Penda 1 (Male) King of the Mercians, 626/632-655
e/m vii

Notes: Penda, king of the Mercians (c. 632 ? 55), son of Pybba. Penda was the last pagan king of Mercia and is often described as the scourge of the Christian kings of southern England. His aggressive and expansionist policies made him the most powerful ruler south of the Humber in the seventh century. Having killed two Northumbrian kings in the course of his long career, Penda was himself killed by a third, Oswiu, at the battle of ?Winwęd?, almost certainly on 15 November 655.

S. Keynes, ODNB; BEASE, 361 ? 2; N. Brooks, ?The formation of the Mercian kingdom?, The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, ed. S. Bassett (1989), 159?70; W. Davies, ?Annals and the origin of Mercia?, Mercian studies, ed. A. Dornier (1977), 17?29; D. Dumville, ?Essex, Middle Anglia, and the expansion of Mercia in the south-east midlands?, The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, ed. S. Bassett (1989), 123?40; F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (1971), 45, 47, 81?4.

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