Seaxburh (died c. 674) was a queen of

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

. She is also called Queen of the

Gewisse The Gewisse ( ; la, Geuissæ) were a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, historically assumed to have been based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester on Thames (but may have actually originated near Old Sarum in Wiltshire). The Gewis ...

, an early name for the tribe which ruled Wessex. She is said to have ruled Wessex for between one and two years after the death of her husband,

Cenwalh Cenwalh, also Cenwealh or Coenwalh, was King of Wessex from c. 642 to c. 645 and from c. 648 until his death, according to the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', in c. 672. Penda and Anna Bede states that Cenwalh was the son of the King Cynegils bapt ...

, in 672. Her accession to the throne is documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for that year which states that 'This year king Kenwalk died, and Sexburga his queen reigned one year after him'. It was extremely rare for a woman to rule in her own right in

Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom o ...

, and she was one of the only women to appear in a regnal list. She may have ruled for over a year, as the next reign is entered in the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...

'' in 674. However,

Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...

said that after death of Cenwalh "sub-kings took upon themselves the government of the kingdom", so the chroniclers may have tidied up a complicated situation. Writing decades after Cenwalh's life, when Bede lists Cenwalh's accession, he mentions Seaxburh as the unnamed second wife whom the king married after he had cast away his first wife, who was the sister of the

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...

n king

Penda Penda (died 15 November 655)Manuscript A of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' gives the year as 655. Bede also gives the year as 655 and specifies a date, 15 November. R. L. Poole (''Studies in Chronology and History'', 1934) put forward the theor ...

. It has been suggested that Bede deliberately omitted mention of Seaxburh because he viewed her marriage to Cenwalh, and therefore her right to the throne, as illegitimate. Seaxburh was succeeded in about 674 by Æscwine, a descendant of Cenwalh's great-uncle

Ceolwulf of Wessex Ceolwulf (died 611) was a King of Wessex. At that early date the West Saxons were called the Gewisse, and in his '' Dictionary of National Biography'' entry he is given the title "king of the Gewisse". According to the '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' ...

.Rulers of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref>

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* 670s deaths West Saxon monarchs Queens regnant in the British Isles 7th-century English women 7th-century English people 7th-century women rulers 7th-century English monarchs Year of birth unknown House of Wessex {{UK-royal-stub

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