757-796: The Age of Offa: A False Start for an English Kingdom

Offa, King of Mercia, dominates the second half of the Eighth Century. We will cover the other kingships in a subsequent post in order to have the facts on the table but it is Offa who interests us here. He seized power in 757 and united most of England under his rule. If his rule did not extend North of the Humber on his accession that was only because his son-in-law ruled in Northumbria (which we will deal with in the next posting). As leading 'Southumbrian', Offa is now termed in the Churchmen's Latin Rex Totius Anglorium Patriae. We have the first inklings of the possibility of a unified English State, a mini-empire to ape that of Charlemagne on the Continent.

Offa's Dyke - incomplete today but still the longest earthwork in Britain [1]

Wars to assert dominance have to continue however. In 776 Mercian and Kentish forces meet in battle at Otford in Kent and in 779 Offa defeats Cynewulf of Wessex near Benson (Oxfordshire) which town Offa then seizes. A border (Offa's Dyke) is also constructed between Anglian Mercia and the Welsh Kingdom of Powys although more recent archaeological research has suggested that he was building on earlier Mercian construction that may possibly have gone back to post-Roman times. 

Offa was a dynastic player intent on building a lasting 'house'. In 787, Offa has his son Egfrith solemnly consecrated as King of the Mercians under his overlordship. In 789, Brihtric of Wessex takes Offa's daughter Eadburg as his Queen. Offa is the most powerful King in England before Alfred, powerful enough to feel able to quarrel with the Empreror Charlemagne over marriage arangements. Apparently he thought himself important enough to have his son marry a daughter of the Emperor in return for sending a daughter over to Aachen to marry one of the Emperor's son. The Emperor did not agree and this lese-majeste led to Frankish ports being closed to English merchants, a serious economic matter for the Southern English.

Things got worse. Ethelbert of East Anglia was a suitor for Offa's daughter Alfrida in 792. Offa, for whatever reason, beheaded him but something about this did not sit right with him or with the public. He felt remorse, or was forced to appear to feel remorse, and ordered a tomb for the murdered king in what was later to become the Saxon Cathedral of Saints Mary & Ethelbert in Hereford (near Sutton Walls where the King was based). We also get a sense that Offa was now very interested in ensuring that the Church was on side (and we cannot forget the relationship between the Universal Church and the new Imperial Frankish regime in Europe). He founded St. Albans Abbey in the next year (793). It is hard not to see a connection between all this and reports of famine (perhaps connected to the economic effects of the closure of the Frankish sea ports) and of 'portents' (which we may take as signs of rumblings amongst the people). This is also the beginning of the period of Viking Raids, initially affecting Northumbria rather than points further south but perhaps creating an air of anxiety and fear.

As Offa's reign drew to a close, we can see the reasons why he was a false dawn from the point of view of England. He had an exaggerated sense of his own importance in relation to the Frankish Empire, he made political misjudgements and he came too late to an understanding that a viable Kingdom must be built on an alliance with the Church rather than through simple force of arms and dynastic fixes. Given that a European culture of dynastic legitimacy was emerging that required the backing of the Catholic Church, the lesson would not be lost on Alfred the Great. Offa died in 796. Mercian dominance died with him. His son and successor Ecgfrith did not live out the year and Ecgfrith was succeeded by Cenwulf.

[1] Source - BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/anglo_saxons/kings_and_laws