She is also called Queen of the Gewisse, an early name for the tribe which ruled Wessex.
However, Bede said that after the death of Cenwalh, "sub-kings took upon themselves the government of the kingdom", so the chroniclers may have tidied up a complicated situation.
[4][5] 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 Mercian king Penda.
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.
[6] Seaxburh was succeeded in about 674 by Æscwine, a descendant of Cenwalh's great-uncle Ceolwulf of Wessex.