Penda, Mercia's First King: The Last Great Heathen Warlord of Anglo-Saxon England

Reexamine the life and impact of King Penda, whose villainous portrayal was challenged as he shaped early medieval Britain through cultural pluralism, stability, and the rise of Mercia during a transformative era.

Since the Venerable Bede wrote his iconic Ecclesiastic History of England in the eighth century, King Penda has been relegated to the role of villain and treated as a barrier to advancement in a battle between new ideas and a new culture. Paul Barrett outlines the background to the...