Editing Offa of Mercia (section)

==Ancestry and family==
[[File:Offa genealogy.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|Offa's immediate family]]

Offa's ancestry is given in the [[Anglian collection]], a set of genealogies that include lines of descent for four Mercian kings. All four lines descend from [[Pybba of Mercia|Pybba]], who ruled Mercia early in the 7th century. Offa's line descends through Pybba's son [[Eowa of Mercia|Eowa]] and then through three more generations: Osmod, Eanwulf and Offa's father, Thingfrith. Æthelbald, who ruled Mercia for most of the forty years before Offa, was also descended from Eowa according to the genealogies: Offa's grandfather, Eanwulf, was Æthelbald's first cousin.<ref name="Yorke1997">{{cite book|last=Yorke|first=Dr Barbar|title=Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XRTy8IrOAGsC|access-date=9 August 2012|date=5 November 1997|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-16639-3|pages=101, 104}}</ref> Æthelbald granted land to Eanwulf in the territory of the Hwicce, and it is possible that Offa and Æthelbald were from the same branch of the family. In one charter Offa refers to Æthelbald as his kinsman, and Headbert, Æthelbald's brother, continued to witness charters after Offa rose to power.<ref name=Yorke_112>Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p.&nbsp;112.</ref><ref name = Kirby_163/>

[[File:Cynethryth penny.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Penny of [[Cynethryth]], wife of King Offa (1.29 g)]]

Offa's wife was [[Cynethryth]], whose ancestry is unknown. The couple had a son, [[Ecgfrith of Mercia|Ecgfrith]], and at least three daughters: Ælfflæd, [[Eadburh]] and Æthelburh.<ref>Kelly, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''</ref> It has been speculated that Æthelburh was the abbess who was a kinswoman of [[Ealdred of Hwicce|King Ealdred of the Hwicce]], but there are other prominent women named Æthelburh during that period.<ref name=Kirby_163/>