Hussa was the seventh known ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia, ruling for seven years from about 585 to about 592.
Though his succession has led some to conclude that Hussa was another son of Ida, founder of the kingdom of Bernicia, he is not among the list of Ida's twelve sons given by Chronicon ex chronicis, and he may rather have been leader of a rival Anglian faction. Little is known of Hussa's life and reign, however. At some point during his reign, the coalition forces of Rheged and the Brythonic kingdoms of Strathclyde, Bernicia and Elmet laid siege to Hussa and were almost successful in driving the Anglian Bernician kings out of Britain. It is thought this alliance ultimately failed due to arguments between the different British tribes culminating in the murder of Urien, the king of Rheghed, around 590 by his former ally, Morcant.[1]
The years of Hussa's reign are conjecture: the earliest authorities differ widely on the order and the regnal years of the kings between the death of Ida and the beginning of Æthelfrith's rule in 592/593. Historia Brittonum says that Hussa ruled for seven years, and while the dates of 585 to 592 have been estimated they are uncertain. Hussa's exact place in the Bernician genealogy is unclear.[2]
Notes
^Brian Hope-Taylor, Yeavering: an Anglo-British centre of early Northumbria (1977), pp. 292-293
^John Ashton Cannon, Anne Hargreaves, The Kings & Queens of Britain (2009), p. 51
^Downham, Clare (2007), Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014, Edinburgh: Dunedin, ISBN 978-1-903765-89-0, OCLC163618313
^Woolf, Alex (2007), From Pictland to Alba, 789–1070, The New Edinburgh History of Scotland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0-7486-1234-5, OCLC123113911
^Zaluckyj, Sarah & Feryok, Marge. Mercia: The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Central England (2001) ISBN 1-873827-62-8
^Barbara Yorke (1995), Wessex in the early Middle Ages, A & C Black, ISBN 071851856X; pp 79-83; table p. 81
^Keynes, Simon (2014). "Appendix I: Rulers of the English, c.450–1066". In Lapidge, Michael (ed.). The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-65632-7.
^Kirby, D. P. The Earliest English Kings. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-4152-4211-0.
^Lapidge, M.; et al., eds. (1999). "Kings of the East Angles". The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. London: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-6312-2492-1.
^Searle, W. G. 1899. Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings and Nobles.
^Yorke, B. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England.
^Carpenter, Clive. Kings, Rulers and Statesmen. Guinness Superlatives, Ltd.
^Ross, Martha. Rulers and Governments of the World, Vol. 1. Earliest Times to 1491.