The name Mul is very unusual and it has been postulated that it derives from the Latinmulus meaning mule, a word which is known to have entered the Old English vocabulary; presumably it was a nickname which became habitual.[1] Mul's father was Coenberht, making him a member of the House of Wessex (a descendant of Cynric) and his brother was Caedwalla of Wessex. Mul is described as briefly ruling as King of the Kingdom of Kent following its conquest by Caedwalla in 686. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that in 686, "Caedwalla and Mul, his brother, ravaged Kent and Wight." Mul's reign is also mentioned in a charter of the later king Swæfheard.[2]
Death
Mul seems to have only ruled a year before the local population rose up in revolt against him in 687, chasing him and his followers into a building near the local church and setting it on fire, burning them to death.[3] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that "Mul was burned in Kent, and 12 other men with him; and that year Caedwalla again ravaged Kent." The same Chronicle notes that in 694 the people of Kent came to terms with Ine of Wessex, Caedwalla's successor, and granted him a sum "because they had burned Mul earlier".
^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.
