ed exhausted by civil discord
and ready for submission to his arms. But its king Eadberht showed
himself worthy of the kings that had gone before him, and in 740 he threw
back AEthelbald's attack in a repulse which not only ruined the Mercian
ruler's hopes of northern conquest but loosened his hold on the south.
Already goaded to revolt by exactions, the West-Saxons were roused to a
fresh struggle for independence, and after twelve years of continued
outbreaks the whole people mustered at Burford under the golden dragon of
their race. The fight was a desperate one, but a sudden panic seized the
Mercian King. He fled from the field, and a decisive victory freed Wessex
from the Mercian yoke. AEthelbald's own throne seems to have been shaken;
for three years later, in 757, the Mercian king was surprised and slain
in a night attack by his ealdormen, and a year of confusion passed ere
his kinsman Offa could avenge him on his murderers and succeed to the
realm.

But though Eadberht might beat back the inroads of the Mercians and even
conquer Strathclyde, before the anarchy of his own kingdom he could only
fling down his sceptre and seek a refuge in the cloister of Lindisfarne.
From the death of Baeda the history of Northumbria became in fact little
more than a wild story of lawlessness and bloodshed. King after king was
swept away by treason and revolt, the country fell into the hands of its
turbulent nobles, its very fields lay waste, and the land was scourged by
famine and plague. An anarchy almost as complete fell on Wessex after the
recovery of its freedom. Only in Mid-England was there any sign of order
and settled rule. The crushing defeat at Burford, though it had brought
about revolts which stripped Mercia of all the conquests it had made, was
far from having broken the Mercian power. Under the long reign of Offa,
which went on from 758 to 796, it rose again to all but its old dominion.
Since the dissolution of the temporary alliance which Penda formed with
the Welsh King Cadwallon the war with the Britons in the west had been
the one great hindrance to the progress of Mercia. But under Offa Mercia
braced herself to the completion of her British conquests. Pushing after
779 over the Severn, and carrying his ravages into the heart of Wales,
Offa drove the King of Powys from his capital, which changed its old name
of Pengwern for the significant English title of the Town in the Scrub or
Bush, Scrobbesbyryg, Shrewsbury. E