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Æthelbald (also spelled Ethelbald, or Aethelbald)〔The spelling "Æthelbald" uses the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, and so can be considered the most authentic; however, it has occasionally been modernized in secondary sources to "Ethelbald" or "Aethelbald".〕 (died 757) was the King of Mercia, in what is now the English Midlands from 716 until he was killed in 757. Æthelbald was the son of Alweo and thus a grandson of Eowa, who was the brother of Penda. Æthelbald came to the throne after the death of his cousin, King Ceolred, who had driven him into exile. During his long reign, Mercia became the dominant kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons, and recovered the position of pre-eminence it had enjoyed during the seventh century under the strong Mercian kings Penda and Wulfhere. When Æthelbald came to the throne, both Wessex and Kent were ruled by stronger kings, but within fifteen years the contemporary chronicler Bede describes Æthelbald as ruling all England south of the river Humber. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' does not list Æthelbald as a bretwalda, or "Ruler of Britain", though this may be due to the West Saxon origin of the ''Chronicle''. St. Boniface wrote to Æthelbald in about 745, reproving him for various dissolute and irreligious acts. The subsequent 747 council of Clovesho and a charter Æthelbald issued at Gumley in 749—which freed the church from some of its obligations—may have been responses to Boniface's letter. Æthelbald was killed in 757 by his bodyguards. He was succeeded briefly by Beornred, of whom little is known, but within a year, Offa, the grandson of Æthelbald's cousin Eanwulf, had seized the throne, possibly after a brief civil war. Under Offa, Mercia entered its most prosperous and influential period. ==Early life and accession== Æthelbald came of the Mercian royal line, although his father, Alweo, was never king. Alweo's father was Eowa, who may have shared the throne for some time with his brother, Penda of Mercia. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' does not mention Eowa; though it does date Penda's reign as the thirty years from 626 to 656, when Penda was killed at the battle of the Winwaed. However, two later sources name Eowa as king as well: the ''Historia Brittonum'' and the ''Annales Cambriae''. The ''Annales Cambriae'' is the source for Eowa's death in 644 at the battle of Maserfield, where Penda defeated Oswald of Northumbria. Details on Penda's reign are scarce, and it is a matter for speculation whether Eowa was an underking, owing allegiance to Penda, or if instead Eowa and Penda had divided Mercia between them. If they did divide the kingdom, it is likely that Eowa ruled northern Mercia, as Penda's son Peada was established later as the king of southern Mercia by the Northumbrian Oswiu, who defeated the Mercians and killed Penda in 656. It is possible that Eowa fought against Penda at Maserfield.〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 91.〕 During Æthelbald's youth, Penda's dynasty ruled Mercia; Ceolred, a grandson of Penda and therefore a second cousin of Æthelbald, was king of Mercia from 709 to 716.〔See the genealogy in figure 8 of the appendix, in Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 227.〕 An early source, Felix's ''Life of Saint Guthlac'', reveals that it was Ceolred who drove Æthelbald into exile.〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 129.〕 Guthlac was a Mercian nobleman who abandoned a career of violence to become first a monk at Repton, and later a hermit living in a barrow at Crowland, in the East Anglian fens.〔Campbell, ''The Anglo-Saxons'', p. 82.〕 During Æthelbald's exile he and his men also took refuge in the Fens in the area, and visited Guthlac.〔 Guthlac was sympathetic to Æthelbald's cause, perhaps because of Ceolred's oppression of the monasteries.〔Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 203–205.〕 Other visitors of Guthlac's included Bishop Haedde of Lichfield, an influential Mercian, and it may be that Guthlac's support was politically useful to Æthelbald in gaining the throne. After Guthlac's death, Æthelbald had a dream in which Guthlac prophesied greatness for him, and Æthelbald later rewarded Guthlac with a shrine when he had become king.〔〔Campbell, ''The Anglo-Saxons'', p. 94.〕 When Ceolred died of a fit at a banquet, Æthelbald returned to Mercia and became ruler. It is possible that a king named Ceolwald, perhaps a brother of Ceolred, reigned for a short while between Ceolred and Æthelbald.〔 Æthelbald's accession ended Penda's line of descent; Æthelbald's reign was followed, after a brief interval, by that of Offa, another descendant of Eowa.〔 Other than his father, Alweo, little of Æthelbald's immediate family is known, although in the witness list of two charters a leading ealdorman named Heardberht is recorded as his brother. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Æthelbald of Mercia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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