After 500 AD, the Kingdom of Mercia became one of largest and strongest Saxon kingdoms in England, and only faded with the transcendency of the Kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899). The first Mercian king to truly dominate England was Penda, ruling from 626-655 AD.  Both Bede and Nennius describe the swath he cut across Britain, sometimes in alliance with others (Cadwallon and Cadfael of Gwynedd to name two) and sometime on his own reconnaissance. His paganism was a particular sore point:  “In his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, written in the early eighth century, Bede of Jarrow describes him as ‘a barbarian more savage than any pagan’ with ‘no respect for the newly established religion of Christ’” and “In the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, Nennius describes Penda as ‘victorious through the arts of the Devil, for he was not baptised, and never believed in Read more…