Editing Mercia (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Staffordshire hoard annotated.jpg|thumb|left|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 at the start of the [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] era remains more obscure than that of [[Northumbria]], [[History of Kent|Kent]], or even [[Wessex]]. Mercia developed an effective political structure and was [[Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England|Christianised]] later than the other kingdoms.<ref name="Cambridge466">{{harvp|Thacker|2005|p=466}}</ref> Archaeological surveys show that [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]] settled the lands north of the [[River Thames]] by the 6th century. The name "Mercia" is [[Mercian Old English]] for "boundary folk" (see [[Welsh Marches]]), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native [[Wales|Welsh]] and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. However, [[Peter Hunter Blair]] argued an alternative interpretation: that they emerged along the frontier between [[Northumbria]] and the inhabitants of the [[River Trent|Trent river valley]].{{sfn|Hunter Blair |1948|pp= 119–121}}

Although its earliest boundaries remain obscure, a general agreement persists that the territory that was called "the first of the Mercians" in the [[Tribal Hidage]] covered much of south [[Derbyshire]], [[Leicestershire]], [[Nottinghamshire]], [[Northamptonshire]], [[Staffordshire]] and northern [[Warwickshire]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Brooks |first=Nicholas |title=Anglo-Saxon myths: state and church, 400–1066}}<br />{{cite book |last=Hill |first=D.|title=Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England |location=Oxford |year=1981 |at=map 136 }}<br />{{cite book |last=Hooke |first=Della |title=Anglo-Saxon Territorial Organisation: The Western Margins of Mercia |publisher=University of Birmingham, Dept. of Geography |series=Occasional Paper 22 |year=1986 |pages=1–45}}</ref>

The earliest person named in any records as a [[List of monarchs of Mercia|king of Mercia]] is [[Creoda of Mercia|Creoda]], said to have been the great-grandson of [[Icel of Mercia|Icel]]. Coming to power around 584, he built a fortress at [[Tamworth, Staffordshire|Tamworth]] which became the seat of Mercia's kings.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/EnglandMercia.htm|title=Kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons - Iclingas & Mercians|last=Kessler|first=P L|website=www.historyfiles.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-09-25}}</ref> His son [[Pybba]] succeeded him in 593. [[Cearl of Mercia|Cearl]], a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage to [[Edwin of Northumbria|Edwin]], king of [[Deira (kingdom)|Deira]], whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yIdG9MbuK38C&pg=PA135|title=Ancestral Secrets of Knighthood|first= Brian Daniel |last=Starr|publisher=BookSurge Publishing|year=2007|isbn=978-1419680120|page=135}}</ref>

The Mercian kings were the only Anglo-Saxon [[Heptarchy]] ruling house known to claim a direct family link with a pre-migration Continental Germanic monarchy.<ref>Jolliffe, J. E. A.  ''The Constitutional History of Medieval England from the English Settlement to 1485'' London 1961 p. 32</ref>