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1:19

The year is six forty

1:21

one a day after years

1:23

of tension and hostility between

1:25

the great kingdoms of Mircea,

1:27

the Northumbria, The

1:30

reign of Oswald is over.

1:32

The legendary ruler of Northumbria

1:34

has been slain. In

1:37

beads became divorced will to death.

1:40

The Northumbrian warlord is killed by

1:42

Pender. the last pagan king of

1:44

the mercy. Ends in a great

1:47

battle as a place called. Mazer

1:49

feel bead right, depend removes

1:51

Oswald's head and hands to

1:54

display them on steaks, perhaps

1:56

as an offering to his

1:59

pagan god. It's

2:01

a momentous defeat. Pender

2:03

returns to Mercia victorious.

2:12

For some, the death of a mighty

2:15

ruler like Oswald isn't a cause for

2:17

celebration, but for the Mercians it

2:19

was no small feat, one that could only

2:22

be achieved by a kingdom of strong,

2:25

ambitious rulers with a

2:27

multinational significance. Welcome

2:31

to Gone Medieval, I'm Matt Lewis.

2:33

In our cycle through the most

2:36

significant kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon period,

2:38

we've arrived at frankly the best one,

2:40

and I say that as someone who

2:43

grew up within its bounds, so obviously

2:45

it's beyond debate here. Last

2:47

episode we traced the rise and

2:49

fall of the Northumbrian Kingdom, its

2:51

religious clout and its recurring conflict.

2:55

This episode we're looking at

2:57

its almost perpetual enemy, the

2:59

Kingdom of Mercia. We

3:03

discovered how before a unified

3:05

England existed, the British Isles

3:07

were divided up into petty

3:09

kingdoms, each vying for power

3:11

with varying degrees of success.

3:15

Mercia was one such kingdom,

3:17

and it had more success than most,

3:19

to put it lightly. Occupying

3:22

the English heartlands, the mighty

3:24

Midlands, Mercia's reach

3:26

was vast, and

3:29

its most powerful, its territory included

3:31

London and almost all the lands

3:33

south of the River Humber. Mercia

3:36

dominated Anglo-Saxon politics

3:39

for three centuries. It

3:43

was the last Anglo-Saxon kingdom

3:45

to adopt Christianity. It remained

3:47

for a long time a

3:49

realm of sub-kingdoms, a federation

3:52

of tribes, acting together

3:54

under one ruler. Some

3:56

of the best known figures in medieval

3:59

history ruled Jorunn. in this period,

4:01

the most legendary being Pender

4:03

and Ofr, and Lady Godiva

4:05

should surely get an honourable mention here too.

4:08

As we've already heard, Pender was

4:11

the last pagan ruler of Mercia,

4:13

whilst Ofr was the most powerful ruler

4:16

in the kingdom's history and one of

4:18

the greatest of all the Anglo-Saxon monarchs.

4:21

That's right, he's the Ofr as in

4:24

Ofr's Dyke. Mercia

4:26

and Northumbria were staunch

4:28

enemies and during Mercian supremacy,

4:30

fierce battles were fought between

4:32

the two kingdoms, with

4:35

Mercia coming out on top by the

4:37

8th century. But much like

4:39

the Northumbrians, it too fell

4:41

foul of infighting and instability

4:44

just a century later. This

4:46

ultimately led to its steep decline

4:48

which saw in turn the rise

4:51

of Wessex. But let's not

4:53

get ahead of ourselves, more on that kingdom

4:55

in the next episode. Tragically

4:57

and mystifyingly, a lot of

5:00

Mercia's history has been lost.

5:03

Perhaps it was burnt in Viking raids

5:05

on monasteries, churches and libraries, or

5:08

it was strategically misplaced. And here,

5:10

I'm looking at you Alfred. So

5:13

if we're going to try and unearth

5:15

the story of Mercia, who better to

5:17

invite back to the podcast than Annie

5:19

Whitehead, whose book, Mercia, The

5:21

Rise and Fall of a Kingdom,

5:23

is the perfect companion to this

5:25

discussion. Welcome back to Gone Medieval Annie.

5:28

Sure, thank you for having me. It's wonderful to have you

5:30

back. To start off with,

5:32

can you just talk a little

5:35

bit about what area of England

5:37

Mercia covers, so whereabouts are we?

5:39

Right, so it's essentially what we would think

5:41

of now as the Midlands, but it's

5:43

a bit more than that because

5:45

it's not just what you think

5:48

of as the southwest Midlands, it

5:50

incorporated the East Midlands and

5:52

at its height, at its most

5:54

powerful, it sort of ranged from everywhere

5:57

south of the Humber really, right

5:59

down and sometimes including

6:01

London, Kent, Sussex.

6:04

So it's difficult to explain because the

6:07

borders were so fluid throughout the whole

6:09

of the Anglo-Saxon period, but essentially if you

6:11

think the Midlands and then some,

6:14

you kind of got it. And

6:16

how did or why did Mercia

6:18

emerge from the local petty

6:20

kingdom? So I think like a lot

6:22

of other Anglo-Saxon realms, it begins off

6:24

as a fractured group of tribal groups

6:27

that eventually morph into

6:30

this one single kingdom that covers such

6:32

a huge area. We don't really know

6:34

the process and it's just all the

6:36

major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. We don't quite know

6:38

how they managed to

6:41

establish themselves. So obviously absorbing

6:43

the British kingdoms that were there

6:45

beforehand, whether it was through

6:47

violence or whether it was a question

6:49

of, you know, protection sometimes from the other

6:52

English, other came to be kingdoms. So we

6:54

do know of 1 and 6 to

6:56

8, there's reference to

6:58

Pender fighting the West Saxons

7:01

and afterwards came to terms. This

7:04

is how it's put and the idea

7:06

is that the area there at Sireyns, as

7:08

to where they were fighting, part of the

7:11

Old Kingdom was very hoodshayed and at that

7:13

point that area came

7:15

under Mercian control. At the

7:17

time being they kept their kings

7:19

later on, they lost them. Some

7:22

old historians thought that Pender actually

7:24

created this kingdom. Now they're thinking

7:26

it probably existed beforehand. So

7:29

whether he was protecting it from

7:31

the West Saxons or taking it

7:33

from West Saxon control, we're not

7:36

entirely sure, but we can kind

7:38

of assume that this is what

7:40

was going on with the other

7:42

tribal areas, that they were gradually,

7:45

peacefully or otherwise being absorbed and

7:47

perhaps what they needed or required

7:49

was better served by coming under

7:52

one umbrella than another. So

7:54

there may have been an element of

7:56

protection going on, but the process is

7:59

not really understood. or known unfortunately.

8:01

Yeah, I think we tend to

8:03

think that it's always violent conquest but it

8:05

could just be more of an alignment of

8:07

ideas or that they're stronger together than they

8:09

were apart or that they feel they need

8:11

the protection of a particularly

8:13

effective warlord during that period. It's

8:15

not necessary that everybody's going in

8:17

burning everything and claiming control. Yeah

8:20

and we do have instances of

8:22

particularly the mercians that it makes sense

8:25

because they're so close to the Welsh

8:27

actually allying themselves with the Welsh against

8:29

other English kingdoms so very much

8:31

a question of shared

8:33

interests and possibly a little bit

8:35

of the enemy of my enemy is my

8:37

friend kind of thing. The mercians

8:39

in particular, where they are, ideally plans

8:43

to take advantage of those sort of

8:46

cross-border alliances. It's a difficult one

8:48

because we have so little in the

8:50

way of written sources particularly for

8:52

Merci where we essentially have none so

8:54

yeah we're not really sure

8:56

unfortunately. How then does

8:59

Merci as it grows begin to

9:01

gain an upper hand amongst the

9:03

heptarchy so we kind of see

9:05

this swinging around of

9:07

power. We've had North umberland rise

9:09

to the fore. How and when

9:11

do we see Merci begin to

9:13

pick up the mantle of being

9:15

the most important member of the Anglo-Saxon

9:17

group of kingdoms? So it's

9:19

really the eighth century where it

9:22

comes into its own and is

9:24

at its largest but I think

9:26

Pender, I mean he's the famous

9:28

pagan seventh century warlord, kind of

9:31

started that process. The Mercians really

9:33

stay a federation

9:36

and Professor Simon Keynes has pointed this

9:38

out that even in the later period

9:40

their eldermen were still really being drawn

9:43

from the leaders of tribes rather

9:45

than being appointed centuries. So I think

9:47

it always maintained that sort of bit

9:49

of difference although we have this document

9:51

called the tribal high-ditch. Nobody

9:54

knows who drew it up,

9:56

what it was for and when

9:58

it was drawn up but if

10:00

it was a Mercian document, it

10:02

lays out all three different tribes and

10:04

you can see how Mercia was really

10:07

made up of different areas. So we've

10:09

got the Huixé as I've mentioned which

10:11

was obviously at one point a kingdom

10:13

on its own, the Mārungsāti, the people

10:16

called the Rikin dwellers. So

10:18

it's always been a little bit of a

10:20

federation but Pender seems to have been the

10:22

one who turned

10:25

it into one unit and

10:27

I'm probably going to

10:29

be quite controversial here. I don't see

10:32

him as an aggressor. I

10:35

see him as defending Mercian

10:37

territory from the Northumbrians who

10:39

in the seventh century were

10:42

all powerful, they had the supremacy.

10:45

Yes he killed two of their kings, yes

10:47

he definitely meant to but

10:49

it was I think more a

10:51

question as to try and stop

10:53

Northumbrian expansion. He wasn't going

10:55

looking for a fight necessarily so I think

10:58

he was the first one and obviously

11:00

we hear about him because we've got

11:02

Vid who's chronicling the history

11:05

of Northumbria and obviously he's going to

11:07

pay attention when somebody comes and kills

11:09

two of the kings, two

11:11

of whom you really admired. So

11:13

yes Pender I think started the

11:15

process definitely and made

11:18

sure that perhaps his borders would be

11:20

fine and for whatever

11:22

reason as though we don't know how

11:24

he absorbed these other tribal kingdoms under

11:27

the Mercian umbrella but he seemed to

11:29

stop there. He kept Northumbria at bay

11:32

rather than trying to take it over

11:34

which was probably sensible because Northumbria

11:36

was vast and huge and powerful.

11:39

I'm pretty sure us folk in the Midlands are

11:41

still a pretty conciliar non-aggressive

11:44

defensive bunch. It sounds exactly like

11:46

Friday Night in Wolverhampton but do

11:48

you think Mercia's location kind of being

11:50

central played a part in that rise

11:53

or was it luck or was it

11:55

the actions of particular rulers? I

11:57

think it's probably a combination of all those things. It's

12:00

interesting that, I mentioned Bede. No,

12:03

Dunbury had its supremacy in the seventh century,

12:06

and then obviously Wessex in the later portion

12:08

of the period. And at

12:10

those times, they had

12:12

their writers who were championing

12:14

them. So Bede, obviously very

12:16

pro-Nortumbrian, very pro-Christian. And then

12:18

later on, he's got Alfred

12:20

the Great's biographer, Arthur, and

12:22

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. So

12:25

obviously they're going to play up the

12:27

part that their own kingdoms

12:29

played in historical events.

12:32

We have absolutely nothing

12:34

for Mercia. So

12:36

everything we've got is from

12:38

someone else's perspective. But

12:41

in spite of that bias, it

12:43

still managed to be successful. There

12:46

is an element of luck, luck by which I

12:48

mean force of

12:50

personality, force of military leader,

12:53

the luck that the ebb and flow

12:55

towards the end of the seventh century,

12:58

the Northumbrian dynasty that had

13:00

ruled successfully for most of the

13:02

seventh century died out. And

13:05

then they were suggesting an awful

13:07

lot of infighting and loads of

13:09

different claimants coming forward and either

13:12

being successful or being murdered or a

13:14

little bit of both. That

13:17

wasn't happening in Mercia during

13:19

the eighth century. So after Pender's

13:21

dynasty died out, Mercia

13:24

didn't fail. Because of

13:26

the strength of the almost

13:28

unrelated kings who came next, they were

13:30

strong. Mercia ruled for the whole of the

13:32

eighth century by just two kings for

13:35

a whole century. So there was stability.

13:38

Just pure luck of the draw, I

13:40

think, in that respect. A dynasty fails

13:42

in Northumbria, and it all topples. A

13:44

dynasty fails in Mercia, and it becomes

13:46

even stronger than it was before. So

13:49

yeah, very much the luck of the draw, I

13:51

think. And location, I don't

13:53

know whether that plays a huge part, except

13:56

to say that it's a lot easier to

13:58

get at other kingdoms from Mercia. I

14:00

mean, I would say the same in this day,

14:02

as you know, if you're in

14:04

the Midlands, if you're in Birmingham, it's easy

14:06

to get pretty much anywhere else in the country.

14:08

So that might have played a part as

14:11

well. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess if you're

14:13

a strong Mercier, that's fine. But if you're not a

14:15

strong Mercier, that brings its own problems in that it's

14:17

easy for everyone else to get at you as well.

14:19

You're sort of in between everybody else. You've got lots

14:21

of borders with lots of other people. Yes,

14:24

absolutely. Sure. And we've

14:26

mentioned Pender a couple of times, and he's obviously one

14:29

of the most famous rulers of

14:31

Mercier. He was a

14:33

pagan sort of quite famously. And I

14:35

guess that's why we get this bad

14:38

impression of him from Bede, because Bede

14:40

is championing Christian North umberland against pagan

14:42

Mercier. How unusual was it

14:44

for Pender to still follow the pagan

14:46

religion at this point in English history?

14:49

I think it's not that unusual,

14:51

because this is the period

14:53

where the kings are

14:56

gradually converting. And it's a

14:58

process that only really started in

15:00

the seventh century. So Pender's first

15:02

nemesis in the way Edwin is

15:05

Northumbria took quite a

15:07

while to convert to Christianity. And I think

15:09

there was a little bit of personal agro

15:11

between the two, because prior to

15:14

marrying a Christian princess of

15:16

Kent and converting, Edwin

15:18

had been married to a kinswoman

15:20

of Pender's, possibly his

15:22

cousin, and put her

15:25

aside. Pender had form in that regard,

15:27

because one of the West Saxon kings

15:29

repudiated Pender's sister, were told, and Pender

15:31

chased him literally across the country, and

15:34

this guy ended up in anxiety, and

15:36

he's been with for three years. So

15:39

there's obviously a little bit of personal aggression

15:41

between Pender and Edwin. So I

15:43

Edwin took his while to think about

15:45

converting. I think a lot of times

15:48

it was maybe political considerations, and perhaps

15:50

Pender didn't need that. We

15:52

do know that the king of the South

15:54

Saxons was still pagan in the

15:56

lifetime of Pender's son, because

15:59

Pender of Sun-Wolf Harris that sponsored

16:01

his baptism. And Bede

16:04

mentions a couple of other kings up

16:06

and down the country who converted to

16:08

Christianity and then apostatised. So

16:11

I think things were a little bit fluid

16:13

throughout the early to middle portion of the

16:15

seventh century. So Pender was

16:17

perhaps not that unusual, but he seems

16:19

to be one of the

16:21

last ones who hung on and

16:24

decided not to convert. But very

16:26

significantly Bede, who's got no reason

16:28

to say anything good about Pender

16:31

at all, does and does

16:33

say that he was religiously tolerant and

16:35

he did allow preachers to come into

16:37

Mercier, missionaries to convert whoever.

16:40

So he was obviously saying,

16:42

it's not for me, but I'm not going to

16:45

stop anybody else. Because he's quite

16:47

famous and because Bede was

16:49

quite interested in him, we hear about his

16:51

paganism, but I don't think he was the

16:53

last man standing in that regard. And

16:56

when does Mercier officially convert to Christianity

16:58

and how significant a change was that

17:00

for Mercier? We have to assume it

17:02

was with his son, Wolf Harris.

17:05

So Pender ultimately wasn't successful. He

17:07

was killed in battle by

17:09

Northumbrian King. And for

17:12

three years, Mercier was controlled

17:14

by Northumbria. And then

17:16

Pender's son Wolf Harris came out

17:18

of hiding, we don't know where, and

17:21

managed to overthrow the Northumbrians. We

17:24

know he was Christian and all

17:26

of Pender's children were

17:28

Christian. And it's notable

17:31

that the majority of

17:33

his children and grandchildren

17:35

were actually remembered as saints.

17:38

So I'm a fact that's slightly different. You

17:40

don't have to do a lot in Anglo-Saxon

17:42

England to be remembered as a saint. It's

17:44

not like nowadays. Most

17:46

of his granddaughters became abbesses,

17:49

founding monasteries and abbeys. All

17:52

of his sons were Christian and one

17:54

of them actually retired to become a

17:56

monk and again was remembered as a

17:58

saint. So essentially

18:01

I think that the official paganism

18:03

died out with Penda and

18:06

then religiously in that regard, mercy was

18:09

no different from any of the other

18:11

dangerous kingdoms from that point onwards. And

18:14

I guess that would allow someone like Bede

18:16

to become favourable of mercy then because suddenly

18:18

it's a Christian kingdom that is doing the

18:20

right religion in Bede's views. Yes, and

18:23

also again going back to the

18:25

troubles that they set in Northumbria,

18:27

Christianity wasn't working out too well

18:29

because the Christian kings were behaving

18:31

in a very un-Christian like manner

18:33

in Northumbria in the 8th century

18:35

and Bede and other Northumbrian scholars

18:37

were absolutely horrified about that. So

18:39

perhaps by contrast, Mercia was behaving

18:42

itself once Penda had gone. One

18:44

of the other prominent names amongst

18:46

the rulers of Mercia is Ofer.

18:48

So when does Ofer rule and

18:51

what does he contribute to Mercia's

18:53

development? Ofer came

18:55

to prominence midway through the

18:57

8th century, so 757, and

18:59

his predecessor, Aferbold. He

19:02

was killed by his own bodyguard, so

19:04

we're told. And

19:06

we don't know whether Ofer had anything to do with

19:08

that. Killed

19:11

by your own bodyguard, you might imagine

19:13

that this is essentially a palace coup.

19:17

It doesn't like Ofer was amongst those

19:19

men because he's made no appearance at

19:21

court beforehand. Not present for any witnessing

19:23

of any charters. It's

19:26

quite possible that he was in exile,

19:29

which happened a lot in all

19:31

the kingdoms. You find these strong

19:33

powerful kings emerging from exile because

19:35

they've been a threat to the

19:38

incumbents. So we're not quite

19:40

sure where Ofer came from or what

19:42

he'd been doing beforehand. He

19:44

inherited a very strong

19:46

kingdom by this point and was able

19:49

to sort of reinforce what had gone

19:51

on before. He was

19:53

very keen to try and establish his

19:55

own dynasty because he

19:58

wasn't especially related to... any

20:00

of the previous kings. It looks like

20:02

he was descended from a brother of Penders.

20:06

And he was very keen to ensure that

20:08

his line continued to the

20:11

point where he had his son anointed in

20:13

his own lifetime. Didn't do him any good.

20:15

That son only reigned for five months. I

20:18

have in my new book, which

20:20

is coming out next year, made reference to the

20:22

fact that I'm pretty sure that this was not

20:24

a natural death. And it's

20:27

very significant that when this son of

20:29

Othler died after reigning for only five

20:31

months, an Othlumbrian scholar

20:34

said that he died for the sins

20:36

of his father. And

20:38

there's lots of mention about a lot

20:40

of bloodshed going on in Othler's reign.

20:42

So we can sort

20:44

of hazard a guess as to how

20:46

non-peaceful it was. But

20:48

again, we don't know. And I said in my

20:51

book, My History of Mercier, that Othler

20:53

is a man that's very difficult to

20:56

get to know because we just

20:58

don't have any sources relating to

21:01

Mercier at this time that come

21:03

from Mercier. But we know he

21:05

wasn't just a bloodthirsty

21:08

warlord because he had trading

21:10

deals with the Emperor Charlemagne.

21:12

He tried to

21:15

get the influence of the Church of

21:17

Canterbury away from Mercier. He actually set

21:19

up his own Archbishop in Lichfield, which

21:22

didn't last long. And that

21:24

may be because he needed a different Archbishop

21:26

to anoint his son because the Archbishop of

21:28

Canterbury wouldn't do it. His

21:30

wife was a very, very strong

21:32

character. And she actually had

21:35

coins minted in their own name. She's

21:37

the only Queen that we know of

21:39

that had this. And I was

21:41

listening to a lecture by historian Vanessa

21:44

King recently, and she suggested that

21:46

these coins were perhaps indicative of

21:49

this woman's agency that she might actually

21:51

have been ruling Kent for offer because

21:53

he had control of both ways of

21:55

the South of England. So he

21:58

had trading agreements. He reformed

22:00

the coinage. He was trying

22:02

to get his son anointed and establish a

22:04

dynasty. So it's not all Bruce or Woffert.

22:07

There was a lot of that as well.

22:10

I say ultimately it didn't do him any good,

22:12

but it did establish him as probably

22:14

one of the best known Anglo-Saxon characters

22:16

I would think. And yet ironically, we

22:18

know that he actually promulgated his own

22:21

laws. And as far as we know,

22:23

he was the only Mercian to

22:25

do so, but they didn't

22:27

survive. We only know about them because Alfred

22:29

the Great said he incorporated them into his

22:31

own laws. And again, I

22:34

detect a little bit of West

22:36

Saxon bias because Alfred used other

22:38

rulers' laws, and they

22:40

were preserved, and offers weren't

22:42

kept. Who knows what

22:44

was lost to the Vikings as well?

22:47

A lot of documents were burned, and

22:49

Mercia obviously suffered very badly during

22:51

the Viking incursions. So that

22:53

might be a reason that we've lost a lot

22:55

of documents as well. But also

22:57

certainly considered himself to be a

23:00

major player on the international stage

23:02

and consider himself to be on

23:04

an equal footing with Charlemagne. And I'm not

23:06

entirely sure that Charlemagne felt the same way

23:08

about him. I

23:10

was going to say, actually, it's really interesting

23:12

we talk about those trade agreements, particularly on

23:14

the international stage, and dealing with Charlemagne. It's

23:17

one of the elements of Anglo-Saxon England that

23:19

I think we often overlook. We tend to

23:21

think of all of these kingdoms fighting with

23:23

each other for supremacy within England, and we

23:25

don't allow for the international aspect to them.

23:27

They were just kingdoms in their own right

23:29

in the same way that England would become,

23:31

and they had relations with

23:33

overseas powers. Northumbria had really strong

23:36

trading links with the continent throughout

23:38

its supremacy, and there's no reason that Mercia

23:40

shouldn't have done the same. I think it's an

23:42

aspect of Anglo-Saxon England that we often forget about.

23:45

Yes, absolutely. And particularly, I

23:47

mean, just straying a little bit,

23:49

Kent had such strong links with

23:51

Francia particularly. I think, possibly

23:53

for Mercia, it was harder just because

23:56

of the geography. Obviously, Mercia doesn't have

23:58

a coastline to this day. you know,

24:00

the Midlands doesn't have a coastline. So that

24:02

makes it slightly more difficult. But at

24:05

this time, London was part of Mercia. You've

24:07

got the Thames. Again,

24:09

we have Charlemagne's letters to offer.

24:11

We don't have offers letters to

24:13

Charlemagne. They obviously existed at some

24:15

point, but there is talk of

24:18

trade and even the items

24:20

that were traded. And at one point they

24:22

did have a big spat and there was

24:24

a sort of trade embargo because Offred upset

24:26

Charlemagne. This is

24:28

real diplomatic political stuff going

24:30

on. And it just shows,

24:33

you know, Offred predecessor, Applebold, was actually

24:35

able to free the Bishop of London

24:37

from the polls on ships.

24:40

So you can see that there's

24:42

trading going on and there's trading

24:44

agreements and there's polls and taxes

24:46

being taken or exempted. There's

24:49

commerce going on as well as fighting.

24:57

I'm Helena Bonham Carter. And

24:59

for BBC Radio 4, this is History's Secret Heroes,

25:05

a new series of rarely heard tales from World War II. They

25:07

had no idea that she was Britain's top female

25:09

code breaker. We'll hear of

25:11

daring risk takers. What she was offering

25:14

to do was to ski in over

25:16

the holiday weekend and

25:18

then go to the hospital. And

25:20

then they would go to the hospital. And then they

25:22

would go to the hospital. And what they were offering

25:24

to do was to ski in over

25:27

the high Carpathian Mountains. Of course

25:29

it was dangerous, but danger was

25:31

his friend. Subscribe to

25:33

History's Secret Heroes wherever you get

25:35

your podcasts. We

25:50

probably can't talk about Offred or

25:52

without mentioning Offred's Dyke. It's

25:54

obviously something, you know, it's not a million miles away

25:56

from me. Quite often it just

25:58

looks like a bit of a pile. of Earth. I've

26:01

grown up without a clue what Ophrasdite

26:03

was and what it was for. Am I alone

26:05

in not knowing what Ophrasdite is? You're certainly

26:07

not alone because I don't know either.

26:10

So I mentioned Astor, the biographer of

26:12

Alfred the Great, and he had

26:14

a lot to say about Americans

26:16

actually, had a lot to say

26:18

about Ophras's daughter who married a

26:20

West Paxton king and accidentally poisoned

26:22

him and this is the

26:25

reason why West Paxton queens were no

26:27

longer called queen. I think

26:29

the guy she was married to was

26:31

actually a Mercian, a puppet of Ophras.

26:34

But Astor also talked about Ophras and

26:36

how he built or ordered this

26:38

dike to be built. And

26:41

because we know that Mercia was

26:43

rich and they weren't

26:45

just fighting all the time, it's

26:48

perfectly feasible and believable that Ophras

26:50

had the resources, the equipment, the

26:52

labour. Astor said that this dike

26:54

went from coast to coast. But

26:56

I know that archaeologists disagree

26:59

with that assessment and

27:01

if it didn't go coast to coast,

27:03

then it wasn't much good if it

27:05

was a defensive thing, if it was

27:07

a border demarcation. We know

27:10

that Ophras fought the Welsh,

27:13

but we also know that

27:15

the relations between Wales and

27:18

Mercia were again very fluid,

27:20

fluctuated, dependent entirely on the

27:22

leaders. So sometimes they got

27:25

on really well and sometimes

27:27

they didn't. So the

27:29

idea that you sort of build a

27:31

defensive dike and again why defensive? I

27:33

don't think Ophras had anything to fear.

27:35

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

27:38

It may have been a demarcation but

27:40

there were gaps in it for trading.

27:42

Honestly we don't know and the

27:45

archaeologists don't know more importantly.

27:47

So whether the question will

27:49

ever even be answered, I don't know. But

27:51

it's the thing that is probably what Ophras

27:54

is most famous for and yet again with

27:56

so much of Mercia and with so much

27:58

of even that really pitiful. rains,

28:01

so many questions that we just can't

28:03

answer. Yeah it's frustrating that we have this thing

28:05

called office icon, we don't know what it is, what it's

28:07

for, what it's meant to do, why it's there, it's

28:10

frustrating. When mercy was at its height

28:12

what would you say it was known

28:15

for? I guess it's difficult because as

28:17

we've said we don't know too much

28:19

about Mercia but was it known for

28:21

war, for art, for culture, for literature,

28:23

for religion? Probably not so much for

28:26

religion any more than any of

28:28

the other kingdoms and again

28:30

and I'm sorry to keep going back

28:32

to it, this is partly because of

28:34

the sources that we have and their

28:36

origins but there are some

28:38

little bits and pieces that give us

28:40

clues as to what was really going

28:42

on because there are

28:44

poems that have survived

28:47

that were written by a man

28:49

named Künerwolf and his name

28:51

suggests that he was a nobleman.

28:53

He wrote quite long poems and

28:56

he wrote in an Anglian

28:58

dialect that is probably

29:01

associated with Mercia, possibly

29:03

North umbria but most people think he

29:06

was a Mercian and these are quite

29:08

long poems mostly of a

29:10

religious nature. We also

29:12

know that Alfred the Great

29:14

was famous for two things,

29:17

essentially beating back the Vikings,

29:19

apparently single-handed with no Mercian

29:21

help whatsoever and being

29:23

very conscious of a lack of

29:26

education amongst his people and of

29:28

wanting to do something about that.

29:32

What I enjoy immensely is the fact that

29:34

he had to get Mercians in to help

29:36

him with that and a later chronicler who

29:38

a lot of time we have to take

29:41

what this later chronicler William M. Mardsbury says

29:43

with a pinch of salt but he said,

29:45

I'll just quote, since there was no good

29:47

scholar in his kingdom Alfred sent for Wurffest

29:50

who was the Bishop of Worcester and

29:53

he wasn't the only one because

29:55

Plegman who was the Archbishop of

29:57

Canterbury and he wasn't the first

29:59

Mercian Archbishop. of Canterbury was

30:01

also invited to Alfred's court, but

30:04

precious to the translation of Pope Gregory's

30:06

pastoral care acknowledges the help of four

30:09

men, including this segment,

30:11

Archbishop of Canterbury. So the

30:13

standards of literacy that were

30:15

improving in Wessex, that

30:18

was boosted by people from Mercia,

30:20

and so Professor Simon Keynes actually

30:22

calls it an intellectual achievement in

30:25

Mercia, even though anything

30:27

that was written is now lost.

30:29

But we know it was going

30:31

on because of what we hear from

30:34

the West Baxon sources. So that's

30:36

interesting. So again, levels of literacy in

30:38

Mercia must have been high at

30:40

that time. If you're calling

30:42

on people from the Mercian court, it

30:45

stands to reason that that's because, as

30:47

William and Margebury said, there weren't those

30:49

people available in Wessex, and

30:51

so they had to ask for Mercian help. When

30:54

and why did Mercia then begin

30:57

to decline? Bit of a perfect

30:59

storm. So Athabold and Ofer reigned

31:01

for almost entire eighth century. So

31:04

Athabold exceeded in 716. Ofer died

31:06

in 796. So for

31:08

virtue of the whole of

31:12

that century, you've only got two

31:15

kings. Between the death of Ofer

31:17

and the last Mercian king in 878,

31:19

I've just got some statistics here for

31:21

you. There were more than a dozen

31:23

reigns, and one of those

31:25

reigns lasted for 25 years. So you

31:28

can see there were an awful lot

31:30

of kings. And as I said

31:32

in my book, some of those kings

31:34

had their reigns interrupted. Few of them

31:36

succeeded or preceded members of their own

31:38

branch of the family. The king who rolled

31:40

25 years was succeeded by

31:43

his brother, who only lasted for two

31:45

years. He was then replaced

31:47

by another king who was killed in

31:49

battle a few years later, succeeded by

31:51

another who was killed in battle. He

31:53

was succeeded by a king who reigned twice,

31:56

had his reign interrupted by the king

31:58

of Wessex. He was and you'll

32:00

talk about this in another episode, he was

32:03

the founder of Althist Dynasty. Essentially

32:05

three branches of the Mursian royal

32:07

family at this point and they're

32:10

all fighting and their names either

32:12

began with B or C or

32:14

W and they're all so familiar, I'm

32:16

not going to mention any of them

32:18

by name, but these branches were all

32:21

fighting for control.

32:24

So it's a real echo of what

32:26

happened in Northumbria the previous century where

32:28

you've got loads of contenders for this

32:30

role and claiming maybe even

32:32

just an ounce of royal blood and

32:35

lots of murders ensuing, famously in

32:38

Mercy's case a couple of child

32:40

or young adult murders, one

32:43

particular child, Saint Wistan, who

32:45

was actually, because of these

32:47

complicated family relationships, had two

32:49

royal grandfathers, both of his

32:51

grandfathers had been king, he

32:53

apparently objected to somebody from another branch

32:55

of the royal family wanting to marry

32:58

his widow's mother and he ended

33:00

up murdered because of it. So

33:02

shades of Northumbria just happening a

33:05

century later and I think the

33:07

problem is it's just circumstances, you

33:10

know, you can run out of

33:12

members of particularly strong dynasty and

33:14

somebody else equally strong will

33:16

come in or not and

33:19

as we move into the ninth century it was very

33:21

much a question of or not and

33:24

Mercy unraveled because of these

33:26

dynastic struggles and tussles. We

33:28

also have two other elements to this rapid

33:31

decline, one was the

33:34

founder of the Alfreelian dynasty King

33:36

Edgbert, now he'd been driven

33:38

into exile by Ofer and actually harbored

33:40

at the call to Charlemagne, which is

33:42

one of the reasons that Ofer and

33:44

Charlemagne didn't always see eye to eye.

33:47

Edgbert was King Alfred's grandfather and

33:49

nobody knew at the time but

33:51

he was about to establish this really

33:53

strong dynasty which then gave rise to

33:56

West Jackson supremacy. The

33:58

third crucial factor is that

34:00

the Vikings came and they hit

34:02

Murcia hard, so a

34:05

perfect storm. And you can

34:07

just see how things roll on in

34:09

history. It's your right place, right time,

34:12

wrong place, wrong time, and

34:14

on all these events just conspired to

34:16

weaken Murcia. Yeah, and I

34:18

think we often give all of the

34:20

credit for resisting the Vikings to Wessex

34:23

without allowing that there was plenty of

34:25

Murciem resistance going on in there as

34:27

well, wasn't there? Oh, absolutely,

34:29

yes. It's interesting because we've

34:31

got, as I mentioned earlier, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

34:33

is very much at

34:36

this stage a history of Wessex and the

34:38

Wessexons, and it's talking about

34:40

every time the Murciems were calling on

34:42

help from the Wessexons. This

34:45

is not the true picture. The

34:47

Murciens were fighting back. At times

34:49

they were lending aid to the

34:52

Wessexons. I think it's not

34:55

so much that history belongs to the victor. I

34:57

think it's more a question of history belongs

34:59

to whoever writes it. Alfred the

35:02

Great, and then after that his

35:04

son Edward the Elder, they

35:06

were dictating what was being recorded.

35:08

And so we end up with

35:10

this version of events that

35:13

very much favours the Wessexons and makes them

35:15

look like they were in total control. But

35:17

I think the truth is that they couldn't

35:19

have done it without the Murciens any more

35:21

than the Murciens could have divided on their

35:24

own. And there was a joint

35:26

partnership and we know this because

35:28

when we don't have, as it

35:30

were, paper evidence, we have other

35:32

stuff, we have archaeological evidence, and

35:34

we have coinage evidence. And

35:37

we know that one of the last

35:39

kings of Mercia, Charles II, who was

35:41

dismissed in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a

35:44

foolish king's Spain, and apparently he gave

35:46

away vast swathes of Mercia to the

35:48

Vikings, and he was a turncoat

35:51

and a disgusting individual. But

35:54

actually he seems to have been working. He

35:56

was a legitimate king by the way, he

35:58

wasn't a foolish king in Spain. legitimate

36:01

king working side by side. it

38:00

still maintained its status as

38:02

one of the four big earldoms as they

38:04

were eventually known. And we've

38:07

got a lot of fancy characters, a

38:09

lot of them female, and offer

38:11

probably one of the most well-known agua

38:14

facts and names, even for people who perhaps

38:16

don't know so much about this period of

38:18

history, but also made a

38:20

Godiva famously, and so

38:23

much more than just a naked horse ride,

38:25

which I don't believe that thing happened.

38:27

And she was a member of a

38:29

hugely powerful and hugely influential family, one

38:32

member of which was Elphaba

38:34

of Northampton, who was King

38:37

Canute's first wife and

38:39

ruled Norway on his behalf. A woman

38:41

you wouldn't like to cross, I would

38:43

say, Lady Godiva, hugely

38:46

influential, basically founded Coventry, she was

38:48

the one who wanted to build

38:50

the Abbey there. In

38:52

that same branch of that family we've

38:54

also got Lady Walthern, after whom the

38:56

city of Wolverhampton is named. And

38:59

in that same family again

39:02

we have Yalgis, or

39:04

Edith as her name would probably be pronounced

39:06

now, who was a

39:08

queen twice over. Uniquely she

39:10

was a queen of Wales.

39:13

Now normally leaders of Wales weren't known

39:15

as kings, more often princes, but her

39:18

husband was known as King of Wales,

39:20

King Griffith. And

39:22

after he died she came back

39:24

to Mercia for a wee while

39:26

and was then married to a

39:28

certain chap called Harold Godwinson, and

39:31

so she became Queen of England.

39:33

But for a quirk of fate all

39:35

our royalty would have been descended from

39:37

the Mercians, so hugely influential

39:40

people, even after it stopped being a

39:42

kingdom. But I think even in modern

39:44

times, I mean we know that Birmingham

39:46

is the second city. We've got the

39:49

industrial heartland of England. country

40:00

now, the Canal Network. And

40:02

if we remember that at

40:05

its apogee, London was

40:07

part of Mercia as well. You've

40:09

got all of this trading, the

40:12

industrial heritage is all

40:14

part of the Midlands as we

40:16

know it today. So it kind

40:18

of lived on. Even the name

40:20

hasn't completely disappeared because it's still

40:22

there in the police force. I

40:25

think a couple of other institutions as well.

40:28

So I think its legacy is

40:30

ongoing because right from early on

40:32

and right through the Industrial Revolution

40:35

and further on than that, it's

40:37

been the powerhouse, the industrial part

40:40

of the country. And also they

40:42

don't exist now, but for a long time,

40:44

the salt works, most of

40:46

those were in Mercia and places

40:48

like Nantwich. A lot of the

40:51

places that ended in which is

40:53

generally market, but in Mercian cases,

40:55

these were salt works and hugely

40:57

important and charters relating to

40:59

the establishment of salt works stay

41:01

from upper bulbs rain. So

41:04

we know how important they were. So

41:06

it's always been this sort of hub

41:08

of industry and very important

41:10

and important politically as well. Yeah,

41:13

it's fascinating. I've grown up with the name

41:15

Mercia around me. As you say, it's on

41:17

police cars in the Midlands with the West

41:19

Mercia police force and things like that. So

41:21

it is a name that still exists today.

41:24

And it's fascinating to link it back to

41:26

1500 years or more

41:28

of history. And I grew up in

41:31

Wolverhampton, so I grew up looking at

41:33

that statue of Lady Wolfruna outside St.

41:35

Peter's Church. The woman after whom

41:37

the city I grew up in is named. It's

41:39

incredible to have all of that wealth of

41:41

history in an area that I think often

41:44

isn't connected with those things. It's very much

41:46

remembered for the Industrial Revolution these days, I

41:48

think. But its medieval history is probably even

41:50

more fascinating. Yeah, I think so.

41:53

And as I say, I think a lot

41:55

of the names that you instantly associate with

41:57

Anglo-Saxon history, even if you don't know much

41:59

about it, obviously. gay people, one out

42:01

after the great. I'll just say Pender,

42:03

Offa, that's a flood, Lady Godina and

42:05

one guy who was apparently

42:07

at one point voted the most evil

42:10

man in English history, A. Adjutse Kriona,

42:12

was a Mercian and the

42:14

names of prominent people that he murdered

42:16

or canines to murder is just incredible

42:18

but again a really really important name

42:20

and lots of people have heard of

42:22

him. So characters, I think that's what

42:25

first drew me to Mercia even when

42:27

I was studying the period back at

42:29

uni. Always the Mercian seem

42:31

to be the most colourful, charismatic

42:34

characters. There's something very

42:36

attractive about its history, it's just a shame

42:38

that we don't have more of their side

42:41

of the story. We're even the best at being the

42:43

worst, what can I say, you know, we're just so

42:45

good at everything. Well thank you so much

42:47

for joining us Annie, it's been absolutely fascinating

42:49

to talk a bit more about Mercia. I

42:51

apologise for championing the kingdom of Mercia as

42:53

well. Oh never apologise for that. You

42:55

can grab a copy of Annie's book

42:57

Mercia Rise and Fall of a Kingdom

43:00

wherever you get your books from to

43:02

learn more about, let's face it, the

43:04

best Anglo-Saxon kingdom. There

43:07

are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and

43:09

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