OFFA (d. 796)  , king of Mercia, obtained that kingdom in A.D . 757, after, driving out Beornred, who had succeeded a few months earlier on the murder of £Ethelbald . He traced his descent from Pybba, the father of Penda, through Eowa, brother of that king, his own father's name being Thingferth . In 779 he was at war with Cynewulf of Wessex from whom he wrested Bensington . It is not unlikely that the Thames became the boundary of the two kingdoms about this time . In 787 the power of Offa was displayed in a synod held at a place called Cealchyth . He deprived Ja;nberht, archbishop of Canterbury, of several of his suffragan sees, and assigned them to Lichfield, which, with the leave of the pope, he constituted as a separate archbishopric under Hygeberht . He also took advantage of this meeting to have his son Ecgferth consecrated as his colleague, and that prince subsequently signed charters as Rex Merciorum . In 789 Offa secured the alliance of Berhtric of Wessex by giving him his daughter Eadburg in marriage . In 794 he appears to have caused the death of IEthelberht of East Anglia, though some accounts ascribe the murder to Cynethryth, the wife of Offa . In 796 Offa died after a reign of thirty-nine years and was succeeded by his son Ecgferth . It is customary to ascribe to Offa a policy of limited scope, namely the establishment of Mercia in a position equal to that of Wessex and of Northumbria .

This is supposed to be illustrated by his

measures with regard to the see of Lichfield . It cannot be doubted, however, that at this time Mercia was a much more formidable power than Wessex . Off a, like most of his predecessors,probably held a kind of supremacy over all kingdoms southpf the Humber . He seems, however, not to have been contented with this position, and to have entertained the design of putting an end to the dependent kingdoms . At all events we hear of no kings of the Hwicce after about 780, and the kings of Sussex seem to have given up the royal title about the same time . Further, there is no evidence for any kings in Kent from 784 until after Offa's death . To Offa is ascribed by Asser, in his life of Alfred, the great fortification against the Welsh which is still known as " Offa's dike." It stretched from sea to sea and consisted of a wall and a rampart . An account of his Welsh campaigns is given in the Vitae duorum Offarum, but it is difficult to determine how far the stories there given have an historical basis . See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed . J . Earle and C . Plummer (Oxford, 1899), s.a .

755, 777, 785, 787, 792, 794, 796, 836; W. de G .

Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885—1893), vol. i . ; Asser, Life of Alfred, ed . W . H . Stevenson (Oxford, 1904); Vitae duorum Offarum (in works of Matthew Paris, ed . W . Wats, London, 1640) .