ABSTRACT
Evil days were at hand, and it may be said that save for the single great figure of one of Mercia among laymen, and save for the great missionary Winfrith, the apostle of Germany, among clerks, the rest of the eighth century is a period of dulness and gloom. The Mercian successfully invaded Wessex, defeated Aethelheard, and besieged and took the royal town of Somerton—probably the place of that name in Somerset, not the one in Oxfordshire. Yet it is likely enough that the region around the latter, the land of the Chilternsaetas, now lapsed once more into Mercian hands. Wessex, it would appear, became tributary to Aethelbald, and remained so during the rest of the life of Aethelheard and part of that of his successor Cuthred. Meanwhile one must turn back to Aethelbald of Mercia, of whom nothing has been said since he turned back from his ineffectual attempt to overrun Deira in the year 740.
