Anna of East Anglia Anna ( or Onna ; killed 653 or 654 ) was king of East Anglia from the early 640s until his death . He was a member of the Wuffingas family , the ruling dynasty of the East Angles and was one of the three sons of Eni who ruled the kingdom of East Anglia , succeeding some time after Ecgric was killed in battle by Penda of Mercia . He was praised by Bede for his devotion to Christianity and was renowned for the saintliness of his family : his son Jurmin and all his daughters – Seaxburh , Æthelthryth , Æthelburh and possibly a fourth , Wihtburh – were canonised . Little is known of Anna ' s life or his reign , as few records have survived from this period . In 631 he may have been at Exning , close to the Devil ' s Dyke . In 645 Cenwalh of Wessex was driven from his kingdom by Penda and , due to Anna ' s influence , he was converted to Christianity while living as an exile at the East Anglian court . Upon his return from exile , Cenwalh re - established Christianity in his own kingdom and the people of Wessex then remained firmly Christian . Around 651 the land around Ely was absorbed into East Anglia , following the marriage of Anna ' s daughter Æthelthryth . Anna richly endowed the monastery at Cnobheresburg . In 651 , in the aftermath of an attack by Penda on Cnobheresburg , Anna was forced to flee into exile , perhaps to the western kingdom of the Magonsæte . He returned to East Anglia in about 653 , but soon afterwards the kingdom was attacked again by Penda and at the Battle of Bulcamp the East Anglian army , led by Anna , was defeated by the Mercians , and Anna and his son Jurmin were both killed . Anna was succeeded by his brother , Æthelhere . Botolph ' s monastery at Iken may have been built in commemoration of the king . After Anna ' s reign , East Anglia seems to have been eclipsed by its more powerful neighbour , Mercia . Sources . The kingdom of East Anglia ( ) was a small independent Anglo - Saxon kingdom that comprised what are now the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and perhaps the eastern part of the Cambridgeshire Fens . In contrast to the kingdoms of Northumbria , Mercia and Wessex , little reliable evidence about the kingdom of the East Angles has survived , because of the destruction of its monasteries and the disappearance of the two East Anglian sees that occurred as the result of Viking raids and settlement . The main primary sources for information about Anna ' s life and reign are the " Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum " ( " Ecclesiastical History of the English People " ) , completed in Northumbria by Bede in 731 , and the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " , initially written in the ninth century , which mentions Anna ' s death . The mediaeval work known as the " Liber Eliensis " , written in Ely in the twelfth century , is a source of information about Anna ' s daughters Æthelthryth and Seaxburh , and also describes Anna ' s death and burial . Early life and marriage . Anna was the son of Eni , a member of the ruling Wuffingas family , and nephew of Rædwald , king of the East Angles from 600 to 625 . East Anglia was an early and long - lived Anglo - Saxon kingdom in which a duality of a northern and a southern part existed , corresponding with the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk . Anna was married , according to Bede , who refers to the saint Sæthryth as " daughter of the wife of Anna , king of the East Angles " . In Abbott Folcard ' s " Life of St Botolph " , written in the 11th century , Botolph is described as having been at one time the chaplain to the sisters of a king , Æthelmund , whose mother was named Sæwara . Folcard names two of Sæwara ' s kinsmen as Æthelhere and Æthelwold . Since these are the names of two of Anna ' s brothers , Steven Plunkett suggests that it is " tempting " to consider that Sæwara was married to Anna , and that Æthelmund might either be Anna ' s full name , or the name of an otherwise unknown East Anglian sub - king . The " Liber Eliensis " names Hereswith , the sister of Hild , abbess of Whitby , as Anna ' s wife and the mother of Sæthryth , Seaxburh of Ely and Æthelthryth . However , the " Liber Eliensis " is regarded with caution by historians : Rosalind Love says that the mediaeval writers who interpreted Bede ' s information about Hereswith made an " erroneous assumption " regarding her connection with Anna and his family . Historians now believe that Hereswith was Anna ' s sister - in - law and that around the time that she married into the East Anglian royal family , Anna had already been king for a decade . In 631 Anna was probably at the Suffolk village of Exning , an important settlement with royal connections , and , according to the " Liber Eliensis " , the birthplace of his daughter Æthelthryth . By tradition , Æthelthryth is said to have been baptised at Exning in a pool known as St Mindred ' s Well . Exning was an important place strategically , as it stood just on the East Anglian side of the Devil ' s Dyke , a major earthwork stretching between the Fen edge and the headwaters of the River Stour , built at an earlier date to defend the East Anglian region from attack . An early Anglo - Saxon cemetery discovered there suggests the existence of an important site nearby , possibly a royal estate or regio . King of the East Angles . Accession and rule . During 632 or 633 Edwin of Northumbria , with his centre of Christian power north of the River Humber , was overthrown . Edwin was slain and Northumbria was ravaged by Cadwallon ap Cadfan , supported by the Mercian king , Penda . The Mercians then turned on the kingdom of the East Angles and their king , Ecgric . At an unknown date ( possibly in the early 640s ) , they routed the East Anglian army and Ecgric and his predecessor Sigeberht were both slain . D . P . Kirby has suggested that as Sigeberht was alive when the Irish monk Fursey left for Gaul and found Erchinoald , ( which happened after Erchinoald became Mayor of the Neustrian palace in 641 ) , Sigeberht was probably killed around 640 or 641 . Penda ' s victory marked the end of the line of kings of the East Angles who were directly descended from Rædwald . Some time after Penda ' s victory , Anna became king of the East Angles , though the date of his accession is quite uncertain . The " Liber Eliensis " says that Anna died in the nineteenth year of his reign , and since he died in the mid - 650s this would indicate a date around 635 . However , the " Liber Eliensis " is regarded by some historians as unreliable on this point , and Barbara Yorke suggests a possible date in the early 640s for Anna ' s accession , noting that it could not have been after 645 as Anna is recorded as giving refuge to Cenwalh of Wessex in that year . It is probable that Anna became king with the assistance of the northern Angles . Throughout his reign he was the victim of Mercian aggression under Penda , but he also seems to have challenged the rise of Penda ' s power . The British medievalist David Dumville has written that due to their rivalry for control over the Middle Anglian people , Mercia and East Anglia probably became hereditary enemies and Penda repeatedly attacked the East Angles from the mid - 630s to 654 . Anna arranged an important diplomatic marriage between his daughter Seaxburh and Eorcenberht of Kent , cementing an alliance between the two kingdoms . It was by means of marriages such as this that the kings of Kent could become well - connected to other royal dynasties . Not all of Anna ' s daughters were married into other royal families . During the 640s Anna ' s daughter Æthelburg and his stepdaughter Sæthryth entered Faremoutiers Abbey in Gaul to live religious lives under abbess Fara . The first royal Anglo - Saxons to become nuns , they made religious seclusion " an acceptable and desirable vocation for ex - queens and royal princesses " , according to Barbara Yorke . D . P . Kirby uses the presence of East Anglian princesses living under the veil in Gaul as evidence of the Frankish orientation of Anna ' s kingdom at this time , continued since the reign of his predecessor Rædwald . The Wuffingas dynasty may have been connected with monastic foundations in the area around Faramoutiers through Anna ' s predecessor Sigeberht , who had spent several years as an exile in Gaul and had become a devout and learned Christian due to his experiences of monastic life . In 641 Oswald of Northumbria was slain in battle by Penda ( probably at Oswestry in Shropshire ) . Due to his death , Northumbria was split into two . The northern part , Bernicia , accepted Oswald ' s brother Oswiu as their new king , but the southern Deira ns refused to accept him and were ruled instead by a king of the original Deiran house , Oswine . Soon afterwards Cenwalh of Wessex , the brother of Oswald ' s widow and himself married to Penda ' s sister , renounced his wife . In 645 , according to the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " , Penda drove Cenwalh from his kingdom and into exile . During the following year , while a refugee at Anna ' s court , he was converted to Christianity , returning in 648 to rule Wessex as a Christian king . Anna probably provided military support for Cenwalh ' s return to his throne . Anna ' s hold on the western limits of his kingdom , which bordered on the Fen lands that surrounded the Isle of Ely , was strengthened by the marriage in 651 ( or slightly later ) of his daughter Æthelthryth to Tondberht , a prince of the South Gyrwe , a people living in the fens who may have been settled in the area around Ely . Æthelthryth , accompanied by her minister Owine , travelled from Ely to Northumbria when she married for the second time , to Ecgfrith . Exile . During his reign Anna endowed the monastery at Cnobheresburg with rich buildings and objects . The monastery was built in about 633 by Fursey after he arrived in East Anglia . In time , weary of attacks on the kingdom , Fursey left East Anglia for good , leaving the monastery to his brother Foillan . When in 651 Penda attacked the monastery , Anna and his men arrived and held the Mercians back . This gave Foillan and his monks enough time to escape with their books and valuables , but Penda defeated Anna and drove him into exile , possibly to the kingdom of Merewalh of the Magonsætan , in western Shropshire . He returned to East Anglia in about 654 . Death , burial place and successors . Soon after 653 , when Penda made his son Peada the ruler of the Middle Angles ( but still continued to rule his own country ) , the Mercian assault on East Anglia was repeated . The opposing armies of Penda and Anna met at Bulcamp , near Blythburgh in Suffolk . The East Anglians were defeated and many were slain , including King Anna and his son Jurmin . Anna ' s death is mentioned in the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " in the entry for 653 or 654 , " " Her Anna cining werð ofslagen . . . " " – ' Here Anna was killed ' – but no other details of the battle in which he died are given . Blythburgh , a mile from Bulcamp and situated near the fordable headwaters of the Blyth estuary , was afterwards believed to be the location of the tombs of Anna and Jurmin . It is a candidate for a monastic site or a royal regio ( estate ) . According to Peter Warner , the Latin derivation of part of the nearby place - name ' Bulcamp ' indicates its ancient origins , and mediaeval sources which claim continuous Christian worship at Blythburgh throughout the Anglo - Saxon period provide circumstantial evidence of its connections with East Anglian royalty and Christianity . Part of an 8th - century whalebone diptych or writing - tablet , used for liturgical purposes , has been found near the site . Saint Botolph began to build his monastery at Icanho , now conclusively identified as Iken , Suffolk , in the year that Anna was killed , possibly to commemorate the king . Anna was succeeded in turn by his two brothers Æthelhere and Æthelwold , who may have ruled jointly . It is possible that Æthelhere was set up as a puppet ruler by Penda or was his ally , as he was one of the 30 " duces " that accompanied Penda when he attacked Oswiu of Northumbria at an unidentified location called the Winwæd in 655 or 656 . Penda himself was killed at the Winwæd , after having steadily increased his power over a period of 13 years . Æthelhere ( who was also slain at the Battle of the Winwæd ) and Æthelwold were succeeded by the descendants of Anna ' s youngest brother , Æthelric . Bede praised Anna ' s piety in his " Ecclesiastical History of the English People " , and modern historians have since regarded Anna as a devout king , but his reputation as a devoted Christian is mainly because he produced a son and four daughters who were all made into Anglo - Saxon saints . Five hundred years after his death , his tomb at Blythburgh was ( according to the " Liber Eliensis " ) still " venerated by the pious devotion of faithful people " . Descendants . Anna ' s children were all canonised . The eldest , Seaxburh , was the wife of Eorcenberht of Kent , who from 664 , until her son Ecgberht came of age , ruled Kent . Her sister Æthelthryth , according to the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " , founded the monastery at Ely in 673 . Another daughter , Æthelburh , spent her life at the nunnery of Faremoutiers . Anna ' s son , Jurmin , was of warrior age in 653 when he was killed in battle . By tradition , Anna is said to have had a fourth daughter , Wihtburh , an abbess at Dereham ( or possibly West Dereham ) , where there was a royal double monastery . She may never have existed : Bede fails to mention her and she first appears in a calendar in the late 10th century " Bosworth Psalter " . She may have been a character specifically created by the religious community at Ely , where her remains were supposed to have been taken after being stolen from Dereham and subsequently used as visual proof of the incorruptibility of a saint ' s body , a substitute for her sister Æthelthryth , whose body had to remain unexamined in her tomb . Manuscript F of the " Anglo - Saxon Chronicle " , which dates from about 1100 , mentions Wihtburh ' s death when it records that her body was found uncorrupted in 798 , 55 years after she died . The resulting date for her death of 743 is too far too late for her to have been a sister of Æthelthryth , who was born in 636 .