726. Ine of Wessex retires, goes to Rome
Æthelheard succeeds to the West Saxons; fights rival claimant Oswald
Bede records that at the end of his rule of the West Saxons, Ine went to Rome to spend some time as a pilgrim there before he died (HE, v.7). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Æthelheard succeeded; his relationship to Ine is not known, though some manuscripts note that he was a kinsman. The Chronicle continues that Æthelheard had almost at once to fight the ætheling Oswald, presumably a rival claimant, whose descent is given as the son of Æthelbald, son of Cynebald, son of Cuthwine, son of Ceawlin. (This puts him in the same generation as Cædwalla and Ine's father Cenred, but the nearest common ancestor is Ceawlin's son Cuthwine.) The Chronicle records Oswald's death in 730.
The similarity of name between Æthelheard and Ine's queen Æthelburh opens the possibility that Æthelheard was one of Æthelburh's siblings, and only kin to Ine by marriage. But the name element Æthel- is too common for this to be asserted without other evidence. Æthelheard is the first of five kings (the others are Cuthred, Sigeberht, Cynewulf, and Beorhtric) who hold the kingship of the West Saxons until 802 but do not seem to be related to the main West Saxon royal line (or indeed to each other), though descent from Cerdic is claimed for all of them. (See table at Yorke, p.134).
It seems that without the check provided by the strong kings Ine of Wessex and Wihtred of Kent, and with a strong king Æthelbald installed in Mercia, it was not long before Bede could say that all the Southumbrian kingdoms (including the West Saxons) were subject to Æthelbald of Mercia in 731 (HE, v.23). There are hints of this in other sources: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle notes that Æthelbald occupied Somerton in Somerset in 733, and in the 720s or 730s, Æthelheard of Wessex witnesses one of the charters of Æthelbald of Mercia with the note that it is while he was on an expedition against the Welsh across the Severn (S 93). Some parts of this charter cannot be accepted as genuine, but the witness-list is probably acceptable, and gives the impression that Æthelheard was acting as the subordinate of Æthelbald of Mercia (see further Kirby, p.133, and Kelly, Abingdon, on S 93). Æthelheard died in 740. He was probably married to the Queen Frithugyth who went to Rome in 737 according to the Chronicle (see Kelly, St Augustine's, p.37, for notes on the charters which link Æthelheard and Frithugyth).
D. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London: 1991)
S. Kelly, Charters of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and Minster-in-Thanet (Oxford: 1995)
S. Kelly, Charters of Abingdon (Oxford: forthcoming)
B. Yorke, Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England (London: 1990)