Gregory of Tours records that the marriage of Æthelberht to a Frankish princess, Bertha, took place while he was filius regis (the son of the king), most likely during the reign of his father, whom the genealogies name Eormenric. Therefore, Eormenric can be regarded as the first historical King of Kent. As the date of the marriage is not known, Eormenric's reign cannot be dated. Bede placed his death in 560, but since his son's wife was not even born at that time, it seems unlikely. Rather, Gregory implies that Æthelberht's father was still reigning as of his writing (589).
Eormenric's Frankish connection goes deeper than his daughter-in-law. The first component of his name Eormen- was uncommon in England at the time, but common in Francia. Both Eormen- and -ric were used repeatedly in naming by the Oiscingas thereafter.
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^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.
