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Updated: June 22, 2025
His power was bent to carry forward the conversion of all England, but prisoned as it was to the central districts of the country heathendom fought desperately for life. Penda was still its rallying-point. His long reign was one continuous battle with the new religion; but it was a battle rather with the supremacy of Christian Northumbria than with the supremacy of the Cross.
"If the pagans will not accept them," Oswiu cried at last, "let us offer them to One that will"; and he vowed that if successful he would dedicate his daughter to God, and endow twelve monasteries in his realm. Victory at last declared for the faith of Christ. Penda himself fell on the field.
After the long and glorious reign of Edwin, his successor, Ethelfrith's sons came back to Bamburgh; the eldest, Eanfrid, was slain within a year, and his brother Oswald carried on the struggle against Penda of Mercia. We have seen how he fought against Penda and Cadwallon on the Heavenfield near Chollerford, and gained a victory which obtained for him many years of peace.
This earlier tide of reaction was checked by Eadwine's conversion; but Mercia, which had as yet owned the supremacy of Northumbria, sprang into a sudden greatness as the champion of the heathen gods. Its king, Penda, saw in the rally of the old religion a chance of winning back his people's freedom and giving it the lead among the tribes about it.
An intransigeant, an irreconcilable, this King Penda, fighting his last battle against this new and hated thing, this Christianism! He lies dead there he becomes no hanger-on. There you have the spirit of the race. It displays itself in a form not less impressive in the well-known incident in the very era of Penda, described by Bede.
Penda represented heathen reaction after St. Augustine's mission. Sir Nathaniel can tell you as much as you want about this, and put you, if you wish, on the track of such accurate knowledge as there is." Whilst they were looking at the heap of stones, they noticed that another carriage had drawn up beside them, and the passenger there was only one was regarding them curiously.
For one of the capteins was a pagan, and the other wanting all ciuilitie, shewed himselfe more cruell than anie pagan could haue doone. And still the christian Britains were lesse mercifull than Penda his heathenish souldiers.
From the famous monastery which they founded at Iona, on the west coast of Scotland, came the new impulse which gave Christianity its fixed footing in England, and finally drove paganism from Britain's shores. Oswald, of Northumbria, became the bulwark of the new faith; Penda, of Mercia, the sword of heathendom; and a long struggle for religion and dominion ensued between these warlike chiefs.
Penda, son of Pybba, reigned ten years; he first separated the kingdom of Mercia from that of the North-men, and slew by treachery Anna, king of the East Anglians, and St. Oswald, king of the North Men. He fought the battle of Cocboy, in which fell Eawa, son of Pybba, his brother, king of the Mercians, and Oswald, king of the North-men, and he gained the victory by diabolical agency.
After the final defeat of the Mercians, under their king Penda, at Winwoed, in 655, the struggle was practically over. Northern and Southern England were alike once more Christian.
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