Cearl Of Mercia

Cearl's ancestry is unknown. He is not included in the Mercian royal genealogy;'' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle '', under the year 626, in which Penda's ancestry is listed. Henry Of Huntingdon in the 12th Century placed him as ruling after Pybba , saying that he was not Pybba's son but was his kinsman.Henry of Huntingdon, ''Historia Anglorum'', translated by Diana Greenway (1997), Book II, chapter 27 (page 111). Greenway notes that Henry presumably concluded that Cearl was not in the direct royal line, based on ''ASC'' 626, and "fitted him in between the father and son" (note 111).

According to Bede, he had a daughter, Cwenburh, who married the exiled '' credits the later king Penda with first separating the Mercians from the Northumbrians, but if Cearl was able to make this marriage to Æthelfrith's enemy he must not have been subject to him—possibly any subject relationship only developed at a later date. The historian D. P. Kirby speculated that perhaps Cearl was enabled to marry his daughter to Edwin due to the protection of the powerful East Anglia n king Raedwald , and that Edwin's subsequent exile among the East Angles may have been due to Æthelfrith's power beginning "to impinge on Cearl or his successors among the Mercians."D. P. Kirby, ''The Earliest English Kings'' (1991), revised edition (2000), pages 55 and 61.
Cearl was followed as king by Penda, son of Pybba, who was probably king by the year 633 (and possibly by 626 , if the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle '' is correct), but whether Penda came to power immediately after Cearl or after some intervening period is unknown. It is also unknown what relationship Cearl had to Penda, if any. That Cearl married his daughter to Edwin could be evidence that he and Penda were rivals, since Penda later fought against and defeated Edwin (in alliance with Cadwallon of Gwynedd ).Ann Williams, Alfred P. Smyth, and D. P. Kirby, ''A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain'' (1991), page 74.

More evidence could be seen for a dynastic rivalry between Cearl and Penda in Penda's later execution (according to Bede) of Eadfrith, a captured son of Edwin who was Cearl's grandson through Cwenburh. Although Penda's reason is unknown, the killing of Eadfrith is often seen as the result of pressure from the Northumbrian king Oswald , to whom Eadfrith would have represented a threat; it is, however, also possible that Penda may have decided that Eadfrith's lineage made him unsuitable for use as a puppet against Oswald, since he would represent a threat to Penda's own position through his descent from Cearl.Michelle Ziegler, " The Politics of Exile in Early Northumbria ", ''The Heroic Age'', Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 1999.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

Information About

Cearl Of Mercia