Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Selred

by William Hunt

SELRED or SÆLRÆD (d. 746), king of the East-Saxons, son of King Sigebert the Good, succeeded Offa (fl. 709) [q. v.] in or about 709, when Offa departed on his pilgrimage. Selred was slain in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, which would be 746 (as in A.-S. Chron.) He was succeeded by his son Swithæd. Bishop Stubbs suggests that until 738 he may have reigned conjointly with a king called Swebriht (d. 738) (Symeon, ii. 32). It has been held that Selred was king of East-Anglia and not of Essex (see Chron. of Melrose, an. 747), but this opinion must be rejected as contrary to the earliest authority, the genealogies of the kings (Stubbs).

[Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 629, 637; Will. of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, i. c. 98 (Rolls Ser.); Dict. Chr. Biogr. art. ‘Selred,’ by Bishop Stubbs; authorities in text.]

W. H.