735 - 796

Offa succeeded Ethelbald in 757 as King of Mercia. Ethelbald had been murdered by his own thanes at Seckington, after they had lost a battle to the West Saxons. Ethelbald, who had built Wat`s Dyke, had established Mercian supremacy over the southern kingdoms, but these were lost to Offa when a rival claimant for the Mercian throne, Beornred, fought him, and in the strife that followed, these territories were taken back. Offa vowed to regain them however, and during his reign which was nearly as long as that of his predecessor, he did so, and made Tamworth the capital of Mercia and of a nearly-united England. In the 770s when Offa`s power was greatest, he was acknowledged as Bretwalda Rex Anglorum, Overlord of all the Kings of England. He negotiated with Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor. In 796, one of the first trade agreement between the two countries was signed, and goods were imported and exported through of the Port of London. Offa imported “black coals” or as some think, black basalt or marble, perhaps for his palaces, including the one he had built at Tamworth which was the “admiration and wonder of the age”.