Aethelbald of Mercia — who ruled for 41 years and styled himself king of all the English south of the Humber — regularly raided into Wessex to keep it subordinate. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records his seizure of Somerton in 733. He also campaigned against Northumbria. His murder by his own bodyguard in 757 led to civil war in Mercia from which Offa eventually emerged victorious. Aethelbald's long reign consolidated Mercian hegemony that Offa would build upon.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
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