Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the sixth century. The earliest known king of Mercia was named Creoda, said to have been the great-grandson of Icel. Icel was the son of Eomer (of Beowulf fame), the last king of the Angles in northern Germany. Icel established an urban center at Tamworth which would become the capital.
Creoda came to power about 585 and was succeeded by his son Pybba in 593. Cearl, a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage to Edwin, king of Deira whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince. Pybba consolidated the kingdom and pushed its boundaries west.
Mercia’s history emerges from obscurity with the reign of Penda, who extended his power over Wessex (645) and East Anglia (650) to gain overlordship of England of the Humber River.
Mercia went through rapid expansion throughout the 6th and 7th centuries to be one of the ‘big three’ kingdoms of England along with Northumbria and Wessex.
In 868, Danish armies occupied Nottingham. The Danes drove Burgred, the last king of Mercia from his kingdom in 874. Mercian power was broken by King Egbert of Wessex (r. 802-839 CE) and, as Wessex grew in power, Mercia declined and was further weakened by repeated Viking raids.
Penda's son, Wulfhere, then reestablished a Greater Mercia that finally, under Æthelbald in the 8th century, extended over all England. In 874 the kingdom was overrun by the Danes and split between Wessex and the Danelaw.
The Kingdom of Mercia (527 – 918)
