Anna was praised by Bede for his devotion to Christianity and was renowned for the saintliness of his family: his son Jurmin and all his daughters – Seaxburh, Æthelthryth, Æthelburh and possibly a fourth, Wihtburh – were canonised.

In 645 Cenwalh of Wessex was driven from his kingdom by Penda and, due to Anna's influence, he was converted to Christianity while living as an exile at the East Anglian court.

The mediaeval work known as the Liber Eliensis, written in Ely in the twelfth century, is a source of information about Anna's daughters, and also describes his death and burial.

[3] Anna was the son of Eni, a member of the ruling Wuffingas family, and nephew of Rædwald, king of the East Angles from 600 to 625.

[4] East Anglia was an early and long-lived Anglo-Saxon kingdom in which a duality of a northern and a southern part existed, corresponding with the modern English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

[7] The Liber Eliensis, on the other hand, names Hereswith, the sister of Hild, abbess of Whitby, as Anna's wife and the mother of Sæthryth, Seaxburh of Ely and Æthelthryth.

[4][9] Bede is clear that Hereswith had left East Anglia as a widow before Hild visited the kingdom, at which time Anna was very much alive.

[10] In 631 Anna was probably at the Suffolk village of Exning, an important settlement with royal connections,[11] and, according to the Liber Eliensis, the birthplace of his daughter Æthelthryth.

An early Anglo-Saxon cemetery discovered there suggests the existence of an important site nearby, possibly a royal estate or regio.

At an unknown date (possibly in the early 640s),[16] they routed the East Anglian army and Ecgric and his predecessor Sigeberht were both slain.

[26] Anna arranged an important diplomatic marriage between his daughter Seaxburh and Eorcenberht of Kent, cementing an alliance between the two kingdoms.

[note 2] D. P. Kirby uses the presence of East Anglian princesses living under the veil in Gaul as evidence of the Frankish orientation of Anna's kingdom at this time, continued since the reign of his predecessor Rædwald.

In time, weary of attacks on the kingdom, Fursey left East Anglia for good, leaving the monastery to his brother Foillan.

This gave Foillan and his monks enough time to escape with their books and valuables, but Penda defeated Anna and drove him into exile, possibly to the kingdom of Merewalh of the Magonsætan, in western Shropshire.

[41] Soon after 653, when Penda made his son Peada the ruler of the Middle Angles (but still continued to rule his own country),[42] the Mercian assault on East Anglia was repeated.

[43][note 4] Blythburgh, a mile from Bulcamp and situated near the fordable headwaters of the Blyth estuary, was afterwards believed to be the location of the tombs of Anna and Jurmin.

[46] Saint Botolph began to build his monastery at Icanho, now conclusively identified as Iken, Suffolk,[47] in the year that Anna was killed, possibly to commemorate the king.

[58] Manuscript F of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which dates from about 1100, mentions Wihtburh's death when it records that her body was found uncorrupted in 798, 55 years after she died.