Anglo Saxon Kings of Northumbria

The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria was originally just a coastal strip on the North-east coast of Britain. Between the sixth and eighth centuries it expanded until it stretched from the east coast to the west coast, and from the River Humber to the Firth of Forth. Northumbria was made up of two seperate kingdoms, Diera in the south and Bernicia in the north. Sometimes these kingdoms were ruled by two seperate kings, sometimes by one. This division also led to many civil wars in Northumbria. Northumbria suffered heavily in the Viking invasions, and the Kingdom of Diera formed the nucleus of Viking Northumbria.

The following lists the Kings of Northumbria as a whole. During a period when Deira was seperate (such as 642-654), Northumbria is taken sa being Bernicia as it was always the centre of the Kingdom.

The list ends with Egberrt II, as after this England was ruled as a whole, and the ruler of Northumbria was more of an Earl rather than a King.

Ida Flambearer (c. 547-560)

Ida was the first recorded King of Bernicia, the northern half of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Bede states that he ruled from 547 for twelve years. Northern annalists add that his power was based at Bamburgh on the coast of Northumberland. Traditions preserved by Nennius of fighting between the sons of Ida and the northern Britons in the late sixth century also suggest that at that date Bernician rule did not extend far inland. The extreme scarcity of archaeological finds of Anglian type and sixth-century date from inland sites is consistent with this. It was Æthelfrith, grandson of Ida, who first significantly extended Bernician power westwards to the hinterland.

Ælle was the first recorded King of Deira, the southern half of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. According to Northumbrian tradition reported independently by Bede and by the anonymous author of the 'Whitby' life of Pope Gregory, it was during the reign of Ælle that Gregory encountered Deiran boys for sale in the slave-market at Rome and was thereby moved to excruciating puns ('Not Angles but angels') and missionary endeavour. Whether the story is true or not, it is of some interest to the economic historian. It is significant that early eighth-century commentators such as Bede thought that there was nothing surprising about the presence of Anglo-Saxon slaves for sale in a Mediterranean city. This is only one of several surviving pieces of evidence which suggest that slaves were an important commodity of trade in early Anglo-Saxon England.

Æthelfrith, grandson of Ida of Bernicia, was King of Northumbria from 593 to 616 and the first ruler significantly to extend Anglian power in northern Britain westwards from its original bases on the eastern coastline. Bede remembered him as 'a very strong king and most eager for glory, who harried the Britons more than any other English ruler.' It was probably he who shattered a British army at Catterick about the year 600, a defeat mourned in the British poem Gododdin. It was certainly he who defeated the army of Aedan, King of the Irish-Scottish kingdom of Dalriada, at the unidentified place Degsastan in 603, and some ten years later was victorious over a British army from Wales near Chester.

These victories did not necessarily result in any permanent gains of territory west of the Pennines: tribute and plunder, slaves and livestock probably mattered more than land to an early Anglo- Saxon warlord. While it is likely that Anglian settlement east of the Pennines, between the Humber and the Tweed, thickened during Æthelfrith's lifetime, there is every probability that his expanding kingdom embraced many communities of British stock. Early Northumbrian institutions, in so far as they can be discerned through the medium of later evidence, have an Anglo-Celtic look rather than a purely Germanic one. Northumbria may not have been unusual in this respect. Historians today are more ready than they used to be to allow for a degree of British survival and continuity in such matters as settlement patterns and agrarian organisation.

At some stage of his reign Æthelfrith managed to extend his power over the southern Northumbrian kingdom of Deira. Nothing is known of the circumstances in which this occurred, though we do know that he married a daughter of King Ælle of Deira. We also know that other members of the Deiran dynasty, notably Edwin, were scattered in exile. Edwin spent the latter part of his exile at the court of Rædwald, King of the East Angles. It was in battle with Rædwald's army that Æthelfrith was defeated and killed in 616, as a result of which Edwin became King of Northumbria.

Edwin was the son of Ælle of Deira, King of all Northumbria from 616 to 633, and its first Christian ruler. Bede says of Edwin that not only was he the fifth English King to exercise overlordship over other Anglo-Saxon rulers but also that his power extended further than any English king before him. 'He ruled over all the inhabitants of Britain, English and Britons alike, saving only the people of Kent, and also subjected Anglesey and Man to English rule.' This is a grandiose claim, but Bede was a sober scholar who was careful in his choice of words. One of Edwin's residences, not necessarily an important one, has been excavated at Yeavering in Northumberland. In size, construction and perhaps (though this has to be conjectural) in fittings and decoration too, the great hall of Yeavering was a fit setting for a ruler whose sway extended from Berwickshire to Cornwall, from London to Holyhead. No doubt the king who kept court there was arrayed as splendidly as his contemporary Rædwald of East Anglia.

Yeavering and Sutton Hoo conjure up a world of raids and warfare, plunder and tribute. They are as 'barbaric', as has often been pointed out, as the world of the Old English epic Beowulf. But another aspect of Edwin reveals him keeping state in the Roman city of York, quite possibly in the pretorian building of the Roman fortress which was still standing in good repair in his day, as recent excavations beneath York Minster have shown. Edwin spent most of his childhood and early manhood in exile, a refugee from the long and bloody reach of Æthelfrith. Part of this exile was spent at the court of a Christian prince of north Wales; part at that of Rædwald, where he may have met the missionary Paulinus. He married a Christian princess from Kent, and during his reign incorporated into his own kingdom the Christian principality of Elmet. Like Æthelbert of Kent a generation earlier, Edwin knew something of Christianity before it was formally preached to him in Northumbria by Paulinus.

Bede's account of Edwin's conversion is elaborate; carefully designed to teach lessons and to move; a great set-piece about a royal conversion which owes something to the account of the conversion of Clovis by Gregory of Tours, though it has greater literary artistry. Though Bede's account presents some chronological problems, what is certain is that Edwin was baptised at York on 12 April 627. Like Æthelbert, again, he showed himself an enthusiastic convert. He established a bishopric for Paulinus at York and started to build a stone church there. He assisted Paulinus in his work of evangelisation in Northumbria and in the kingdom of Lindsey (roughly, Lincolnshire) which was then subject to him. It was also through Edwin's influence that Eorpwald, King of East Anglia, the son of Rædwald, was converted in about 628.

Edwin's supremacy was as short-lived as that of any other seventh-century Anglo-Saxon king. In 633 Cadwalla of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia rebelled against him. Edwin was defeated and killed at Hatfield Chase, near Doncaster.

Oswald was the son of King Æthelfrith and King of Northumbria from 634 to 642. During the reign of Edwin he lived in exile among the Irish and the Picts. In the course of this exile he was converted to Christianity through the agency of the Irish-Scottish churchmen of Columba's monastery of Iona. In 634 he returned to Northumbria and defeated and killed Edwin's slayer, Cadwalla of Gwynedd, near Hexham.

According to Bede, Oswald exercised an overlordship even more extensive than Edwin's. To the peoples under Edwin's sway he added lordship over the Irish settled in western Scotland and over the Picts. His authority in Wessex is indicated by his co-operation in the establishment there of Bishop Birinus in about 635. But Bede presented Oswald as much more than just a powerful king. He was 'beloved by God', a saint as well as a king, the model of what a Christian ruler should be. Not only was he active in the spreading of the faith - for example, by bringing Aidan to Northumbria - but he was notable also for his exercise of Christian virtues, humility, charity, piety. He won victories under the sign of the cross. It was because he was so good a Christian, Bede seems to urge (no doubt with an eye to the somewhat less than godly kings of his own day), that he was so great a king. Bede could present his death in battle at the hands of Penda, probably near Oswestry in Shropshire, as a kind of martyrdom.

After his death his cult was promoted partly under the influence of Wilfrid, partly through the actions of king Oswiu of Northumbria and his daughter Osthryth. The cult mattered to the family: a royal saint could shed lustre on a dynasty. Oswald's miracle-working relics became a focus of eager interest. His head was buried at Lindisfarne; the skull found inside the coffin of St. Cuthbert when it was opened in 1827 was probably his. His hands and arms were buried at the royal residence of Bamburgh. The rest of his body was laid in a shrine at the monastery of Bardney in Lincolnshire. Early in the tenth century the Bardney relics were removed to Gloucester by Æthelflæd, the daughter of King Alfred, where the church of St. Oswald which she built in the saint's honour has recently been excavated. Meanwhile the cult of Oswald had been exported to the Continent by English missionary churchmen such as Willibrord. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond Oswald remained a popular saint in Germany and Italy.

Oswiu was the son of King Æthelfrith and King of Northumbria from 642 to 670. According to Bede, Oswiu was the seventh Anglo-Saxon ruler to exercise overlordship: like his brother Oswald he held sway over English, Britons, Picts and Irish-Scottish. It was a supremacy for which, like other seventh-century kings, Oswiu had to fight hard, not only against neighbours like Penda of Mercia whom he defeated and killed in 655, but also against princes of his own Northumbrian dynasty. In 651 he was guilty of what Bede called the shameful murder of Oswin of Deira at Gilling, where he subsequently founded a monastery in expiation for his crime in which Ceolfrith first experienced the monastic life. Oswiu founded several other monasteries, notably Whitby in 657. Whitby was closely associated with the Northumbrian royal family: its first abbess was a Northumbrian princess, Hilda; it served as a royal mausoleum - the body of King Edwin was removed there; and in 664 it was the meeting-place of the council under Oswiu's presidency at which the issues between Roman and Irish churchmen which had troubled Northumbria since the time of Aidan were debated and resolved in favour of Rome. Oswiu's Roman allegiance was pleasing to Bede, who tells us that the King had intended to lay aside his kingdom and travel to Rome, accompanied by Wilfrid, there to end his days; though his death in 670 prevented this. Bede also approved of Oswiu's active propagation of Christianity. The King was instrumental in the conversion of Sigebert, ruler of the East Saxons, and of Peada, the son of Penda of Mercia; he took counsel with the King of Kent about the appointment of an archbishop of Canterbury. But in the last resort Bede had his reservations. Careful as always in his choice of words, for him Oswiu was a 'most noble' King but not a 'most Christian' one: Oswiu was not an Oswald.

Ecgfrith was the son of Oswiu and succeeded him as King of Northumbria over which he ruled from 670 to 685. We first meet him, aged ten, as a hostage at the court of Penda, King of Mercia: presumably he returned to his father's realm in the wake of Penda's defeat and death in 655. In 670 he succeeded Oswiu, probably not without a struggle. Ecgfrith's reign was as full of warfare as that of any other seventh-century king. The Picts rebelled against him (c.672) and were crushed: Ecgfrith's establishment of a new bishopric at Abercorn on the Firth of Forth in 681 was intended to reinforce Northumbrian rule in the north. He continued to expand his kingdom towards the west at the expense of the Britons of Cumbria and Strathclyde. In 674 he defeated an invasion led by King Wulfhere of Mercia, as a result of which he extended Northumbrian rule over Lindsey: in 679 he was defeated by Wulfhere's successor Æthelred and his control of Lindsey faded. In 684 he mounted an attack on Ireland in the teeth of opposition from leading churchmen such as Egbert of Iona and Cuthbert, possibly because the Irish were harbouring British refugees: evidently - like his grandfather Edwin, the conqueror of Man and Anglesey - he had at his disposal an effective fleet. In 685 he led an expedition far into Pictland, where he met his end: he was defeated and killed at the battle of Nechtansmere, probably Dunnichen in Forfarshire. After this, says Bede, 'the hopes and strength of the English kingdom began to ebb and fall away.' Northumbrian power over the Picts crumbled for ever, the see of Abercorn was abandoned, the Irish of Dalriada and some of the (Strathclyde?) Britons recovered their independence. The great days of Northumbrian royal power were over.

Bede strongly condemned Ecgfrith's attack on Ireland in 684, which he regarded as an act of unprovoked aggression against a Christian people. Elsewhere he could refer to Ecgfrith as a 'most pious' ruler. In the ecclesiastical politics of his reign the King's quarrel with Wilfrid from 678 onwards looms large for the historian; perhaps rather larger than it did for contemporaries. Ecgfrith was a dutiful Christian king. He attended church councils (673, 684), furthered the policy of Archbishop Theodore by creating new dioceses (Lindsey, Hexham, Abercorn), was a generous patron to Cuthbert, whom he persuaded to accept a bishopric in 684-5, and lavishly endowed the twin monastic foundations of Benedict Biscop at Wearmouth and Jarrow.

Aldfrith was King of Northumbria from 685 to 705. He was an illegitimate son of King Oswiu who was perhaps intended for a career in the church since he was given a first-rate education. We know that he studied in Ireland, and it is not impossible that among his fellow students there was Aldhelm (who was his godfather too). Aldfrith succeeded Ecgfrith as King of Northumbria in 685 and in the words of Bede 'nobly restored the shattered state of the kingdom, although within narrower bounds.' Northumbrian ascendancy over the Picts had gone for ever. Aldfrith continued his predecessor's quarrel with Wilfrid; this apart, his reign was remembered as a time of peace. He married Cuthburh, sister of King Ine of Wessex. Their son Osred succeeded his father in 705.

All authorities are agreed about Aldfrith's learning. To Bede he was 'very learned'; to Eddius the biographer of Wilfrid he was 'a most wise king'; and Alcuin commented that he was 'at once both king and teacher.' Poems in Irish attributed to him have survived. Adomnan, abbot of Iona and biographer of Columba, was his friend: on one of his visits to the Northumbrian court Adomnan presented Aldfrith with a copy of his book on the Holy Places. Aldfrith is known to have bought from Benedict Biscop a book which the latter had acquired in Rome. Aldhelm addressed to him a treatise mainly devoted to metrics and written in highly elaborate Latin. Aldfrith was probably the most learned king to rule in England before James I. It was fitting that such a man should have presided over the kingdom during the golden age of Northumbrian intellectual culture.

Ceolwulf was King of Northumbria from 729 to 737. He is remembered chiefly as the ruler to whom Bede dedicated his most famous work, the Ecclesiastical History, on its completion in 731. Ceolwulf was a patron of learning, and it is just possible that like his predecessor King Aldfrith he had been educated in Ireland. His reign was a troubled one. In .731 he was deposed in circumstances of which we know nothing, but restored to power. In 737 he resigned his kingdom to become a monk at Lindisfarne, where he died in 764. He was a generous benefactor to the monks of Lindisfarne. It was later believed that their royal inmate brought about a relaxation of their monastic rule, permitting them to drink wine and beer in addition to the milk and water prescribed by their founder Aidan. If there is any truth in this story, it is all of a piece with other evidence for the gradual secularisation of monastic life in eighth-century England.

Eadbert was King of Northumbria from 737 to 758. He was the first cousin of King Ceolwulf whom he succeeded in 737, and the brother of Archbishop Egbert of York. We know as little of the course of his reign in detail as we do of his contemporary's Æthelbald of Mercia; but enough to show that he was a powerful and effective ruler. He held his own against Mercians and Picts and, as Alcuin recorded, 'extended the bounds of his kingdom, often subduing the enemy ranks with terror.' Alcuin was probably thinking of Eadbert's wars against the British kingdom of Strathclyde, which brought the region of Kyle (roughly speaking, Ayrshire) under Northumbrian control in 750. 'Those were happy times for the people of Northumbria', wrote Alcuin nostalgically in the conspicuously unhappy times of the 790s.

Although some earlier Northumbrian kings had issued coinage, Eadbert was the first one to do so on any scale. This is one indication of the prosperity of Eadbert's days. There were others. Patrons who were wealthy as well as discriminating are implied by the dissemination of the works of Bede, the growth of the school of York and the productions of the Hexham school of sculpture. The unknown Oshere, presumably a Northumbrian nobleman, whose magnificent helmet was excavated at York in 1982, was evidently a rich man who could command the services of skilled craftsmen. The unidentified monastery whose eighth-century abbots were celebrated in Latin verse by a certain Æthelwulf was clearly very well off: its abbot Sigbald (d. 771) built a church there to which he gave a lead roof, a golden chalice set with precious stones and an altar decorated with sculpture in relief. There may have been many other religious houses like it of which we know nothing. Northumbria in the eighth century was rich. It was this more than anything else which was to attract Viking raiders from the 790s onwards.

Northumbria was also, by that time, vulnerable for political reasons. Eadbert himself, like all eighth-century rulers, had had to face opposition. A son of King Aldfrith, named Offa, had been dragged from sanctuary at the shrine of St. Cuthbert on Lindisfarne and butchered, presumably because he had contended for the throne. After Eadbert's retirement to a monastery in 758, where he died ten years later, Northumbrian politics became seriously unstable, with Eadbert's son and grandson both meeting violent ends, and successive members of two other leading aristocratic families contending for the kingship. Such dynastic feuds were not uncommon: Wessex seems also to have experienced them at much the same time. They were debilitating. The coinage collapsed in the last quarter of the century, Northumbrian culture began to lose its lustre and the Viking raids began. Alcuin was right: never again was the kingdom of Northumbria to enjoy the prestige which had been hers in the spacious days of King Eadbert.