Offa of Mercia

“ King Offa sat at the head of the table, wearing his royal robes and the golden crown of Mercia on his head. Beside him sat his wife, and close by were the youthful bride and bridegroom, and ‘that noble youth Ecgfrith’ as the old chroniclers call him.
Nobles and thanes and aldermen crowded round the board, and gleemen who sang fierce war-songs of Hengist and of Cerdic, and of Arthur and his Knights, and the red wine was poured out, and they drank long and heartily; more heartily, perhaps, than they ought to have done. ”

“ Offa was the greatest king whom England had yet seen, and corresponded on equal Pg 31 terms with Charles the Great, the famous King of the Franks, who was his firm friend and ally (757-796) .
Decline of Mercia.
Nevertheless, after Offa's day the sceptre passed away from Mercia, and his successors saw their vassal kings rebel and disown the Mercian allegiance. To maintain subject states in obedience was always a very hard task for the old English kings, because they had no standing armies, and no system of fortification. ”

“ In the days gone by your wise father was wont to say that if ever danger came from Mercia to East Anglia, it would be by reason of her ambition and longing for power and width of realm."
"Why, mother, then surely in gaining the East Anglian throne for her daughter she gains all she would. And she is Offa's queen, and in his court can be no danger to me or any man. Presently you shall surely dream again, and that dream shall show you the old sorrow turned to joy, for you will have a fair daughter to drive away your loneliness. ”

“ South Saxons, or Sussex. Kent. East Saxons, or Essex. East-Anglia. Mercia. Deira. And Bernicia.
[4] It is not rendered clear from the confused statements of the early historians, whether the latter, who attempted to seize the crown, succeeded in holding it for any length of time; but it is certain, from the language of the venerable Bede (Eccl. Hist. l. 5. c. ult.) as well as from other authorities, that Offa had to contend for the diadem before he wore it, and not without effusion of blood possessed the regal dignity. ”

“ After such specimens of prowess on the part of the Mercian king, it is no marvel that the kings of Deira and of Sussex should seek a distant and friendly land as the scene of their operations against the successful Offa. They sought refuge and assistance at the court of Marmodius, king of Wales; and against the Britons accordingly Offa next directed his arms. Aided by their native fastnesses these new opponents afforded protracted resistance on the western boundary of his kingdom, and with them and their Saxon allies he had many and severe engagements. ”

“ See, however, Stevenson’s note to Asser’s Alfred, Capp. 14, 15, and p. 206, where the tale of Eadburh, daughter to Offa of Mercia, is told to explain why Wessex folk disliked the name of “queen.”—Thryth belongs to that well-known family of obstreperous maids who riot and rage until tamed by the right man. In no case can the description apply to Hygd, who is called “very young.”—There is some reason for thinking that The Banished Wife’s Complaint, an Anglo-Saxon lyric, is based on the story of Offa. ”

“ A brief review of the Anglo-Saxon system of government may, perhaps, be here not inapplicably inserted, in order to convey some definite idea of Offa’s position as the sovereign of Mercia, and enable the reader to trace more satisfactorily the improvements which he was the means of introducing into Britain.
The prescriptive constitution of the Anglo-Saxons was decidedly of a liberal form, and to it may be traced the [Pg 14] majority of our own liberal institutions ”

“ Now, this Offa was a very great and mighty King, who cared for nothing so much as to extend the boundaries of his Kingdom, and he had succeeded in doing this in an extraordinary way. He had conquered the parts of the country which are now known as Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Surrey, and on the West he had driven back the Welsh beyond Shrewsbury, and had built a huge earthwork, which was known as ‘Offa’s Dyke,’ to mark the boundary of their domains. In this way it came about that in his days Cærffawydd, or ‘Fernlege,’ as it had come to be called, was in Mercia instead of Wales. ”

“ Brave, yet pious; elegant, yet modest; exalted in station, yet humble in [Pg 23] soul; the amiable and interesting Ethelbert was publicly welcomed to the court of Offa. The festal hall was decked for his reception, the spousal banquet spread, the goblet graced the board. The hospitable meal in seeming friendly confidence passed over; the prince retired to his sumptuous couch to rest; and the morrow brought the accession of a kingdom’s wealth to Mercia clogged by the weight of treacherous and inhospitable murder! [17]
[16] A. D. 791. Eadburga married Brithric king of Wessex.—M. West. ”

“ The friendship of monarchs, however, from its intimate [Pg 12] connexion with political expediency, is necessarily unstable: nor was that of Offa and Charlemagne without interruption. The Frank desired the hand of a daughter of Offa for his natural son Charles; but this the Mercian sovereign refused unless Bertha, the daughter of the emperor of the west, were bestowed upon Egfrid his own son and heir. The demand excited the anger of Charlemagne; and, in consequence, disregarding the wise remonstrances of his council, he closed the ports of Gaul against the merchants of Anglo-Saxon Britain. ”

“ They were royal councils, and these must be expected to have followed the presence of the king and his court, as was the case in much later times than those now under consideration. Most of the remaining records of these synods at Cloveshoe, and of the other national ones during the same period, show the king to have presided; and it is true that it is the Mercian King, who is so found, during both of the long reigns of Æthelbald and Offa; and throughout the time of the domination of the Mercians in Kent. ”

“ But the laws of Ina are annexed to the statute of Alfred, and perhaps we only possess them in his edition. There was no incorporate union of the Saxon kingdoms, and it is, therefore, probable that there were two promulgations of Alfred’s laws, one statute for the West-Saxons, and to which the laws of Ina were appended, and another for Mercia, since lost, to which the laws of Offa were, in like manner, annexed. ”

“ It has been the effort of several historians to cast the [Pg 24] blame of this foul transaction upon Offa’s queen Cynedritha; but as all concur in stating the welcome given to the youthful monarch, and the subsequent and immediate assumption of dominion over his realms by his intended father-in-law, no inference can be drawn but that Offa was himself a particeps criminis: and when viewed even in the most lenient possible light an accessory after the fact. ”

“ The boundary line of Mercia and Wales, thus established with due solemnity by the authority of both nations, was constantly recognised as such during the Anglo-Saxon age. [13] Cenwulf, the immediate successor of Offa, vindicated it on the north by his famous victory at Rhyddlan. [14] Early in the ninth century Egbert, King of Wessex, added Mercia to his dominions, and adopted its western limit. "Punishments of the most frightful character are denounced against him who violates" the Mark of the primitive settlement. ”

“ Offa king of Mercia, his manhood and victories against the Kentishmen and Westsaxons, he killeth Egilbert king of Eastangles by a policie or subtill deuise of profered curtesie, he inuadeth his kingdome, and possesseth it, the archbishops see of Canturburie remoued to Lichfield; archbishop Lambert laboring to defend his prerogatiue is depriued by king Offa, he seizeth vpon churches and religious houses; mistrusting his estate, he alieth himselfe with other princes ”

“ The ancient Britons were not yet at rest, for whenever a favourable opportunity occurred, they sallied forth from the corners into which they were driven, slew and plundered the Saxons, and hastened back again into their mountain-fortresses as soon as they saw a stronger force approaching. They had several times invaded Mercia, and, emboldened by their success, at length drove the Saxons who dwelt beside the Severn, further into the heart of the kingdom. Offa at last armed, and led on, a powerful force against them. ”

“ When King Offa ruled in Mercia, about a hundred and fifty years later, he restored Christianity, and under its protection the nunnery of St. Columba was restored and its doves flourished again. In process of time this religious house again fell into desuetude; but before it disappeared it had achieved a great name for good works, and in especial for the piety of its members. If deeds and prayers and hopes and earnest thinking leave anywhere any moral effect, Mercy Farm and all around it have almost the right to be considered holy ground. ”

“ Alban’s, that Offa was instigated in his ambitious views by his wife Cynedritha, or believe that he simply acted on the defensive against the confederate monarchs of Deira, East-Anglia, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex, certain it is that his wars with these opponents terminated to his glory and their disgrace. ”

“ He made large gifts of land near Sandwich “monachis ecclesiæ Christi Doroberniæ” at the request of archbishop Iambertus, A. D. 773, Canterbury (Cant-wara-burh) having been burned a few years before.—Dugd. Mon. Angl.
He freed the abbey of Woking A. D. 775. “In the days of this same Offa was an alderman of the name of Brorda who requested the king for his sake to free his own monastery, called Woking, because he would give it to Medhamsted and St. Peter, and the abbot that then was, whose name was Pusa. Pusa succeeded Beonna; and the king loved him much. ”

“ The kingdom of East Anglia presents the same rapid panorama of murders which settled the succession to all the Saxon thrones; and Mercia, comprising the midland counties, furnishes all the materials for a melodrama. Offa, one of its most celebrated kings, had a daughter, Elfrida, to whom Ethelbert, the sovereign of the East Angles, had made honourable proposals, and had been invited to celebrate his nuptials at Hereford. ”

“ The entire improvements which Offa introduced into the legislation of his kingdom and subjected territories are, at the present day, too difficult of discovery to be clearly elucidated, unless the foregoing hypothesis be adopted: but there may be excepted from this difficulty the laws passed at the legatine council in his reign, held at Calchythe, A. D. 785, when Egfrid his son was associated with him in the government. ”

“ Quendritha has let us see that in one way or the other she would fain have East Anglia. I think that she spoke unwarily to you, my king."
"Nay," said Selred the priest; "I hold that she sounded you as to whether you had any thought of adding Mercia to your own realm. If it is true that Offa has some secret ailment which is slowly and surely bringing his end near, she looks onward to the time when she shall stand alone. She would find out if you are to be feared."
"Maybe that is it," said Ethelbert, with a sigh of relief. "It must be. She is a mistress of craft ”

“ The Monastery Gateway, St Albans
The next great event was the Saxon Conquest, which in Kent was ushered in by the landing of a force in the year 449 A.D. During this part of its history the western, or larger portion of our county was included, as already78 mentioned, in the kingdom of Mercia, while the eastern and smaller section belonged to that of Essex. Of the numerous Mercian kings, the most renowned and most powerful was Offa, whose name survives in Offley, where he had a palace, and where he died about the year 796, while still engaged in building the Monastery and Abbey of St Alban. ”

“ We have before shown in what a defenceless state Northumbria was left. Offa, doubtless well acquainted with the civil dissensions by which it was rent asunder, attacked it, as his uncle Penda had done beforetime; what advantages he gained, are133 not recorded. He next marched into Kent, fought a hardly contested battle at Otunford or Otford, conquered, and annexed that kingdom to Mercia. At the battle of Bensington, he defeated Cynewulf, king of Wessex, and either took possession of his dominions, or compelled him to become his ally ”

“ Poetic justice is also dispensed to Cynedritha by this writer: he affirms that Offa had her shut up in punishment and seclusion for ever: that some years afterwards her place of retirement was broken in upon by robbers for the sake of her gold and silver, and that she was precipitated down her own well where her wretched existence was terminated. The archbishop of Lichfield is further stated to have begged the body of Ethelbert and buried it at Hereford, where miracles were performed by it! Matth. West. ”

“ In 793 Mercia, under the great Offa, the friend of Charles the Great, was the suzerain state of England, supreme over all the English and Welsh kingdoms south of the Humber. Northumbria was ruled by Æthelred, son of Æthelwald (known as ‘Moll’) , a savage tyrant who, however, appears to have been capable of keeping order, if only by force, in his anarchic realm. He was in alliance with Offa, whose daughter Ælflaed he married, and also with Charles the Great; and his position seemed fairly115 secure when, in 793, a squadron of pirate-ships sacked Lindisfarne. ”

“ As a commencement of my proposed tour, I shall now beg my reader to accompany me on the north side of the Dee, to Clawdd Offa, or Offa’s Dyke, the ancient boundary of this part of the Principality.
p. 11Clawdd Offa.
“The best concerted schemes men lay for fame
Die fast away.”—
“O lamentable sight! at once
The labours of whole ages lumber down,
A hideous and misshapen mass of ruin.”
Offa was the eleventh King of Mercia, and succeeded Ethelbald, A.D. 757. He was born deaf, lame, and blind. ”