Stained glass window in St John's Chester

Æthelred ( /ˈæθəlrɛd/; died after 704) was King of Mercia from 675 until 704. He was the son of Penda of Mercia and came to the throne in 675, when his brother, Wulfhere of Mercia, died. Within a year of his accession he invaded Kent, where his armies destroyed the city of Rochester. In 679 he defeated his brother-in-law, Ecgfrith of Northumbria, at the Battle of the Trent: the battle was a major setback for the Northumbrians, and effectively ended their military involvement in English affairs south of the Humber. It also permanently returned the kingdom of Lindsey to Mercia's possession. However, Æthelred was unable to re-establish his predecessors' domination of southern Britain.

He was known as a pious and religious king, and made many grants of land to the church. It was during his reign that Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, reorganized the church's diocesan structure, creating several new sees in Mercia and Northumbria. Æthelred befriended Bishop Wilfrid of York when Wilfrid was expelled from his see in Northumbria; Æthelred made Wilfrid Bishop of the Middle Angles during his exile, and supported him at the synod of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case for the return of the ecclesiastical lands he had been deprived of in Northumbria.

Æthelred's wife, Osthryth, was a daughter of King Oswiu, one of the dominant 7th-century Northumbrian kings. Osthryth was murdered in unknown circumstances in 697, and in 704 Æthelred abdicated, leaving the throne to Wulfhere's son Coenred. Æthelred became a monk at Bardney, a monastery which he had founded with his wife, and was buried there. Ceolred, who was Æthelred's son (though apparently not by Osthryth), became king after Coenred; it is also possible that Æthelred had another son named Ceolwald who was briefly king before Ceolred.

Mercia in the seventh century[link]

The kingdoms of Britain in the late seventh century

By the 7th-century, England was almost entirely divided into kingdoms ruled by the Anglo-Saxons who had come to Britain two hundred years before. The kingdom of Mercia occupied what is now the English midlands; the origin of the kingdom is not recorded, but royal genealogies preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Anglian collection agree that the royal houses were descended from a founder named Icel. The Mercian royal house is hence known as the Iclingas.^[1] The earliest Mercian king about whom definite historical information has survived is Penda of Mercia, Æthelred's father.^[2] The larger neighbouring kingdoms included Northumbria to the north, recently united from its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira, East Anglia to the east, and Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, to the south.

According to Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a history of the English church written by the 8th-century monk Bede, there were seven early Anglo-Saxon rulers who held imperium, or overlordship, over the other kingdoms.^[3] The fifth of these was Edwin of Northumbria, who was killed at the battle of Hatfield Chase by a combined force including Cadwallon, a British king of Gwynedd, and Penda.^[4][5] After Edwin's death, Northumbria briefly fell apart into its two subkingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. Within a year Oswald, Edwin's nephew, killed Cadwallon and reunited the kingdoms, and subsequently re-established Northumbrian hegemony over the south of England.^[5] In 642 Penda killed Oswald at the battle of Maserfield,^[6] and Northumbria was again divided. Oswald's son Oswiu succeeded to the throne of Bernicia, and Osric's son Oswine to Deira, the southern of the two kingdoms.^[7]

In 655, Oswiu defeated and killed Penda at the Battle of the Winwaed.^[4] Oswiu installed Peada, a son of Penda, as king of southern Mercia, and ruled the northern half himself; after Peada was murdered in 656 Oswiu took direct control of all of Mercia. A coup in 658 threw off Northumbrian overlordship and established Wulfhere as king.^[8] By the early 670s, Wulfhere had become the most powerful king in southern Britain, with an effective hegemony over all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms except for Northumbria.^[9]

The main source for this period is Bede’s History, completed in about 731. Despite its focus on the history of the church, this work also provides valuable information about the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For Wessex and Kent, Bede had informants who supplied him with details of the church's history in each province, but he appears to have had no such contact in Mercia, about which he is less well-informed.^[10] A further source for this period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, compiled at the end of the 9th century in Wessex. The Chronicle's anonymous scribe appears to have incorporated much information recorded in earlier periods.^[11]

Ancestry and early reign[link]

Æthelred's immediate relations

Æthelred was the son of Penda of Mercia. Penda's queen, Cynewise, is named by Bede, who does not mention her children; no other wives of Penda are known and so it is likely but not certain that she was Æthelred's mother.^[12][13] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives Penda’s age as fifty in 626, and credits him with a thirty-year reign, but this would put Penda at eighty years old at the time of his death, which is generally thought unlikely as two of his sons (Wulfhere and Æthelred) were young when he was killed. At least as likely is that Penda was fifty years old at his death, rather than at his accession.^[4][14] Æthelred’s date of birth is unknown, but Bede describes Wulfhere as a youth at the time of his accession in 658, so it is likely he and Æthelred were in their middle teens at that time.^[15] The early sources do not say whether Æthelred was older or younger than Wulfhere.

Nothing is known of Æthelred’s childhood. He had another brother, Peada, and two sisters, Cyneburh and Cyneswith;^[16][17] it is also possible that Merewalh, king of the Magonsæte, was Æthelred’s brother.^[18]

In 674, according to Stephen of Ripon, Wulfhere "stirred up all the southern nations against [Northumbria]",^[19] but he was defeated by Oswiu's son Ecgfrith who forced him to surrender Lindsey, and to pay tribute.^[20] Wulfhere survived the defeat, but died in 675, possibly of disease,^[21] and Æthelred became king.^[22][23]

The first recorded act of Æthelred's reign is in 676, when his armies ravaged Kent, destroying Rochester, the seat of the bishops of West Kent.^[24] The reason for his attack is not recorded, but he may have wished to prevent King Hlothhere of Kent from regaining control of Surrey, which had been recently brought into the Mercian orbit by Wulfhere.^[25] It may also be that Æthelred wished for revenge for the murder of the sons of Eormenred of Kent; the murders had been instigated by Ecgberht of Kent, Hlothhere's brother, and it is possible that Æthelred was the uncle of the murdered princes.^[26] A third suggestion is that the kings of Essex solicited the invasion, in response to recent Kentish attempts to gain dominance over the East Saxons.^[27] Regardless of the reason, Hlothhere was likely then forced to accept Æthelred's overlordship.^[27] The damage to the see of Rochester was so great that the incumbent bishop, Putta, retired from his diocese; his appointed successor, Cwichelm, also gave up the see "because of its poverty".^[24][28]

Early in Æthelred's reign, Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, began a substantial reorganization of the church in Mercia. In 675 he removed Winfred from his position as Bishop of Lichfield, and over the next four years he divided the vast Mercian see into the five dioceses of Leicester, Lichfield, Worcester, Dorchester and Hereford.^[29] Æthelred was a devout king, "more famed for his pious disposition than his skill in war",^[30] and he made several gifts of land to the expanding church, including grants at Tetbury, Long Newton, and Somerford Keynes. There is also a tradition that Æthelred was associated with the founding of Abingdon Abbey, in southern Oxfordshire.^[31]

Relations with Northumbria[link]

Mercia had been in conflict with Northumbria since at least 633, when Penda of Mercia defeated and killed Edwin of Northumbria at the Battle of Hatfield Chase.^[7] However, there were diplomatic marriages between the two kingdoms: Æthelred's sister Cyneburh married Alhfrith, a son of Oswiu of Northumbria, and both Æthelred and his brother Peada married daughters of Oswiu. Cyneburh's marriage to Alhfrith took place in the early 650s, and Peada's marriage, to Ealhflæd, followed shortly afterwards; Æthelred's marriage, to Osthryth, is of unknown date but must have occurred before 679, since Bede mentions it in describing the Battle of the Trent, which took place that year.^[16][25][32]

Bede does not mention the cause of the battle, simply saying that it occurred in the ninth year of Ecgfrith's reign. He is more informative on the outcome. Ælfwine, the young subking of Deira, was killed; Ælfwine was brother to Osthryth and Ecgfrith, and was well liked in both Mercia and Northumbria since Æthelred's marriage to Osthryth. According to Bede, his death threatened to cause further strife between the two kingdoms, but Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, intervened:^[33]

Theodore, the beloved of God, enlisting God's help, smothered the flames of this awful peril by his wholesome advice. As a result, peace was restored between the kings and peoples, and in lieu of further bloodshed the customary compensation was paid to King Ecgfrith for his brother's death.

Æthelred took possession of Lindsey again after the battle; the change in control this time was lasting, and Lindsey remained part of Mercia until the Viking invasion of the 9th century remade the map of England.^[24][25] Conflict between Northumbria and Mercia did not completely cease after this date: Scottish annals record that Æthelbald, an 8th century Mercian king, ravaged Northumbrian territory in 740 while King Eadberht of Northumbria was absent fighting the Picts.^[34] However, the Battle of the Trent effectively ended Northumbrian involvement in southern Britain.^[35]

A conflict between Bishop Wilfrid of York and the church and secular establishment led to Wilfrid's expulsion from Northumbria and the division of his vast diocese. After the death of Ecgfrith in 685, Archbishop Theodore arranged a reconciliation between Wilfrid and Aldfrith, Ecgfrith's successor, but in 692 Aldfrith and Wilfrid fell out and Wilfrid went into exile in Mercia.^[36] Æthelred made Wilfrid bishop of the Middle Angles, and supported him at the Council of Austerfield in about 702, when Wilfrid argued his case before an assembly of bishops led by Archbishop Berhtwald of Canterbury.^[37][38] Æthelred's support for Wilfrid embroiled him in dispute with both Canterbury and Northumbria, and it is not clear what his motive was, though it may be relevant that some of Wilfrid's monasteries were in Mercian territory.^[37]

The southern kingdoms[link]

Two charters of 681 show Æthelred granting land near Tetbury, on what is now the border between Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.^[25][39][40] This may indicate that Æthelred was able to extend Mercian influence further into the territory of the West Saxons, as Wulfhere had done before him.^[9][25] The West Saxons managed a significant military resurgence under Cædwalla, king of Wessex from about 685 to 688, but when Cædwalla departed for Rome on pilgrimage there may have been internal strife before Ine, his successor, took the throne. Cædwalla had successfully conquered the kingdoms of Sussex and Kent, and his abdication may have contributed to the unsettled history of the southeast over the next few years.^[41] In Kent, Oswine emerged as king, though only in eastern Kent; the western half of the kingdom was ruled by Swæfheard, son of Sæbbi, the king of Essex. It is possible that Æthelred provided support to both Swæfheard and Oswine; for each king a charter survives in which Æthelred confirms land grants they made in Kent, and Æthelred's invasion of Kent in 676 indicates his opposition to the traditional Kentish royal house.^{[41][42][43][44]} A charter of Swæfheard's dated 691 is also of interest as it indicates that Æthelred had invaded Kent; it has been suggested that Æthelred intended to place Wilfrid in the Archbishop's seat at Canterbury, but if so he was unsuccessful.^[37][45] Alternatively, Æthelred may have needed assistance in Kent from the East Saxons who may have been independent of Mercia for a decade or more by that time.^[46] The East Saxons did return to the Mercian orbit over the next few years: a charter of Æthelred's, dated between 693 and 704, shows him granting land to Wealdhere, the bishop of London, and in 704 Æthelred consented to a grant made by Swæfheard.^[46][47][48] The latter charter also appears to show that a comes, or local official, was put in place by the Mercians to protect their interests.^[48][49]

Despite this evidence of Mercian involvement in the southeast there is very little indication that Æthelred had expansionist ambitions to the south.^[37] The increasing strength of the West Saxons under Cædwalla and Ine would have limited Mercian opportunities in that direction.^[22] The Northumbrians were no longer a distraction; they had been contained north of the Humber since the Battle of the Trent, and became even less of a threat after their disastrous defeat in 685 at the hands of the Picts. A possible explanation is that Æthelred was preoccupied with war with the Welsh. It was also at this time that the Hwicce came more definitely into the Mercian orbit. The last Hwiccean ruler to take the title of king was Oshere, who died in 685; but from the mid-670s he sought Æthelred's consent for his grants, and Æthelred regarded him as a subking. Further evidence of Æthelred's involvement among the Hwicce comes from a charter in which he grants land for a minster in Gloucestershire, in Hwiccean territory; the charter is generally thought to be a fabrication, but it appears to be based on an authentic earlier source.^[37][50]

Abdication and final years[link]

Osthryth was murdered in 697, for reasons unknown; according to Bede the murderers were "her own people, the Mercian chieftains".^[51] Bede records that Peada's death, forty years earlier, stemmed from "the treachery, it is said, of his own wife";^[52] Peada's wife was Ealhflæd, Osthryth's sister. Hence Osthryth's murder may have been in revenge for Peada's assassination,^[37] though it has also been interpreted more directly as a sign of continuing hostility between Northumbria and Mercia.^[53][54] Osthryth was buried at Bardney in Lindsey, the monastery where, at her urging, the relics of her uncle, Oswald of Northumbria, were kept and revered,^[37][55] though evidence of resistance at Bardney to the cult of Oswald is also indicative of the poor relations between the two kingdoms.^[54]

In 704, Æthelred abdicated to become a monk and abbot at Bardney, leaving the kingship to his nephew Coenred.^[56] Seventh century Mercian rulers often patronised religious establishments outside the Mercian heartlands, perhaps as a way of gaining support in outlying provinces. Æthelred's and Osthryth's interest in Bardney is consistent with this pattern. The encouragement of the cult of royal saints in areas beyond the central Mercian lands also seems to have been a deliberate policy, and both Æthelred and Osthryth were later revered as saints at Bardney.^[57] It appears that Æthelred continued to have influence in the kingdom after his abdication: a passage in Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid shows Æthelred summoning Coenred to him and advising him to make peace with Wilfrid.^[56][58] The date of Æthelred's death is not recorded; though it is known that he was buried at Bardney.^[59]

Æthelred had at least one son, Ceolred. The medieval Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham records that Ceolred was not the son of Osthryth, though it does not name Ceolred's mother. Ceolred succeeded to the throne in 709, after Coenred abdicated in 709 to go to Rome on pilgrimage.^[60] One version of the regnal lists for Mercia shows a king named Ceolwald reigning after Ceolred, and it is possible that Ceolwald, if he existed, was also a son of Æthelred's.^[56]

See also[link]

• Kings of Mercia family tree

Notes[link]

References[link]

v t e Monarchs of Mercia Kingdom of Mercia 527–918 Icel Cnebba Cynewald Creoda Pybba Cearl Penda Eowa Peada Oswiu of Northumbria Wulfhere Æthelred I Coenred Ceolred Ceolwald Æthelbald Beornred Offa1 Ecgfrith Coenwulf1 Cynehelm Ceolwulf I1 Beornwulf2 Ludeca Wiglaf Ecgberht of Wessex Wigmund Wigstan Ælfflæd Beorhtwulf Burgred Ceolwulf II Æthelred II3 Æthelflæd3 Ælfwynn3 Later monarchs Æthelstan4 Eadgar4 1Also King of Kent and East Anglia 2Also King of East Anglia 3Recognising West Saxon overlordship 4Titular King of Mercia following the creation of the Kingdom of England

Kingdom of Mercia Miercna rīce
← 30px 527–918 →
Cross of Saint Alban Eagle of Leofric
Location of Mercia Expansion of the Kingdom of Mercia: dark green 6th century; green 7th century; yellow 8th century.
Capital	Tamworth
Language(s)	Old English (Englisc)
Religion	Paganism Christianity
Government	Monarchy
Monarchs (see full list)
- 527–?	Icel
- 584–593	Creoda
- 626–655	Penda
- 757–796	Offa
- 918	Ælfwynn
Legislature	Witan
History
- Icel led the Angles over the North Sea (traditional)	527
- Creoda first true Mercian monarch at Tamworth	584
- Mercia annexed to Wessex to form the Kingdom of England	4 December 918
Currency	Pound sterling

Mercia ( /ˈmɜrsiə/, /ˈmɜrʃə/)^[1] was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands. The name is a Latinisation of the Old English Mierce or Myrce, meaning "border people".

Mercia's neighbours included Northumbria, Powys and the kingdoms of southern Wales, Wessex, Sussex, Essex and East Anglia.

The name Mercia is still in use today by a wide range of organisations, including military units, public, commercial and voluntary bodies; and occurs as a female given name.

Early history[link]

The Staffordshire Hoard, discovered in a field in Hammerwich, near Lichfield in July 2009, is perhaps the most important collection of Anglo-Saxon objects found in England

Mercia's exact evolution from the Anglo-Saxon invasions is more obscure than that of Northumbria, Kent, or even Wessex. Also, Mercia developed an effective political structure and adopted Christianity later than the other kingdoms.^[2] Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the 6th century. The name Mercia is Old English for "boundary folk" (see Welsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However, P. Hunter Blair argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier of Northumbria and the inhabitants of the Trent river valley.

While its earliest boundaries will never be known, there is general agreement that the territory that was called "the first of the Mercians" in the Tribal Hidage covered much of south Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and northern Warwickshire.^[3][4][5]

The earliest king of Mercia of whom any details are known is Creoda, said to have been the great-grandson of Icel. Coming to power around 584, he built a fortress at Tamworth which became the seat of Mercia's kings. His son Pybba succeeded him in 593. Cearl, a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage to Edwin, king of Deira whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince.

Penda and the Mercian Supremacy[link]

The next Mercian king was Penda, who ruled from about 626 or 633 until 655. Some of what is known about Penda comes through the hostile account of Bede, who disliked him both for being an enemy king to Bede's own Northumbria and for being a pagan. However, Bede admits that it was Penda who freely allowed Christian missionaries from Lindisfarne into Mercia, and did not restrain them from preaching. Edwin, who had become ruler not only of the newly unified Northumbria, but bretwalda, or high king, over the southern kingdoms, was defeated and killed by Penda and his ally Cadwallon of Gwynedd in 633. When another Northumbrian king, Oswald, arose and again claimed overlordship of the south, he also was defeated and killed by Penda and his allies in 642 at the Battle of Maserfield. In 655, after a period of confusion in Northumbria, Penda brought 30 sub-kings to fight the new Northumbrian king Oswiu at the Battle of Winwaed, in which Penda in turn lost the battle and his life.^[6]

The battle led to a temporary collapse of Mercian power. Penda was succeeded first by his son Peada (who converted to Christianity at Repton in 653), and who was set up by Oswiu as an under king, but in the spring of 656 he was murdered and Oswiu assumed direct control of the whole of Mercia. A revolt in 658 threw off Northumbrian domination and resulted in the appearance of another son of Penda, Wulfhere, who ruled Mercia as an independent kingdom (though he apparently continued to render tribute to Northumbria for a while) until his death in 675. Wulfhere was initially successful in restoring the power of Mercia, but the end of his reign saw a serious defeat by Northumbria. The next king, Æthelred defeated Northumbria in the Battle of the Trent in 679, settling once and for all the long disputed control of the former kingdom of Lindsey. Æthelred was succeeded by Cœnred son of Wulfhere, and both these kings are better known for their religious activities than anything else, but the king who succeeded them (in 709), Ceolred, is said in a letter of Saint Boniface to have been a dissolute youth who died insane. So ended the rule of the direct descendants of Penda.^[2]

At some point before the accession of Æthelbald, the Mercians conquered the region around Wroxeter, known to the Welsh as Pengwern or "The Paradise of Powys". Elegies written in the persona of its dispossessed rulers record the sorrow at this loss.

The next important king of Mercia was Æthelbald (716–757). For the first few years of his reign he had to face the obstacles of two strong rival kings, Wihtred of Kent and Ine of Wessex. But when Wihtred died in 725, and Ine abdicated his throne the following year to become a monk in Rome, Æthelbald was free to establish Mercia's hegemony over the rest of the Anglo-Saxons south of the Humber. Æthelbald suffered a setback in 752, when he was defeated by the West Saxons under Cuthred, but he seems to have restored his supremacy over Wessex by 757.

In July 2009, the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was discovered in a field near Lichfield in Staffordshire. Lichfield was the religious centre of Mercia. The artefacts have tentatively been dated to around AD 600–800. Whether the hoard was deposited by Anglo-Saxon pagans or Christians is debated, as is the purpose of the deposit.^[7]

Reign of Offa and rise of Wessex[link]

Great Britain around the year 800

After the murder of Æthelbald by one of his bodyguards in 757, a civil war broke out which was concluded with the victory of Offa. Offa was forced to build anew the hegemony over the southern English of his predecessor, and he did this so successfully that he became the greatest king Mercia had ever known. Not only did he win battles and dominate Southern England but also he took an active hand in administering the affairs of his kingdom by founding market towns and overseeing the first major issues of gold coins in Britain; he assumed a role in the administration of the Catholic Church in England (sponsoring the short-lived archbishopric of Lichfield), and even negotiated with Charlemagne as an equal. Offa is credited with the construction of Offa's Dyke, marking the border between Wales and Mercia.

Offa exerted himself to ensure that his son Ecgfrith of Mercia would succeed him, but after his death in July 796, Ecgfrith survived for only five more months, and the kingdom passed to a distant relative named Coenwulf in December 796. In 821, Coenwulf was succeeded by his brother Ceolwulf, who demonstrated his military prowess by his attack on and destruction of the fortress of Deganwy in Powys. The power of the West Saxons under Egbert was rising during this period, however, and in 825 Egbert defeated the Mercian king Beornwulf (who had overthrown Ceolwulf in 823) at Ellendun.

The Battle of Ellendun proved decisive. Beornwulf was slain suppressing a revolt amongst the East Angles, and his successor, a former ealdorman named Ludeca, met the same fate. Another ealdorman, Wiglaf, subsequently ruled for less than two years before being driven out of Mercia by Egbert. In 830, Wiglaf regained independence for Mercia, but by this time Wessex was clearly the dominant power in England. Wiglaf was succeeded by Beorhtwulf.

Arrival of the Danes[link]

In 852, Burgred came to the throne and with Ethelwulf of Wessex subjugated North Wales. In 868, Viking invaders (from Denmark) occupied Nottingham. The Vikings drove Burgred from his kingdom in 874 and appointed Ceolwulf II in his place. In 877 the Vikings seized the eastern part of Mercia, which became part of the Danelaw.^[8] Ceolwulf, the last king of Mercia, was left with the western half, but he disappeared by 881.^[9] From 883 until 911 Earl Æthelred of Mercia ruled Mercia as an ealderman under the king of Wessex, not a king himself. All coins struck in Mercia after the disappearance of Ceolwulf in c879 were in the name of the West Saxon king.^[10] Æthelred had married Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great of Wessex. She gradually assumed power as her husband sickened after about 900, possibly as a result of his wounds gained at the decisive battle against the Vikings at Tettenhall where the last large Viking army to ravage England suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the combined Mercian and Wessex army. After Æthelred's death Æthelflæd ruled alone as ‘Lady of the Mercians’ until her death in 918, when her brother, Edward the Elder of Wessex, became king over Mercia as well. In 911, immediately after Æthelred’s death, Æthelflæd freely gave London and Oxford, with the lands belonging thereto, to her brother in Wessex as a token of loyalty. She then concentrated on fortifying Mercia's existing borders – east towards Nottingham, north to Chester, along the Welsh marches, and down to the Severn estuary. In 917 she expelled the Danes from Derby.

Loss of independence[link]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes the end of independent political direction in Mercia following the death of Æthelflæd in 918. Edward of Wessex took over the fortress at Tamworth and accepted the submission of all those settled in Mercia, both Danish and English. In late 918, Ælfwynn, the daughter of Æthelred, was deprived of all authority in Mercia and taken to Wessex.

References to Mercia and the Mercians continue through the annals recording the reigns of Æthelstan and his successors. In 975 King Edgar is described as “friend of the West Saxons and protector of the Mercians”.

A separate political existence from Wessex was briefly restored in 955–959, when Edgar became king of Mercia, and again in 1016, when the kingdom was divided between Cnut and Edmund Ironside, Cnut taking Mercia.

The last reference to Mercia by name is in the annal for 1017, when Eadric Streona was awarded the government of Mercia by Cnut. The later earls, Leofric, Ælfgar and Edwin, ruled over a territory broadly corresponding to historic Mercia, but the Chronicle does not identify it by name. The Mercians as a people are last mentioned in the annal for 1049.

The Arden family claim descent from Leofric, Earl of Mercia.

Mercian dialect[link]

J.R.R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect of Old English, and introduced various Mercian terms into his legendarium – especially in relation to the Kingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as the Mark (a name cognate with Mercia). Not only is the language of Rohan actually represented as^[11] the Mercian dialect of Old English, but a number of its kings are given the same names as monarchs who appear in the Mercian royal genealogy, e.g. Fréawine, Fréaláf and Éomer (see List of kings of the Angles).^[12]

The dialect thrived between the 8th and 13th centuries and was referred to by John Trevisa, writing in 1387:^[13]

For men of the est with men of the west, as it were undir the same partie of hevene, acordeth more in sownynge of speche than men of the north with men of the south, therfore it is that Mercii, that beeth men of myddel Engelond, as it were parteners of the endes, understondeth better the side langages, northerne and southerne, than northerne and southerne understondeth either other...

Mercian religion[link]

The first kings of Mercia were pagans, and they resisted the encroachment of Christianity longer than other kingdoms in the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.

Mercian rulers remained resolutely pagan until the reign of Peada in 656, although this did not prevent them joining coalitions with Christian Welsh rulers to resist Northumbria. The first appearance of Christianity in Mercia, however, had come at least thirty years earlier, following the Battle of Cirencester of 628, when Penda incorporated the formerly West Saxon territories of Hwicce into his kingdom.

The conversion of Mercia to Christianity occurred in the latter part of the 7th century, and by the time of Penda's defeat and death, Mercia was largely surrounded by Christian states. Diuma, an Irish monk and one of Oswiu's missionaries was subsequently ordained a bishop – the first to operate in Mercia. Christianity finally gained a foothold in Mercia when Oswiu supported Peada as sub-king of the Middle Angles, requiring him to marry Oswiu's daughter, Alchflaed, and to accept her religion.^[14]

Decisive steps to Christianise Mercia were taken by Chad (Latinised by Bede as Ceadda), the fifth^[15] bishop to operate in Mercia. This controversial figure was given land by King Wulfhere to build a monastery at Lichfield. As in other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the many small monasteries established by the Mercian kings allowed the political/military and ecclesiastical leadership to consolidate their unity through bonds of kinship.^[16]

Subdivisions of Mercia[link]

For knowledge of the internal composition of the Kingdom of Mercia, we must rely on a document of uncertain age (possibly late 7th century), known as the Tribal Hidage – an assessment of the extent (but not the location) of land owned (reckoned in hides), and therefore the military obligations and perhaps taxes due, by each of the Mercian tribes and subject kingdoms by name. This hidage exists in several manuscript versions, some as late as the 14th century. It lists a number of peoples, such as the Hwicce, who have now vanished, except for reminders in various placenames (see map at the head of this article). The major subdivisions of Mercia were as follows:^[17]

• South Mercians

The Mercians dwelling south of the River Trent. Folk groups within included the Tomsæte around Tamworth and the Pencersæte around Penkridge (approx. S. Staffs. & N. Warks.).

• North Mercians

The Mercians dwelling north of the River Trent (approx. N. Staffs., S. Derbys. & Notts.).

• Outer Mercia

An early phase of Mercian expansion, possibly 6th century (approx. S. Lincs., Leics., Rutland, Northants. & N. Oxon.).

• Lindsey

Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed with Northumbria in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control (approx. N. Lincs.).

• Middle Angles

A collection of many smaller folk groups under Mercian control from the 7th century, including the Spaldingas around Spalding, the Bilmingas and Wideringas near Stamford, the North Gyrwe and South Gyrwe near Peterborough, the West Wixna, East Wixna, West Wille and East Wille near Ely, the Sweordora, Hurstingas and Gifle near Bedford, the Hicce around Hitchin, the Cilternsæte in the Chilterns and the Feppingas near Thame (approx. Cambs., Hunts., Beds., Herts., Bucks. & S. Oxon.).

• Hwicce

Once a kingdom in its own right, disputed with Wessex in the 7th century before finally coming under Mercian control. Smaller folk groups within included the Stoppingas around Warwick and the Arosæte near Droitwich (approx. Gloucs., Worcs. & S. Warks.).

• Magonsæte

A people of the Welsh border, also known as the Westerna, under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included the Temersæte near Hereford and the Hahlsæte near Ludlow (approx. Herefs. & S. Shrops.).

• Wreocansæte

A people of the Welsh border under Mercian control from the 7th century. Smaller folk groups within included the Rhiwsæte near Wroxeter and the Meresæte near Chester (approx. N. Shrops., Flints. & Cheshire).

• Pecsæte

An isolated folk group of the Peak District, under Mercian control from the 7th century (approx. N. Derbys.).

• Land Between Ribble & Mersey

A disorganised region under Mercian control from the 7th century (approx. S. Lancs.).

• Middle Saxons

Taken over from Essex in the 8th century, including London (approx. Middlesex).

After Mercia was annexed by Wessex in the early 10th century, the West Saxon rulers divided it into shires modelled after their own system, cutting across traditional Mercian divisions. These shires survived mostly intact until 1974, and even today still largely follow their original boundaries.

Mercian regional consciousness[link]

The term ‘midlands’ is first recorded (as ‘mydlande’) in 1555.^[18] It is possible therefore that until then Mercia had remained the preferred term, as the quote from Trevisa above would indicate.

John Bateman, writing in 1876 or 1883, referred to contemporary Cheshire and Staffordshire landholdings as being in Mercia.^[19] The most credible source for the conceit of a contemporary Mercia is Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels. The first of these appeared in 1874 and Hardy himself considered it the origin of the conceit of a contemporary Wessex. Bram Stoker set his 1911 novel, The Lair of the White Worm, in a contemporary Mercia that may have been influenced by Hardy, whose secretary was a friend of Stoker’s brother. Although ‘Edwardian Mercia’ never had the success of ‘Victorian Wessex’, it was an idea that appealed to the higher echelons of society. In 1908 Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of Birmingham University, wrote to his counterpart at Bristol, welcoming a new university worthy of:

the great Province of Wessex whose higher educational needs it will supply. It will be no rival, but colleague and co-worker with this university, whose province is Mercia….^[20] At this period, prior to World War I, regional identities within England were being debated with the prospect of separate Home Rule parliaments being established.

The British Army has made use of regional identities in naming larger formations. After the Second World War, the infantry regiments of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire were organised in the Mercian Brigade (1948–1968). Today "Mercia" appears in the titles of two regiments, the new Mercian Regiment (which recruits in Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Worcestershire and parts of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands) and the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry.

The West Mercia Constabulary was created in 1967, combining the police forces of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.

Telephone directories across the Midlands reveal a large number of commercial and voluntary organisations using ‘Mercia’ in their names. In the early 1980s, Mercia Television was an unsuccessful contender for the Midlands franchise, then owned by ATV. It was won by Central Independent Television. Mercia (formerly Mercia FM) is a commercial radio station broadcasting from Coventry founded in 1980 as Mercia Sound.

In 2012 a new football league was formed called the Mercian Regional Football League.

There are currently two main organisations campaigning for Mercian self-determination. Sovereign Mercia seeks independence for Mercia as a modern technological state,^[21] whereas the Acting Witan of Mercia advocates a return to an agrarian subsistence economy.^[22]

Symbols[link]

The Kingdom of Mercia predated the emergence of heraldry, so there is no authentic Mercian heraldic device. However, later generations have ascribed a variety of devices to the rulers of Mercia or to the land itself.

The eagle[link]

The silver double-headed eagle surmounted by a golden three-pronged Saxon crown has been used by several units of the British Army as a heraldic device for Mercia since 1958. It is derived from the attributed arms of Leofric, Earl of Mercia in the 11th century.^[23] It is worth noting, however, that Leofric is sometimes attributed a black, single-headed eagle instead.^[24] The examples on the left are the official devices of the Mercian Regiment and the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry respectively. The latter, being a merged unit, also sports the Lancastrian red rose and crown.

The saltire[link]

Cross of St Alban

By the 13th century, this latter device had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia.^[25] The arms are blazoned Azure, a saltire Or, meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The arms were subsequently used by the Abbey of St Albans, founded by King Offa of Mercia. With the dissolution of the Abbey and the incorporation of the borough of St Albans the device was used on the town's corporate seal and was officially recorded as the arms of the town at an heraldic visitation in 1634.^[26]

As a flag, the Cross of St Alban is flown from Tamworth Castle, the ancient seat of the Mercian kings, to this day. It was also flown outside Birmingham Council House during 2009 while the Staffordshire Hoard was on display in the city before being taken to the British Museum in London. The cross has been incorporated into a number of coats of arms of Mercian towns, such as Tamworth, Leek and Blaby.

The wyvern[link]

A wyvern is a dragon with two legs, and since its adoption as an emblem by the Midland Railway in the mid-19th century it has been associated with Mercia.

The Leicester and Swannington Railway, which opened in 1832, adopted as a badge the silver (white) wyvern that forms the crest of the Borough of Leicester as recorded at the heraldic visitation of Leicestershire in 1619: a wyvern sans legs argent strewed with wounds gules, wings expanded ermine (the term sans legs does not imply that the wyvern was legless; rather, that its legs are not depicted, being hidden or folded under).^[27][28][29] This was inherited by the Midland Railway in 1845, where it became the crest of its unofficial coat of arms.^[30] The company asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Kingdom of Mercia", and that it was a "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester".^{[31][32][33][34]} However, in 1897 the Railway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia".^[32]

The wyvern in Leicester's crest was derived from that of Thomas of Lancaster, second Lancastrian Earl of Leicester. The seal of Thomas, who was executed in 1327, included a wyvern.^[35]

A similar theme was later taken up by Bram Stoker in his 1911 novel, The Lair of the White Worm, which was explicitly set in Mercia (see above). The word "worm", derived from Old English wyrm, originally referred to a dragon or serpent. "Wyvern" is derived from Old Saxon wivere, also meaning serpent (and etymologically related to viper).

The ultimate source for the symbolism of white dragons in England would appear to be Geoffrey of Monmouth’s fictional History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1136), where an incident occurs in the life of Merlin in which a red dragon is seen fighting a white dragon which it overcomes. The red dragon was taken to represent the Welsh and their eventual victory over the Anglo-Saxon invaders, symbolised by the white dragon. However, there is no archaeological or artefactual evidence that the early Anglo-Saxons used a white dragon to represent themselves.

The cap badge of the 2nd Mercian Battalion of the Territorial Army in the 1980s was a wyvern.^{[citation needed]}

Regional government[link]

With more restricted boundaries than the Kingdom of Mercia at its greatest extent and the traditional area known as the Midlands, two former Government Office Regions together cover the latter: West Midlands and East Midlands. These are also constituencies of the European Parliament.

The West Midlands comprises the shire counties of (1) Staffordshire, (2) Warwickshire and (3) Worcestershire (with their respective districts), the unitary counties of (4) Herefordshire and (5) Shropshire, the metropolitan boroughs of (6) Birmingham, (7) Coventry, (8) Dudley, (9) Sandwell, (10) Solihull, (11) Walsall and (12) Wolverhampton, and the unitary boroughs of (13) Stoke-on-Trent and (14) Telford and Wrekin. The East Midlands comprises the shire counties of (15) Derbyshire, (16) Leicestershire, (17) Lincolnshire, (18) Northamptonshire and (19) Nottinghamshire (with their respective districts), the unitary county of (20) Rutland, and the unitary boroughs of (21) Derby, (22) Leicester and (23) Nottingham. The two regions have a combined population of 9,439,516 (2001 census), and an area of 11,053 sq mi (28,630 km²).

See also[link]

• Lichfield
• List of monarchs of Mercia
• Mercian – Anglo-Saxon dialect
• Mercian Trail
• Old English
• Repton
• Staffordshire Hoard
• Tamworth
• Wessex

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ian W. Walker. Mercia and the Making of England (2000) ISBN 0-7509-2131-5 (also published as Mercia and the Origins of England (2000) ISBN 0-7509-2131-5)
• Sarah Zaluckyj & Marge Feryok. Mercia: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Central England (2001) ISBN 1-873827-62-8
• Michelle Brown & Carol Farr (eds). Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (2005) ISBN 0-8264-7765-8
• Margaret Gelling. 'The Early History of Western Mercia'. (p. 184–201; In: The Origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. S. Bassett. 1989) (Western Mercia and the upper Trent being the probable cradle of early Mercia).
• Simon Schama. A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World? – 3000 BC–AD 1603 Vol 1 BBC Books 2003
• Elmes, Simon (2005). Talking for Britain: A Journey Through the Nation’s Dialects. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-051562-3. 
• Baxter, Stephen (2007). The earls of Mercia: lordship and power in late Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-923098-6. 
• McWhirter, Norris (1976). The Guinness Book of Answers. Enfield: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. ISBN 0-900424-35-4. 
• Bateman, John (1971). The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland. Leicester University Press. SBN 391 00157 4. 
• Cottle, Basil; Sherborne J.W. (1951). The Life of a University. University of Bristol. 
• Dow, George (1973). Railway Heraldry. 

External links[link]

• Mercian History: History Project
• Recensions of manuscripts of the "Hidage"
• The Staffordshire Hoard

Coordinates: 52°36′N 1°36′W / 52.6°N 1.6°W / 52.6; -1.6

John's Children were a 1960s pop art/mod rock band from Leatherhead, England that briefly featured future T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan. John's Children were known for their outrageous live performances and were booted off a tour with The Who in Germany in 1967 when they upstaged the headliners. Their 1967 single "Desdemona", a Bolan composition, was banned by the BBC because of the controversial lyric, "Lift up your skirt and fly". Their US record label delayed the release their album, Orgasm for four years from its recording date due to objections from Daughters of the American Revolution.

John's Children were active for less than two years and were not very successful commercially, having released only six singles and one album. But they had a big influence on punk rock and are seen by some as the precursors of glam rock. In retrospect the band has been praised for the impact they had, and their singles have become amongst the most sought-after British 1960s rock collectables.

Biography[link]

Inception[link]

In 1965 in Great Bookham, near Leatherhead, England, drummer Chris Townson and singer Andy Ellison formed a band called the Clockwork Onions, which later became The Few, and then The Silence.^[1] The Silence consisted of Townson and Ellison, with Geoff McClelland on guitar and John Hewlett on bass guitar.^[2] While performing in France in mid-1966, Townson met The Yardbirds's manager Simon Napier-Bell and invited him to come and see The Silence. Napier-Bell described them as "positively the worst group I'd ever seen", but still agreed to manage them.^[3] He changed their name to John's Children, dressed them up in white stage outfits and encouraged them to be outrageous to attract the attention of the press.^[1] He named the band after its bass player because he played so badly and Napier-Bell wanted to be sure the band would not fire him.^[2] Townson described their live acts as "theatre", "anarchy" and "deconstruction".^[1] They fought each other on stage, used fake blood and feathers, and they trashed their instruments. In general the band "whip[ped] the audience into a frenzy".^[1] They also often posed naked for the press, with flowers covering their private parts.^[4][5]

Napier-Bell signed John's Children to The Yardbirds's record label, Columbia Records, an EMI subsidiary,^[2] and they released their first single, "Smashed Blocked/Strange Affair" (released as "The Love I Thought I'd Found/Strange Affair" in the UK) in late-1966. Napier-Bell co-wrote "Smashed Blocked" with Hewlett, but because of his lack of confidence in the band's musical abilities, Napier-Bell used session musicians on the recording.^[3] Allmusic described the single as a "disorienting piece of musical mayhem", but said it was "one of the first overtly psychedelic singles".^[3] To Napier-Bell's surprise "Smashed Blocked/Strange Affair" broke into the bottom of the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached local top ten charts in Florida and California. In early-1967 they released their second single, "Just What You Want – Just What You'll Get/But You're Mine", which also featured session musicians, plus a guitar solo from The Yardbirds's Jeff Beck on the B-side. This one made it to the British Top 40.^[3]

The band's third single, "Not the Sort of Girl (You'd Like to Take to Bed)" was rejected outright by their UK label,^[6] which prompted the band to switch to Track Records, publishers of artists like The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who.^[2] In the meantime, their US label, White Whale Records asked for an album, and Napier-Bell and the group obliged, producing Orgasm. This was a fake live album they recorded in the studio with overdubbed screams taken from The Beatles's A Hard Day's Night soundtrack.^[3][7][8] It was Napier-Bell's idea to give the album a "live" feel to make it seem like the band was very popular in England.^[8] But White Whale rejected Orgasm because of its title and pressure from Daughters of the American Revolution.^[1] The label did, however, release it four years later in 1971.^[3]

In March 1967 Napier-Bell replaced guitarist McClelland with Marc Bolan, another of his clients.^[1] Napier-Bell had Bolan, an acoustic guitarist, play electric guitar, and take on the role of the band's singer/songwriter.^[3][5] Bolan composed and sang on the band's next single, "Desdemona",^[9] which was banned by the BBC because of the controversial lyric, "Lift up your skirt and fly".^[3] He also featured on several unreleased songs and BBC radio sessions, and contributed to the band's antics by whipping the stage with a chain.

The Who[link]

In April 1967 Napier-Bell arranged for John's Children to tour Germany with one of Britain's premier rock groups, The Who as the latter's supporting act.^[4][10] The Who were notorious for their own wild stage performances, which included smashing their instruments.^[11] John's Children pulled out all the stops and upstaged The Who with performances that included Bolan whipping his guitar with a chain, Townson attacking his drums, Ellison and Hewlett pretending to fight each other, and Ellison ripping open pillows and diving into the audience.^[2][3] In Düsseldorf they caused a riot at the venue, and in Ludwigshafen they nearly prevented The Who from playing.^[1] The Who were not happy and John's Children were sent home mid-tour. According to Pete Townshend, they were "too loud and violent".^[4]

Notwithstanding John's Children's antics in Germany, Townson was later asked to replace Keith Moon on drums near the end of The Who's UK tour in June that year after Moon had injured himself demolishing his drum kit on stage.^[1][4] With no time for rehearsal, Townson performed with The Who for five days, and did it so well, "most of the audience didn't realise it wasn't Keith".^[1] But The Who got their revenge on Townson for John's Children's "reckless behaviour" on the German tour: at the end of his last gig with them, they "blew [him] off the stage" with flash powder.^[2]

Breakup and legacy[link]

John's Children played at The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream concert at the Alexandra Palace in London on 29 April 1967.^[1] Bolan left in June 1967, after only four months with the band, following disagreements with the way Napier-Bell was producing the band's next single, "A Midsummer Night's Scene". The single was never released, but in its place the B-side of "Desdemona", "Remember Thomas à Becket" was re-recorded with new lyrics and released as "Come and Play with Me in the Garden".^[6] Bolan went on to form glam rock band Tyrannosaurus Rex (later T. Rex).

After Bolan left, Townson switched to guitar and former roadie Chris Colville took over on drums. John's Children recorded another single, "Go Go Girl", a Bolan composition he later recorded with Tyrannosaurus Rex as "Mustang Ford". John's Children also performed Bolan's "Mustang Ford" version of the song.^[6] The band released one more single, "It's Been a Long Time" (issued as an Andy Ellison solo single) and then embarked on a "disastrous" tour of Germany.^[6] Their last performance was at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany (substituting for the Bee Gees), after which they split up in 1968.^[1][3] Ellison went on to make several solo singles.^[3] before resurfacing in Jet in 1974, along with drummer Chris Townson. Jet metamorphosed into Radio Stars in the mid-Seventies.

John's Children reformed in the mid-Nineties with Boz Boorer on guitar and former Radio Stars member Martin Gordon on bass, performing gigs in the UK, Italy, Spain and the USA. In 1999, Ellison, Townson and Gordon were joined by guitarists Trevor White (a former member of Sparks) and Ian Macleod (Radio Stars) to perform a selection of John's Children, Jet and Radio Stars repertoire, released as "Music for the Herd of Herring" and recorded in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

With Gordon and Boorer, John's Children performed at the Steve Marriott Memorial Event at the London Astoria on 20 April 2001.^[6] Ellison, Hewlett and Townson plus guitarist Trevor White officially reformed John's Children in June 2006 and have been performing and recording occasionally ever since.^[12] Townson died in February 2008.^[1] Several compilation albums of John's Children's music have been issued retrospectively, some of which include previously unreleased material. An account of Napier-Bell's time with John's Children and Bolan is given in his 2005 book You Don't Have To Say You Love Me.

Reception and influence[link]

Music critic Richie Unterberger at Allmusic described John's Children as an "interesting, if minor, blip on the British mod and psychedelic scene", but added that because they were better known for their "flamboyant image and antics" rather than the music they made, they "are perhaps accorded more reverence by '60s collectors and aficionados than they deserve".^[3] In a Chris Townson obituary published in The Independent in February 2008, Pierre Perrone wrote that John's Children's live performances had "raw energy and power chords worthy of The Who".^[1] Perfect Sound Forever columnist Richard Mason said that John's Children "made a fine upstanding racket. Guitars and drums are thrashed within an inch of their lives; vocals are intoned with, one might hazard a guess, a grin on the face of the protagonist."^[5] Their lyrics were "generally disrespectful and crazed" and their music was "eccentric, loud, irreverent and to the point".^[5] Mason believes that musically the band was not as bad as generally perceived: "They sound as if they can actually play but would rather enjoy themselves, which is no mean feat."^[5] He said that they came from an era that is "for the most part misunderstood, either cloyingly romanticised or short-sightedly vilified", and today the story of John's Children is "relegated to a condescending historical footnote".^[5]

Despite having little success, John's Children were a heavy influence on punk rock, with their shambolic stage presentation and headline-grabbing controversies. Allmusic called them "pre-glam rockers of sorts",^[3] and The Illustrated New Musical Express Encyclopedia of Rock said that John's Children "have claims to being [the] first-ever glam rock band".^[13] Notwithstanding their brief tenure in the spotlight, the group went on to achieve a cult following that persists today.^[1] Their handful of singles have become amongst the most sought-after British 1960s rock collectables.^[3] A copy of their unreleased single, "A Midsummer Night's Scene" was auctioned in 2002 for £3,700.^[6] Their controversial song "Desdemona" was covered by several bands, including punk rock band The Jam.^[6]

Line-up[link]

• Andy Ellison: vocals (b. 5 July 1946, Finchley, North London)
• Geoff McClelland: guitar (b. 1947)
• Marc Bolan: guitar (replaced McClelland, March 1967)
• John Hewlett: bass guitar (b. 1948)
• Chris Townson: drums/guitar (b. 24 July 1947, Battersea, South West London – d. 10 February 2008)^{[1] [14]}
• Chris Colville: drums (only at live-appearances)

Black & White album[link]

The 2011 album Black & White features the following line up:

• Andy Ellison
• Chris Townson
• Boz Boorer
• Martin Gordon

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

• "Smashed Blocked" (Napier-Bell/Hewlett) / "Strange Affair"
  • (UK A-Side title: "The Love I Thought I'd Found"; Germany B-Side: "Just What You Want..." USA: Billboard Hot 100 and local (Florida) Top-10s; backing by L.A. session musicians) (UK: Columbia (EMI) DB 8030, October 14, 1966, USA: White Whale, December 1966, Germany: Polydor 59069, 1967)
• "Just What You Want – Just What You'll Get" (Hewlett, Townson, Ellison, McClelland) / "But She's Mine"
  • (A-side: backing by English session musicians; Jeff Beck guests on B-side) (UK: Columbia (EMI) DB 8124, February 3, 1967)
• "Desdemona" (Bolan) / "Remember Thomas à Becket"
  • (Bolan on A-side, McClelland on B-side) (UK: Track 604 003, 24 May 1967; Germany: Polydor 59 104)
• "Midsummer Night's Scene" (Bolan) / "Sara Crazy Child" (full length) (Bolan) (release cancelled)
  • (UK: Track 604 005, June 1967)
• "Come and Play with Me in the Garden" (Ellison, Hewlett)/ "Sara Crazy Child" (edited) (Bolan)
  • (Bolan plays on B-side only) (UK: Track 604 005, 14 July 1967; Germany: Polydor 59 116)
• "Go Go Girl" (Bolan)/ "Jagged Time Lapse" (Hewlett, McClelland)
  • (A-side is version of Bolan's "Mustang Ford" and features Bolan on guitar, B-side from remaining recordings with Geoff McClelland) (UK: Track 604 010, 6 October 1967; Germany: Polydor 59 160; Greece: International Polydor 244)
• "It's Been A Long Time" / "Arthur Green" (B-side only, Andy Ellison solo single)
  • (UK: Track 604 018, December 1967)

Albums[link]

• Orgasm (White Whale September 1970, projected release: 18 March 1967)
• Music For the Herd of Herring – (John's Children/Jet/Radio Stars - live) 2001, Radiant Future Records (REVP001CD)
• Black & White (Acid Jazz AJXCD 234, June 6, 2011)^[15][16]

Compilations[link]

• A Midsummer Night's Scene – 1988, Bam Caruso (MARI 095 CD)
• Smashed Blocked! – 1997, NMC (Pilot 12)
• Jagged Time Lapse – 1997, NMC (Pilot 18
• John's Children (EP) – 1999, Trash (LARD 20 07 99)
• The Complete John's Children – 2002, NMC (Pilot 118)

Notable other releases[link]

• "Incredible Sound Show Stories Vol.5 – Yellow Street Boutique"
  • (A Sampler featuring songs recorded by "The Silence")

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Napier-Bell, Simon (2005). You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. Random House. pp. 256. ISBN 0-09-190272-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=azhwAAAACAAJ. 

External links[link]

• Official Site
• Children of the Revolution – A Story of John's Children