians" and that, following Edwin of Northumbria's defeat in 633 (see below), he ruled the Mercians for 22 years with varying fortune. The noted 20th-century historian Frank Stenton was of the opinion that the language used by Bede "leaves no doubt that ... Penda, though descended from the royal family of the Mercians, only became their king after Edwin's defeat". The Historia Brittonum accords Penda a reign of only ten years, perhaps dating it from the time of the Battle of Maserfield (see below) around 642, although according to the generally accepted chronology this would still be more than ten years. Given the apparent problems with the dates given by the Chronicle and the Historia, Bede's account of the length of Penda's reign is generally considered the most plausible by historians. Nicholas Brooks noted that, since these three accounts of the length of Penda's reign come from three different sources, and none of them are Mercian (they are West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Welsh), they may merely reflect the times at which their respective peoples first had military involvement with Penda.
The question of whether or not Penda was already king during the late 620s assumes greater significance in light of the Chronicle's record of a battle between Penda and the West Saxons under their kings Cynegils and Cwichelm taking place at Cirencester in 628. If he was not yet king, then his involvement in this conflict might indicate that he was fighting as an independent warlord during this period—as Stenton put it, "a landless noble of the Mercian royal house fighting for his own hand." On the other hand, he might have been one of multiple rulers among the Mercians at the time, ruling only a part of their territory. The Chronicle says that after the battle, Penda and the West Saxons "came to an agreement."
It has been speculated that this agreement marked a victory for Penda, ceding to him Cirencester and the areas along the lower River Severn. These lands to the southwest of Mercia had apparently been taken by the West Saxons from the Britons in 577, and the territory eventually became part of the subkingdom of the Hwicce. Given Penda's role in the area at this time and his apparent success there, it has been argued that the subkingdom of the Hwicce was established by him; evidence to support this is lacking, although the subkingdom is known to have existed later in the century.
Alliance with Cadwallon and the Battle of Hatfield Chase
In the late 620s or early 630s, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, the British (Welsh) king of Gwynedd, became involved in a war with Edwin of Northumbria, the most powerful king in Britain at the time. Cadwallon apparently was initially unsuccessful, but he joined with Penda, who is thought to have been the lesser partner in their alliance, to defeat the Northumbrians in October 633 at the Battle of Hatfield Chase. Penda was probably not yet king of the Mercians, but he is thought to have become king soon afterwards, based on Bede's characterisation of his position. Edwin was killed in the battle, and one of his sons, Eadfrith, fell into Penda's hands.