A hunted noble burying his legacy? A bandit hiding loot while fleeing from the sheriff? A trunk falling off a royal’s carriage and being found by a peasant? Rebels? Invader?
Speculation is so much fun.
I was just about to post something along those lines. I don’t know but assume this hoard had to be royalty (either stolen from them or buried by them), which leads to question of if any Mercian kings and heirs were killed suddenly inthe 7th century (is this even known for sure?). If not, then this being stolen from same and buried by one who would not return to get it seems possible too. It would be nice to have some perspective on what the value of 5kg of spectacularly worked gold etc and all the other stuff was worth in early saxon england. How much would an entire kingdom (mercia, say) be worth then?
http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/interview/
This narrows down possible origins of this hoard a great deal, lots of info on the site.