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Æthelred (; died after 704) was King of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain. He was known as a pious and devout Christian king, and he made many grants of land to the church. It was during his reign that Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, reorganized the church's diocesan structure, creating several new sees in Mercia and Northumbria. Æthelred befriended Bishop Wilfrid of York when Wilfrid was expelled from his see in Northumbria; Æthelred made Wilfrid Bishop of the Middle Angles during his exile and supported him at the synod of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case for the return of the ecclesiastical lands he had been deprived of in Northumbria. Æthelred's wife, Osthryth, was a daughter of King Oswiu, one of the dominant 7th-century Northumbrian kings. Osthryth was murdered in unknown circumstances in 697, and in 704 Æthelred abdicated, leaving the throne to Wulfhere's son Coenred. Æthelred became a monk at Bardney, a monastery which he had founded with his wife, and was buried there. Ceolred, who was Æthelred's son (though apparently not by Osthryth), became king after Coenred; it is also possible that Æthelred had another son named Ceolwald who was briefly king before Ceolred. ==Mercia in the seventh century== By the 7th century, England was almost entirely divided into kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxons who had come to Britain two hundred years before. The kingdom of Mercia occupied what is now the English midlands. The origin of the kingdom is not recorded, but royal genealogies preserved in the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' and the Anglian collection agree that the royal houses were descended from a founder named Icel; the Mercian royal house is hence known as the Iclingas.〔Yorke, Barbara, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, ''Mercia'', pp. 15–16.〕 The earliest Mercian king about whom definite historical information has survived is Penda of Mercia, Æthelred's father.〔Barbara Yorke, "The Origins of Mercia" in Brown & Farr, ''Mercia'', pp. 18–19.〕 The larger neighbouring kingdoms included Northumbria to the north, recently united from its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, East Anglia to the east, and Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, to the south. According to ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', a history of the English church written by the 8th-century monk Bede, there were seven early Anglo-Saxon rulers who held ''imperium'', or overlordship, over the other kingdoms.〔Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', II, 5, p. 111.〕 The fifth of these was Edwin of Northumbria, who was killed at the battle of Hatfield Chase by a combined force including Cadwallon, a British king of Gwynedd, and Penda.〔Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 103–104.〕〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 83.〕 After Edwin's death, Northumbria briefly fell apart into its two subkingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. Within a year Oswald, Edwin's nephew, killed Cadwallon and reunited the kingdoms, subsequently re-establishing Northumbrian hegemony over the south of England.〔 In 642 Penda killed Oswald at the battle of Maserfield,〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', pp. 88–90.〕 and Northumbria was again divided. Oswald's son Oswiu succeeded to the throne of Bernicia, and Osric's son Oswine to Deira, the southern of the two kingdoms.〔Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p. 78.〕 In 655, Oswiu defeated and killed Penda at the Battle of the Winwaed.〔 Oswiu installed Peada, a son of Penda, as king of southern Mercia and ruled the northern half himself; after Peada was murdered in 656 Oswiu took direct control of all of Mercia. A coup in 658 threw off Northumbrian overlordship and established Wulfhere as king.〔Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp. 96–97.〕 By the early 670s, Wulfhere had become the most powerful king in southern Britain, with an effective hegemony over all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms except for Northumbria.〔Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p. 115.〕 The main source for this period is Bede's ''History'', completed in about 731. Despite its focus on the history of the church, this work also provides valuable information about the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For Wessex and Kent, Bede had informants who supplied him with details of the church's history in each province, but he appears to have had no such contact in Mercia, about which he is less well-informed.〔Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p. 100.〕 A further source for this period is the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', compiled at the end of the 9th century in Wessex. The ''Chronicle''s anonymous scribe appears to have incorporated much information recorded in earlier periods.〔Simon Keynes, "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", in ''Blackwell Encyclopedia'', p. 35.〕 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「Æthelred of Mercia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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