The Last Stand of Paganism in Early England | Penda of Mercia

From an anti-Christian source. Penda martyred Ss Oswald & Edwin.

When the Anglo-Saxons invaded England in the 5th century, 4 major kingdoms would rise from the ashes: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex & East Anglia. The Anglo-Saxons, who were originally pagans, would mostly convert to Christianity, with the pagan kings often converting for political reasons such as the imposition by a more powerful king, to gain legitimacy or the Christian promise of gaining immortality upon one's death. One man who resisted however, was Penda, King of Mercia.

Described as the last great pagan warrior-king among the Anglo-Saxons & a most warlike man of the royal race of the Mercians, his destruction sounded the death of English paganism as a political & religious ideology and thus, all of England's Kingdoms would fall under the spell of Christianity with their original pagan traditions, customs and way of life fading from living memory. This is the tale of Penda, Killer of Kings, a man whose will was forged in war and who was unbending till the end, being the last Anglo-Saxon King to die a pagan.

It was he who forged Mercia into a mighty Kingdom and who allowed it to become a dominant Kingdom, which would go on to define England’s political landscape for centuries to come.