Mercia

From Jatland Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)
Great Britain around 800 AD showing the East Angles

Mercia (मर्शिया) (Old English: Miercna rīċe; Latin: Merciorum regnum) was one of the three notable Anglic kingdoms founded after as Sub-Roman Britain was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy.

Location

It was centred around the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlands of England.

History

A Latinisation of an Old English word derived from the Mercian dialect, Merce, meaning "borderland" (from which the Modern English word march also comes), the kingdom was rendered as Mierce or Myrce in the West Saxon dialect. The name is still used as a geographic designation by a wide range of organisations: military units, public, commercial and voluntary bodies.[1]

Court moved around the kingdom without a fixed capital city. Early in its existence Repton seems to have been the location of an important royal estate. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was from Repton in 873–874 that the Great Heathen Army deposed the King of Mercia. Slightly earlier, King Offa seems to have favoured Tamworth. It was there where he was crowned and spent many a Christmas.

For 300 years (between 600 and 900), known as Mercian Supremacy or the "Golden Age of Mercia", having annexed or gained submissions from five of the other six kingdoms of the Heptarchy (East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex), Mercia dominated England south of the River Humber. During King Offa's reign, a dyke was created to have the boundary between Mercia and the Welsh kingdoms. Nicholas Brooks noted that "the Mercians stand out as by far the most successful of the various early Anglo-Saxon peoples until the later ninth century",[2] and some historians, such as Sir Frank Stenton, believe the unification of England south of the Humber estuary was achieved during Offa's reign.[3]

King Peada converted to Christianity around 656, the Diocese of Mercia was founded in this year, with the first bishop (Diuma) based at Repton. The religion firmly established in the kingdom by the late 7th century. After 13 years at Repton, 669 AD, Saint Chad (the fifth bishop) moved the bishopric to Lichfield and, in 691 AD, the Diocese of Mercia became the Diocese of Lichfield. There has been a diocese based in the city ever since. For a brief period between 787 and 799 or 803 the diocese was an archbishopric. The current bishop, Michael Ipgrave, is the 99th since the diocese was established.

At the end of the 9th century, following the invasions of the Vikings and their Great Heathen Army, Danelaw absorbed much of the former Mercian territory. Danelaw at its height included London, all of East Anglia and most of the North of England.

The final Mercian king, Ceolwulf II, died in 879 with the kingdom appearing to have lost its political independence. Initially, it was ruled by a lord or ealdorman under the overlordship of Alfred the Great, who styled himself "King of the Anglo-Saxons". The kingdom had a brief period of independence in the mid-10th century and in 1016, by which time it was viewed as a province with temporary independence. Wessex conquered and united all the kingdoms into the Kingdom of England. The kingdom became an earldom until 1071.

Early history

Mercia's exact evolution at the start of the Anglo-Saxon era remains more obscure than that of Northumbria, Kent, or even Wessex. Mercia developed an effective political structure and adopted Christianity later than the other kingdoms.[4] Archaeological surveys show that Angles settled the lands north of the River Thames by the 6th century. The name "Mercia" is Old English for "boundary folk" (see Welsh Marches), and the traditional interpretation is that the kingdom originated along the frontier between the native 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 Trent river valley.[5]

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.[6]

The earliest person named in any records as a king of Mercia is Creoda, said to have been the great-grandson of Icel. Coming to power around 584, he built a fortress at Tamworth which became the seat of Mercia's kings.[7] His son Pybba succeeded him in 593. Cearl, a kinsman of Creoda, followed Pybba in 606; in 615, Cearl gave his daughter Cwenburga in marriage to Edwin, king of Deira, whom he had sheltered while he was an exiled prince.[8]

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.[9]

Penda and the Mercian Supremacy

The next Mercian king, Penda, ruled from about 626 or 633 until 655. Some of what is known about Penda comes from the hostile account of Bede, who disliked him – both as an enemy to Bede's own Northumbria and as a pagan. However, Bede admits that Penda freely allowed Christian missionaries from Lindisfarne into Mercia and did not restrain them from preaching. In 633 Penda and his ally Cadwallon of Gwynedd defeated and killed Edwin, who had become not only ruler of the newly unified Northumbria, but bretwalda, or high king, over the southern kingdoms. When another Northumbrian king, Oswald, arose and again claimed overlordship of the south, he also suffered defeat and death at the hands of Penda and his allies – in 642 at the Battle of Maserfield. In 655, after a period of confusion in Northumbria, Penda brought 30 sub-kings to fight the new Northumbrian king Oswiu at the Battle of Winwaed, in which Penda in turn lost the battle and his life.[10]

The battle led to a temporary collapse of Mercian power. Penda's son Peada, who had converted to Christianity at Repton in 653, succeeded his father as king of Mercia; Oswiu set up Peada as an under-king; but in the spring of 656 he was murdered and Oswiu assumed direct control of the whole of Mercia. A Mercian revolt in 658 threw off Northumbrian domination and resulted in the appearance of another son of Penda, Wulfhere, who ruled Mercia as an independent kingdom (though he apparently continued to render tribute to Northumbria for a while) until his death in 675. Wulfhere initially succeeded in restoring the power of Mercia, but the end of his reign saw a serious defeat by Northumbria. The next king, Æthelred, defeated Northumbria in the Battle of the Trent in 679, settling once and for all the long-disputed control of the former kingdom of Lindsey. Æthelred was succeeded by Cœnred, son of Wulfhere; both these kings became better known for their religious activities than anything else, but the king who succeeded them in 709, Ceolred, is said in a letter of Saint Boniface to have been a dissolute youth who died insane. So ended the rule of the direct descendants of Penda.[11]

At some point before the accession of Æthelbald in 716 the Mercians conquered the region around Wroxeter, known to the Welsh as Pengwern or as "The Paradise of Powys". Elegies written in the persona of its dispossessed rulers record the sorrow at this loss.[12]

The next important king of Mercia, Æthelbald, reigned from 716 to 757. For the first few years of his reign he had to face two strong rival kings, Wihtred of Kent and Ine of Wessex. But when Wihtred died in 725, and Ine abdicated in 726 to become a monk in Rome, Æthelbald was free to establish Mercia's hegemony over the rest of the Anglo-Saxons south of the Humber. Æthelbald suffered a setback in 752, when the West Saxons under Cuthred defeated him, but he seems to have restored his supremacy over Wessex by 757.[13]

In July 2009, the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was discovered by Terry Herbert in a field near Lichfield in Staffordshire.[14] Lichfield functioned as the religious centre of Mercia. The artefacts have tentatively been dated by Svante Fischer and Jean Soulat to around AD 600–800.[15] Whether the hoard was deposited by Anglo-Saxon pagans or Christians remains unclear, as does the purpose of the deposit.[16]

Reign of Offa and rise of Wessex

After the murder of Æthelbald by one of his bodyguards in 757, a civil war broke out which concluded with the victory of Offa, a descendant of Pybba. Offa (reigned 757 to 796) had to build anew the hegemony which his predecessor had exercised over the southern English, and he did this so successfully that he became the greatest king Mercia had ever known. Not only did he win battles and dominate Southern England, but also he took an active hand in administering the affairs of his kingdom, founding market towns and overseeing the first major issues of gold coins in Britain; he assumed a role in the administration of the Catholic Church in England (sponsoring the short-lived archbishopric of Lichfield, 787 to 799), and even negotiated with Charlemagne as an equal. Offa is credited with the construction of Offa's Dyke, which marked the border between Wales and Mercia.[17]

Offa exerted himself to ensure that his son Ecgfrith of Mercia would succeed him, but after Offa's death in July 796 Ecgfrith survived for only five months, and the kingdom passed to a distant relative named Coenwulf in December 796. In 821 Coenwulf's brother Ceolwulf succeeded to the Mercian kingship; he demonstrated his military prowess by his attack on and destruction of the fortress of Deganwy in Gwynedd. The power of the West Saxons under Egbert (King of Wessex from 802 to 839) grew during this period, however, and in 825 Egbert defeated the Mercian king Beornwulf (who had overthrown Ceolwulf in 823) at Ellendun.[18]

The Battle of Ellendun proved decisive. At this point, Mercia lost control of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and possibly also Essex.[19]Beornwulf was slain while suppressing a revolt amongst the East Angles, and his successor, a former ealdorman named Ludeca (reigned 826–827), met the same fate. Another ealdorman, Wiglaf, subsequently ruled for less than two years before Egbert of Wessex drove him out of Mercia. In 830 Wiglaf regained independence for Mercia, but by this time Wessex had clearly become the dominant power in England. Circa 840 Beorhtwulf succeeded Wiglaf.[20]

Arrival of the Danes

In 852, Burgred came to the throne, and with Ethelwulf of Wessex subjugated North Wales. In 868 Danish invaders occupied Nottingham. The Danes drove Burgred from his kingdom in 874 and Ceolwulf II took his place. In 877 the Danes seized the eastern part of Mercia, which became part of the Danelaw.[21] Ceolwulf, the last king of Mercia, left with the western half, reigned until 879.[22] From about 883 until his death in 911 Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, ruled Mercia under the overlordship of Wessex. Alfred changed his title from 'king of the West Saxons' to 'king of the Anglo-Saxons' to reflect the acceptance of his overlordship of all southern England not under Danish rule. All coins struck in Mercia after the disappearance of Ceolwulf in c.  879 were in the name of the West Saxon king.[23] Æthelred had married Æthelflæd (c. 870 – 12 June 918), daughter of Alfred the Great of Wessex (r. 871–899), and she assumed power when her husband became ill at some time in the last ten years of his life.[24]

After Æthelred's death in 911 Æthelflæd ruled as "Lady of the Mercians", but Alfred's successor as King of the Anglo-Saxons, Edward the Elder (r. 899–924), took control of London and Oxford, which Alfred had placed under Æthelred's control. Æthelflæd and her brother continued Alfred's policy of building fortified burhs, and by 918 they had conquered the southern Danelaw in East Anglia and Danish Mercia.[25]

Loss of independence

When Æthelflæd died in 918, Ælfwynn, her daughter by Æthelred, succeeded as "Second Lady of the Mercians", but within six months Edward had deprived her of all authority in Mercia and taken her to Wessex.[26] Edward was succeeded as king of the Anglo-Saxons by his eldest son Æthelstan (r. 924–939), who had been brought up in Mercia, and he was immediately accepted as king, but not in Wessex until the following year. In 927 he conquered Northumbria and thus became the first king of all England.[27] Mercia briefly regained a political existence separate from Wessex in 955–959, when Edgar became king of Mercia, and again in 1016, when Cnut and Edmund Ironside divided the English kingdom between themselves, with Cnut taking Mercia.[28] Mercia maintained its separate identity as an earldom until the Norman Conquest in 1066.[29]

ब्रिटेन पर जूट्स, सेक्सन्स एंगल्स की विजय (410 ई० से 825 ई०)

दलीप सिंह अहलावत[30] लिखते हैं: जूट्स, सेक्सन्स और एंगल्स लोग जर्मनी की एल्ब नदी के मुहाने और डेन्मार्क के तट पर रहते थे। ये लोग बड़े बहादुर थे तथा लूटमार किया करते थे। ये क्रिश्चियन धर्म के विरोधी थे।

ब्रिटेन से रोमनों के चले जाने के बाद ब्रिटेन के लोग बहुत कमजोर और असहाय थे। इन लोगों पर स्काटलैंड के केल्टिक कबीलों, पिक्ट्स और स्काट्स ने हमला कर दिया। ब्रिटेन निवासियों की इसमें भारी हानि हुई। इनमें इतनी शक्ति न थी कि वे इन हमलों करने वालों को रोक सकें। इसलिए मदद के लिए इन्होंने जूट लोगों को बुलाया। जूट्स ने उसी समय ब्रिटिश सरदार वरटिगर्न के निमन्त्रण को स्वीकार कर लिया। जटलैण्ड से जाटों की एक विशाल सेना अपने जाट नेता हेंगिस्ट और होरसा के नेतृत्व में सन् 449 ई० में केण्ट (Kent) में उतर गई। इन्होंने पिक्ट्स और स्कॉट्स को हराया और वहां से बाहर निकाल दिया। उन्हें भगाने के बाद जाट ब्रिटेन के लोगों के विरुद्ध हो गये और उन्हें पूरी तरह से अपने वश में कर लिया और 472 ई० तक पूरे केण्ट पर अधिकार कर लिया। यहां पर आबाद हो गये। इसके अतिरिक्त जाटों ने अपना निवास व्हिट द्वीप में किया1।

जटलैण्ड के जाटों की विजय सुनकर उनके दक्षिणवासी सेक्सन्स तथा एंगल्स भी ललचाये। सर्वप्रथम सेक्सन्स ब्रिटेन में पहुंचे और उन्होंने ऐस्सेक्स, मिडिलसेक्स और वेस्सेक्स नाम से तीन राज्य स्थापित किये। वहां पर इन्होंने कुछ बस्तियां आबाद कर दीं। ब्रिटेन की जनता ने बड़ी वीरता से सेक्सन्स का मुकाबला किया और 520 ई० में मोण्डबेडन ने उन्हें करारी हार दी। इस तरह से

1. आधार लेख - इंगलैण्ड का इतिहास पृ० 16-17, लेखक प्रो० विशनदास; हिस्ट्री ऑफ ब्रिटेन पृ० 21-22, लेखक रामकुमार लूथरा, अनटिक्विटी ऑफ जाट रेस, पृ० 63-66, लेखक: उजागरसिंह माहिल; जाट्स दी ऐन्शन्ट रूलर्ज पृ० 86 लेखक बी० एस० दहिया तथा जाट इतिहास अंग्रेजी पृ० 43, लेखक ले० रामसरूप जून।

जाट वीरों का इतिहास: दलीप सिंह अहलावत, पृष्ठान्त-399

सेक्सन्स का बढ़ना कुछ समय के लिए रुक गया। परन्तु 577 ई० में डियोरहम की लड़ाई में सेक्सन्स ने केब्लिन के नेतृत्व में ब्रिटेन लोगों पर पूरी विजय प्राप्त कर ली तथा उनको अपना दास बनाए रखा। यह कामयाबी जूट्स (जाटों) की सहायता से हुई थी जिसके लिए सेक्सन्स ने उनसे मांग की थी1।

अब प्रश्न पैदा होता है कि उन जूट्स (जाटों) का क्या हुआ जिन्होंने हेंगिस्ट और होरसा के नेतृत्व में ब्रिटेन के एक बड़े क्षेत्र पर अधिकार कर लिया था और सेक्सन्स को सहायता देकर उनका ब्रिटेन पर अधिकार करवाया। इसका उत्तर यही हो सकता है कि ब्रिटिश इतिहासकारों ने इनके इतिहास को लिखने में पक्षपात किया है।

सेक्सन्स के बाद एंग्ल्स पहुंचे जो जूट्स और सेक्सन्स की तरह ही लड़ाके तथा लुटेरे थे। सन् 613 ई० में नार्थम्ब्रिया के एंग्ल राजा ने ब्रिटेन पर आक्रमण करके विजय प्राप्त की। इसके बाद इन्हीं एगल्स के नाम पर ब्रिटेन का नाम इंग्लैंड हो गया। ये एंगल्स लोग भी जाट थे जैसा कि पिछले पृष्ठों पर लिखा गया है। इंग्लैंड में रहने वालों को अंग्रेज कहा गया।

एंगल्स लोग संख्या में दूसरों से अधिक थे इसी कारण से ब्रिटेन को एंगल्स की भूमि एवं इंग्लैंड कहा गया। इस तरह से ब्रिटेन पर जूट्स, सेक्सन्स और एंगल्स का अधिकार हो गया। इसी को ब्रिटेन पर अंग्रेजों की जीत कहा जाता है। इन तीनों कबीलों ने अपने अलग-अलग राज्य स्थापित किए। जूट्स ने केण्ट (Kent); सैक्सन्स ने सस्सेक्स (Sussex), एस्सेक्स (Essex), वेसेक्स (Wessex) और एंगल्स ने ईस्ट एंगलिया (East Anglia), मर्शिया (Mercia) और नार्थम्ब्रिया (Northumbria) के राज्य स्थापित किये। ये सातों राज्य सामूहिक रूप से हेपटार्की कहलाते थे। परन्तु ये राज्य स्वतन्त्र नहीं थे। इन सातों में जो शक्तिशाली होता था वह दूसरों का शासक बन जाता था।

ऊपर कहे हुए तीनों कबीले संगठित नहीं थे। नॉरमनों ने जब तक इस देश को नहीं जीता, इंग्लैंड में शक्तिशाली केन्द्रीय राज्य की स्थापना नहीं हो सकी। इन कबीलों ने देश से क्रिश्चियन धर्म और रोमन सभ्यता को मिटा दिया। आधुनिक इंग्लैंड एंग्लो-सैक्सन्स का बनाया हुआ है। आधुनिक अंग्रेज किसी न किसी रूप में इंग्लो-सैक्सन्स के ही वंशज हैं।

अंग्रेज जाति की उत्पत्ति और बनावट के सम्बन्ध में दो प्रतिद्वन्द्वी सिद्धान्त हैं।

  1. पलग्रोव, पियरसन और सेछम आदि प्रवीण मनुष्य रोमन केल्टिक सिद्धान्त को मानते हैं। उनका यह विचार है कि आधुनिक इंग्लैंड में रोमन-केल्टिक रक्त और संस्थाएं मौजूद हैं।
  2. ग्रीन और स्टब्स जैसे दूसरे प्रवीन मनुष्य ट्यूटानिक सिद्धान्त को मानते हैं। उनका यह विचार है कि ट्यूटानिक अर्थात् जूट, एंगल, सैक्सन और डेन लोगों का रक्त और संस्थाएं बहुत कुछ आधुनिक इंग्लैंड में पाई जाती हैं। इन दोनों में से ट्यूटानिक सिद्धान्त अधिक माना जाता
1. आधार लेख - इंग्लैण्ड का इतिहास पृ० 16-17, लेखक प्रो० विशनदास; ए हिस्ट्री ऑफ ब्रिटेन पृ० 21-22, लेखक रामकुमार लूथरा; अनटिक्विटी ऑफ जाट रेस, पृ० 63-66, लेखक: उजागरसिंह माहिल; जाट्स दी ऐन्शन्ट रूलर्ज पृ० 86 लेखक: बी० एस० दहिया तथा जाट इतिहास अंग्रेजी पृ० 43, लेखक ले० रामसरूप जून।

जाट वीरों का इतिहास: दलीप सिंह अहलावत, पृष्ठान्त-400

है और आमतौर पर यह स्वीकार किया जाता है कि ब्रिटिश जाति मिले-जुले लोगों की जाति है। जिनमें ट्यूटानिक तत्त्व प्रधान है, जबकि केल्टिक तत्त्व भी पश्चिम में और आयरलैंड में बहुत कुछ बचा हुआ है1।

इसका सार यह है कि इंगलैंड द्वीपसमूह के मनुष्यों की रगों में आज भी अधिकतर जाट रक्त बह रहा है। क्योंकि केल्टिक आर्य लोग तथा जूट, एंगल, सैक्सन और डेन लोग जाटवंशज थे। आज भी वहां पर अनेक जाटगोत्रों के मनुष्य विद्यमान हैं जो कि धर्म से ईसाई हैं।

External links

References

  1. ↑ https://www.britannica.com/place/Mercia
  2. ↑ Brooks, N. (1989). "The formation of the Mercian kingdom". In Bassett, Steven (ed.). The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Leicester. p. 159.
  3. ↑ Stenton, F. M. (1970). "The Supremacy of the Mercian kings". In Stenton, D. M. (ed.). Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford. pp. 48–66.
  4. ↑ Thacker, Alan (2005). "England in the Seventh Century". In Fouracre, Paul (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. c.500–c.700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521362917. p.466
  5. ↑ Hunter Blair, Peter (1948). The Northumbrians and their Southern Frontier. Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series 26. pp. 119–121.
  6. ↑ Brooks, Nicholas. Anglo-Saxon myths: state and church, 400–1066.; Hill, D. (1981). Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford. map 136.; Hooke, Della (1986). Anglo-Saxon Territorial Organisation: The Western Margins of Mercia. Occasional Paper 22. University of Birmingham, Dept. of Geography. pp. 1–45.
  7. ↑ Kessler, P L. "Kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons - Iclingas & Mercians". www.historyfiles.co.uk.
  8. ↑ Starr, Brian Daniel (2007). Ancestral Secrets of Knighthood. BookSurge Publishing. p. 135. ISBN 978-1419680120.
  9. ↑ Jolliffe, J. E. A. The Constitutional History of Medieval England from the English Settlement to 1485 London 1961 p.32
  10. ↑ Thacker (2005), p. 465
  11. ↑ Thacker (2005), p. 466
  12. ↑ Evans, Geraint; Fulton, Helen (2019). The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107106765. p. 41.
  13. ↑ Sharon Turner, The history of the Anglo-Saxons from the earliest period to the Norman conquest, Volume 1 (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1841), p. 267
  14. ↑ Leahy, Kevin; Bland, Roger (2009). The Staffordshire Hoard, British Museum Press, pp. 4, 6
  15. ↑ Svante Fischer and Jean Soulat, The Typochronology of Sword Pommels from the Staffordshire Hoard, The Staffordshire Hoard Symposium (March 2010).
  16. ↑ "Huge Anglo-Saxon gold hoard found". News.bbc.co.uk. 24 September 2009.
  17. ↑ Davies, John (2007) [1993]. A History of Wales. London: Penguin. pp. 65–66.
  18. ↑ Camden, William (1610). "A Chronological description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland". London: George Bishop and John Norton.
  19. ↑ Yorke, Barbara (1990). Kings and kingdoms of early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Seaby. p. 122. ISBN 1-85264-027-8. OCLC 2640422
  20. ↑ Zaluckyj & Feryok, "Decline", pp. 238–239.
  21. ↑ Frank Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 254
  22. ↑ Miller, Sean (2004). "Ceolwulf II (fl. 874–879), king of the Mercians". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/39145.
  23. ↑ Stewart Lyon, The coinage of Edward the Elder, in N. J. Higham & D.H. Hill, Edward the Elder 899–924, London 2001, p. 67.
  24. ↑ Costambeys, Marios (2004). "Æthelflæd (Ethelfleda) (d. 918), ruler of the Mercians". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8907. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8.
  25. ↑ Costambeys, Marios (2004). "Æthelflæd (Ethelfleda) (d. 918), ruler of the Mercians". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8907. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8.
  26. ↑ Costambeys, Marios (2004). "Æthelflæd (Ethelfleda) (d. 918), ruler of the Mercians". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8907. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8.
  27. ↑ Foot, Sarah (2011). "Æthelstan (Athelstan) (893/4–939), king of England". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/833.
  28. ↑ "Knut's Invasion of England in 1015-16, according to the Knytlinga Saga". De Re Militari. Archived from the original on 26 September
  29. ↑ Williams, Ann (2004). "Ælfgar, earl of Mercia (d. 1062?)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/178. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8.
  30. ↑ Jat History Dalip Singh Ahlawat/Chapter IV, pp.399-401
Retrieved from "http://www.jatland.com/w/index.php?title=Mercia&oldid=552567"