Peada of Mercia

Who was Peada of Mercia?

Peada, a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655 until his own death in the spring of the next year.

In about the year 653 Peada was made king of the Middle Angles by his father. Bede, describing Peada as "an excellent youth, and most worthy of the title and person of a king", wrote that he sought to marry Alchflaed, the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria; Oswiu, however, made this conditional upon Peada's baptism and conversion to Christianity, along with the Middle Angles. Bede says that Peada eagerly accepted conversion:

Peada was subsequently baptized by Finan of Lindisfarne, and this was followed by a campaign to convert Peada's people:

On 15 November 655 Oswiu defeated and killed Penda at the Battle of the Winwaed, and consequently he came to exercise power in Mercia. According to Bede, Oswiu allowed Peada to rule the southern part of Mercia; southern Mercia consisted of 5,000 families, Bede reports, while northern Mercia was populated by 7,000 families, and the two were divided by the River Trent.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Peada helped found the monastery at Peterborough: