Ludeca or Ludica (died 827) was the King of Mercia from 826 to 827.[1] He became king after the death of Beornwulf in battle against the rebellious East Angles, but he too was killed in another failed attempt to subjugate them in the following year.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply states that Ludeca "was slain, and his five Ealdormen with him", but Florence of Worcester (who, incidentally, carries the same two-year error as the earlier 'Chronicles' - both place this event in 825 instead of 827) fleshes out the story: "Ludecan, king of the Mercians, mustered his forces and led an army into the province of the East Angles, for the purpose of taking vengeance for the death of king Beornulf, his predecessor. He was quickly met by the natives and their king, who in a severe battle slew him and five of his Ealdormen, and very many of his troops, and put to flight the remainder. Wiglaf succeeded to his splendid kingdom."
Prior to Ludeca's rule, he was mentioned in two charters from 824 as a dux under Beornwulf. The Fitzwilliam Museum also holds a silver penny minted during Ludeca's reign, thought to have been minted at Ipswich by a moneyer named Wærbeald.
In 2016, a coin establishing Ludeca's rule over London in 826 was found. Prior to the discovery, it had been thought that Wessex took London from the Mercians at the Battle of Ellandun in 825.[2]
^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.
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