Chapter 20, The Early 8th Century (700-715)
At the dawn of the 8th Century the Kingdom of Mercia was surrounded by opportunity. To the West the traditional Brythonic enemies of Powys had been broken in the last war and their lands were ripe pickings, the current ceasefire would end by February allowing a resumption of hostilities. To the North and East the other Nedalskip Kingdom, East-Anglia, was expanding into the north of Britannia at the expense of the Anglo-Saxons of south Cumbria. East-Anglia was internally vulnerable however as the Jarls of the Saxon Shore sought more independence from the capital at Lincoln. King Offa of Mercia thus had many possibilities.
Though King Offa wished to once again become the dominant Anglo-Saxon power (and that would mean an inevitable war with either East-Anglia or Wessex) he opted to first strengthen the power of Mercia and establish a new border with the Welsh Kingdoms. In February 700 he declared a new war to retake the province of Pengwern and this time hopefully hold it for good.
King Ceredig of Powys had been expecting such a move however and quickly mustered his armies, invading the Jarldom of Pegansaete in early March. Offa mustered his troops and marched north to engage the enemy near Wroxeter at the Battle of Oak’s Cross. With both sides fielding about 5,000 men the battle looked fairly evenly matched. King Offa was a superior commander and fighter than Ceredig however and this was shown rather dramatically in the battle. The defining moment was when Offa and Ceredig fought in personal combat, though the Welsh King was an inferior warrior he was spurred on by his hatred of Offa and Mercia (Offa had after all ordered his sons’ eyes plucked out) the duel ended as Ceredig was knocked to the floor and finished by King Offa. The King’s death demoralised the Powysian army, which routed and lost the battle. Due to this act and his wars against Powys Offa I gained the nickname “Hammer of the Welsh".
After the battle at Oaks Cross the Welsh armies were broken and forced to retreat back into their hilly country. The Mercian armies laid siege to numerous Powysian holdings and prepared to wait the winter out. A shock came when on the 7th of December one of these thousand strong Mercian armies was almost wiped out to a man at the battle of Severnia, in northern Pengwern. The northern Welsh states of Gwynedd and Yns Mon had decided to come to the aid of Powys in an attempt to halt Anglo-Saxon advances in the lands of their kin. The cavalry heavy force charge the unsuspecting Mercian encampment and inflicted heavy casualties.
This victory rallied the Welsh against Mercia and soon more men from the north joined the army that had won at Severnia. The enemy army marched south gaining manpower on the way and heading for Offa’s besieging force in Isca Siluria (modern Cardiff area). The Mercians still had a large army in the area however and the Mercian marshal, the legendary Ealdorman Ecgbhert of Leicester led his army of 1,600 to intercept the Northern Welsh at the Battle of Caer Lud, in the valleys of Lugg Vale on the 28th of February 701.
Here the military genius of Ecgbhert showed itself once more as the enemy army was utterly crushed. Ecgbhert lost a mere 151 men to kill and rout of force of over 1,500.
With the initiative once more in Mercian hands and the Welsh unable to raise another army the rest of 701 consisted of Anglo-Saxon armies rampaging around Wales and besieging the holds of the Powysian King Cadwallon. Cadwallon was Ceredig’s 9 year old grandson, the original heir Cedwyn (who was blinded by Offa in 699) had died from the complications of the procedure after becoming infected. By August Powys was forced to capitulate and Pengwern was once more a Mercian province. With this victory in the Welsh Wars Offa created the modern (RL) English-Welsh cultural and political border.
To the East in Anglia things were going badly for King Wulfric Nedalskip. In the north of the country the city of Eburacum had thrown off rule from Lincoln and enjoyed a brief period of independence, before being invaded and incorporated into the Jarldom of Deira, to which it belonged de-jure. The civil war with the Saxon Shore continued with both sides stuck in apparent deadlock.
Though Offa wished to assert Mercian dominance in Britannia he did not wish to turn against a fellow Nedalskip and war with Anglia, yet at the same time the Eastern realm was in a very precarious situation and making territorial gains would be relatively easy.
Rather than making an immediate decision on the Anglian problem Offa opted to spend late 701 and early 702 increasing relations with his vassals and allowing his nation time to enjoy peace. A great hunt was organised in Arden Forest and most of Offa’s vassals attended the event, where the King proved his merciful nature when his horse was immobilised.
Mere weeks after the hunt a luxurious feast was hosted at the King’s residence. Though most of Offa’s vassals attended Ealdoman Coenwulf of Lundenwic and Lady Ralla of Avon (Offa’s grandmother) notably did not for they were “otherwise engaged”. A day after receiving this response Offa learnt that the two and a number of other petty nobles were involved in a plot to realise Coenwulf’s claim to the throne through his (rather distant) relation to old King Sæwæld I through his father Hrodberht. A civil war was apparently boiling under the surface of what had appeared to be a stable court.
Offa got to work attempting to put out the cause of potential conflict as quick as possible, plotting to see Ealdorman Coenwulf involved in a tragic “accident”.
The King also took steps to improve the loyalty of his borderline vassals, giving Æscwine of Lugg Vale control over all the Jarldom of Magonsaete, a title that had formerly been held by Offa I.
As the year of 702 got under way ghosts from Offa’s past returned as he suddenly remembered his jewel theft of years ago. In horror he realised he had forgotten about the cook’s wife and she had been rotting in the dungeons for the last 8 years! He discovered that unsurprisingly the woman had been forgotten about and had died in her cell, after Offa’s death the story became well known and possibly exaggerated by the dungeon guards.
The rather eventful period of peace came to an abrupt end in March 702 however when Ealdorman Coenwulf declared his war to usurp the crown, giving Offa no time to put his plot into action. Mercia was once more embroiled in a civil war and all plans of increasing the power of the realm beyond its borders were put on hold.
Coenwulf’s rebellion had plenty of support from both in and out of Mercia. Conewulf was well liked by the Anglian King Wulfric due to their shared heritage (kin of Hrodberht and Freamund Nedalskip) and troops crossed the border to fight for the Earl of Lundenwic despite the ongoing civil war in their own country.
Perhaps the greatest betrayal for Offa was the treachery of his own grandmother however. As the two sides settled in to the war Lady Ralla of Avon turned against her King and blood and joined with the traitor Coenwulf. Being a intelligent and well informed man however Offa had suspected such an act (after all Ralla had not attended his feast) and his forces were positioned on the borders of Avon at the deceleration, swiftly moving in to neutralise the threat before it could grow in the area. Ralla’s army was basically removed from the war before it had started.
Numerous small battles were fought across Mercia before on the 18th of August the Battle of Branonegium was fought in Pengwern and Coenwulf’s armies defeated. The Ealdorman was captured and imprisoned, never to be released from the dungeons of Tamworth.
The 6 month conflict ended abruptly, though at the start both sides were relatively equal Coenwulf’s foolishness at leading from the front allowed Mercia to avoid another costly civil war. Lady Ralla was also imprisoned for the remainder of her life, dieing in her cell aged 71 and after a few months of captivity completely insane.
The Welsh wars and the recent civil war had left Mercia and King Offa relatively poor compared to the start of his reign. Thus the king used the period of peace to amass more wealth and focus on internal affairs. Offa and his wife reignited their romance during this time, having 6 children between 702 and 713!
Good stewardship came naturally to King Offa I and during 703 agriculture (particularly wool thanks to the wars raging over Cumbria – traditional wool producing country) thrived in Mercia. Offa chose to implement a tithe on this bounty however and gained a reputation as a slightly greedy king. Regardless of this by the end of 704 the national treasury was more full than it had been in 691 on Offa’s ascension to the throne.
As Offa’s son (also called Offa) grew older the time came for him to begin his education. King Offa wanted only the best education for his son as so the legendary Marshal Ealdorman Ecgberht was chosen to be his son’s tutor. Being Anglo-Saxon England’s greatest military leader at the time Offa hoped that at least some of this great man’s skill would rub off on his son. With a period of prosperity and progress in Mercia King Offa looked once more to East-Anglia with covetous eyes.
At the start of 706AD the Jarldom of East-Seaxe was held onto by King Wulfric Freamundsson (a cadet branch of House Nedalskip) of East-Anglia despite only half of the de-Jure counties of the Jarldom being under his rule. The border region was divided and Mercia controlled the population centre of Essex in Lundenwic. Offa realised that he had but to take the province of Cæster Forest in order to usurp the Jarldom, gain more territory in the region and increase his prestige. Though it would mean war against a dynasty member Wulfric was kin to the traitor usurper King Freamund and barely worthy of his connection to the Nedalskip name in Offa’s eyes. Thus in April 706 Mercia went to war with East-Anglia for control of Essex.
Recovering from a much longer and brutal war with the Saxon Shore nobles Anglia was wholly unprepared for a Mercian invasion and their field army of a mere thousand men was routed at the Battle of Brayford on the 7th of September.
The Mercian armies ranged freely across East-Anglia until Wulfric finally gave Cæster Forest up in early 707. Offa gained another province and usurped the Jarldom of East-Seaxe. Mercia’s prestige from this victory was great and it was beginning to once again be seen as the most powerful nation in Britannia north of Wessex.
Regarding Wessex the early 8th Century saw the pinnacle of their power. Unchallenged in the south they confined Cantia back to modern day Kent in a series of wars ending in 710. Offa sought to remain on good terms with the southern Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, who were quite easily the most powerful Kingdom on the islands after the collapse of Sæwæld I’s Greater Mercia.
707 and 708 were quiet years in Mercia despite the Wessex-Cantia war in the south of England. Christianity began to slowly gain a foothold in Wales around this time as Pengwern converted along with the first province in Powys to profess the faith of one god. Despite this the vast majority of Wales remained staunch believers in the old druidic faith of Britain.
In 708 Offa gave the Jarldom of East-Seaxe to Ealdorman Sigeræd of the Chiltern Hills, a noble who had sided with Coenwulf’s rebels 6 years ago. The noble had remained loyal since then and Offa wished to mend to scars of past conflict in his realm and also ensure it was governed efficiently.
In early 709 Anglia was once again ravaged by civil war as the states of the Saxon Shore (East-Anglia proper) fought to shake off Wulfric’s rule from Lincoln. King Wulfric petitioned Offa to aid in his fight, claiming that Nedalskip dynastic power would be lost over their ancestral lands. Offa rejected to aid Wulfric however, Mercia would only grow stronger while its neighbours fought. Instead Offa took the opportunity to seize Lancaster and Setantia from Wulfric’s rule, expanding north with the goal of eventually reforming the Jarldom of Cumbria as a Mercian puppet. By 711 Mercia had won, facing virtually no resistance apart from the Battle of Arnside in June of that year, which was a decisive victory.
By 712 Anglia had lost the Saxon Shore to rebellion and its northern provinces to Mercia, the Nedalskip eastern Kingdom was now confined to the East Midlands and Lincoln and began to be known amongst its enemies as the Kingdom of Lindsey.
In July 712 Offa began to notice funds missing from his treasury his spymaster discovered that the Jarl of Magonsæte, the previously exceptionally loyal Æscwine of Oaks Cross had in fact been stealing funds from the King. Offa demanded the return of the stolen funds and relations plumeted. The uppity Jarl even suggested that had Offa matched his intelligence (Æscwine was a well known genius) he would have caught him in the act, this enraged Offa greatly. When proof of Æscwine’s continued treachery came in September 712 (the Jarl was found attempting to forge a claim on the crown of Mercia, somehow) King Offa spared no time ordering his arrest for his crimes. Though the Jarl escaped he only evaded capture until the start of 713, his pathetic rebellion leading to only a few dozen deaths as most of his men sided with Offa.
After Æscwine was dealt with Offa turned his attention to the north and recreated the Jarldom of Cumbria. The title was given Eadbhert of Blestium, a minor noble who had a good rapport with the King. In March 713 King Wulfric of Anglia died and he was succeeded by his younger and well liked brother Freamund Nedalskip as Anglian King. He was able to swiftly bring the Saxon Shore back under his rule and now looked to regain Cæster Forest from Mercia. In August Anglia declared war and the two sides met near Sullon Hill, in the forest. Here King Offa I was wounded in the combat and his army defeated, despite his Marshall’s great leadership the Anglian armies had their own competent commanders and luck on their side that day.
Offa’s wound stayed with him and on the 24th of January 714 he passed away, his weak body unable to resist the growing infection from his festering battle wound. He was succeeded by his 15 year old son, also called Offa Nedalskip and Offa II. Though young Offa II was a highly ambitious young man and strove to honour his father’s memory and increase the prestige of the Nedalskip name.
Young Offa spent the year of 714 under the regency and tutorage of Marshal Ecberht of Leicester. Though the young king learnt many fighting skills from the great veteran he was a less than amazing commander and more of a footsoldier, only emerging from his education with one of the age’s best military minds as a “Dutiful Commander”
Offa was brave, attractive and very ambitious however and although his greedy and envious nature held him back diplomatically he looked to be a capable and relatively well liked ruler. Coming of age on the 28th of December 714 the newest King of Mercia had much to do to reclaim Mercia’s position as the premier Anglo-Saxon power.