by Griff Hosker
Osric, the King of Deira, did try to take a large walled town in which King Cadwallon waited. The army sortied and slaughtered all of them. Eanfrith did try to negotiate with King Cadwallon. It is said, by Bede, that he went to speak with King Cadwallon along with twelve warriors and he never returned. In many ways it was ironic for his successor, Oswald, fought and killed King Cadwallon at the battle of Heavenfield (Hexham) and then completely destroyed the Welsh army. King Cadwallon's reign as High King lasted less than two years and enabled the Angles, Jutes and Saxons to rule Britain until the Vikings arrived.
The bubonic plague was first brought to Britain in the sixth century. It was called Justinian's Plague. It devastated Wales on a number of occasions. Famously in 642, the year of the Battle of Maserfield, it is reputed to have taken King Cadafael although there were other rumours that he was murdered. King Penda did, indeed defeat and kill Oswald at Maserfield and he did it with an alliance of the Welsh and Brythionic people. It was the monk Bede who tells us of the events of this time and they should be taken with as much salt as possible! King Oswald was Christian and Penda was a pagan. Bede was an excellent propagandist!
King Penda invaded Northumbria some time in 636 or 637 and besieged Din Guardi. He was there for some months but he could not manage to break down the defenders' resistance. It proved too great a nut to crack and after laying waste to the land around the stronghold he eventually returned to Mercia. Oswald then spent the next few years building up his army before he and Eowa invaded Mercia in 642.
Oswald of Bernicia became king of Northumbria after his victory over Cadwallon at Heavenfield. Penda's status and activities during the years of Oswald's reign are obscure, and various interpretations of Penda's position during this period have been suggested. It has been presumed that Penda acknowledged Oswald's authority in some sense after Heavenfield, although Penda was probably an obstacle to Northumbrian supremacy south of the Humber. It has been suggested that Penda's strength during Oswald's reign could be exaggerated by the historical awareness of his later successes. Kirby says that, while Oswald was as powerful as Edwin had been, "he faced a more entrenched challenge in midland and eastern England from Penda".
At some point during Oswald's reign, Penda had Edwin's son Eadfrith killed, "contrary to his oath". The possibility that his killing was the result of pressure from Oswald--Eadfrith being a dynastic rival of Oswald--has been suggested. Since the potential existed for Eadfrith to be put to use in Mercia's favour in Northumbrian power struggles while he was alive, it would not have been to Penda's advantage to have him killed. On the other hand, Penda might have killed Eadfrith for his own reasons. It has been suggested that Penda was concerned that Eadfrith could be a threat to him because Eadfrith might seek vengeance for the deaths of his father and brother; it is also possible that Mercian dynastic rivalry played a part in the killing, since Eadfrith was a grandson of Penda's predecessor Cearl.
It was probably at some point during Oswald's reign that Penda fought with the East Angles and defeated them, killing their king Egric and the former king Sigebert, who had been brought out of retirement in a monastery against his will in the belief that his presence would motivate the soldiers. The time at which the battle occurred is uncertain; it may have been as early as 635, but there is also evidence to suggest it could not have been before 640 or 641. Presuming that this battle took place before the Battle of Maserfield, it may have been that such an expression of Penda's ambition and emerging power made Oswald feel that Penda had to be defeated for Northumbrian dominance of southern England to be secured or consolidated.
Penda's brother Eowa was also said by the Historia Brittonum and the Annales Cambriae to have been a king of the Mercians at the time of Maserfield. The question of what sort of relationship of power existed between the brothers before the battle is a matter of speculation. Eowa may have simply been a sub-king under Penda and it is also possible that Penda and Eowa ruled jointly during the 630s and early 640s: joint kingships were not uncommon among Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the period. They may have ruled the southern and northern Mercians respectively. That Penda ruled the southern part is a possibility suggested by his early involvement in the area of the Hwicce, to the south of Mercia, as well as by the fact that, after Penda's death, his son Peada was allowed to rule southern Mercia while the northern part was placed under direct Northumbrian control.
Another possibility is that Penda might have lost power at some point after Heavenfield, and Eowa may have actually been ruling the Mercians for at least some of the period as a subject ally or puppet of Oswald. Brooks cited Bede's statement implying that Penda's fortunes were mixed during his 22 years in power and noted the possibility that Penda's fortunes were low at this time. Thus it may be that Penda was not consistently the dominant figure in Mercia during the years between Hatfield and Maserfield.
On 5 August 642, Penda defeated the Northumbrians at the Battle of Maserfield, which was fought near the lands of the Welsh, and Oswald was killed. Surviving Welsh poetry suggests that Penda fought in alliance with the men of Powys--apparently, he was consistently allied with some of the Welsh--perhaps including Cynddylan ap Cyndrwyn, of whom it was said that "when the son of Pyb desired, how ready he was", presumably meaning that he was an ally of Penda, the son of Pybba. If the traditional identification of the battle's location with Oswestry is correct, then this would indicate that it was Oswald who had taken the offensive against Penda. It has been suggested that he was acting against "a threat posed to his domination of Mercia by a hostile alliance of Penda and Powys." According to Reginald of Durham's 12th century Life of Saint Oswald, Penda fled into Wales before the battle, at which point Oswald felt secure and sent his army away. This explanation of events has been regarded as "plausible" but is not found in any other source, and may, therefore, have been Reginald's invention.
According to Bede, Penda had Oswald's body dismembered, with his head, hands and arms being placed onto stakes -this may have had a pagan religious significance; Oswald thereafter came to be revered as a saint, with his death in battle as a Christian king against pagans leading him to be regarded as a martyr.
Eowa was killed at Maserfield along with Oswald, although on which side he fought is unknown. It may well be that he fought as a dependent ally of Oswald against Penda. If Eowa was in fact dominant among the Mercians during the period leading up to the battle, then his death could have marked what the author of the Historia Brittonum regarded as the beginning of Penda's ten-year reign. Therefore it may be that Penda prevailed not only over the Northumbrians but also over his rivals among the Mercians.
The Historia Brittonum may also be referring to this battle when it says that Penda first freed (separavit) the Mercians from the Northumbrians. This may be an important clue to the relationship between the Mercians and the Northumbrians before and during Penda's time. There may have existed a "Humbrian confederacy" that included the Mercians until Penda broke free of it. On the other hand, it has been considered unlikely that this was truly the first instance of their separation: it is significant that Cearl had married his daughter to Edwin during Edwin's exile, when Edwin was an enemy of the Northumbrian king AEthelfrith. It would seem that if Cearl was able to do this, he was not subject to AEthelfrith; thus it may be that any subject relationship only developed after the time of this marriage.
The battle left Penda with a degree of power unprecedented for a Mercian king--Kirby called him "without question the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to have emerged in the midlands" after Maserfield and the prestige and status associated with defeating the powerful Oswald must have been very significant. Northumbria was greatly weakened as a consequence of the battle; the kingdom became fractured to some degree between Deira in its southern part and Bernicia in the north, with the Deirans acquiring a king of their own, Oswine, while in Bernicia, Oswald was succeeded by his brother, Oswiu. Mercia thus enjoyed a greatly enhanced position of strength relative to the surrounding kingdoms. Writers said
that the battle left Penda as "the most formidable king in England", and observed that although "there is no evidence that he ever became, or even tried to become, the lord of all the other kings of southern England ... none of them can have been his equal in reputation".
I used many books to research the material. The first was the excellent Michael Wood's book "In Search of the Dark Ages" and the second was "The Middle Ages" Edited by Robert Fossier. The third was the Osprey Book- "Saxon, Viking and Norman" by Terence Wise. I also used Brian Sykes book, "Blood of the Isles" for reference. "Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon Wars" by David Nicholle was useful. "Anglo Saxon Thegn" by Mark Harrison gave an insight into the way the minor chiefs ruled their lands. In addition, I searched on line for more obscure information. All the place names are accurate, as far as I know, and I have researched the names of the characters to reflect the period. My apologies if I have made a mistake.
The battles at Oswestry and Winwaed did take place. The latter's site is open for debate. It is variously identified as Winwick in Cheshire, Leeds and Doncaster. Iedeu was the place where King Penda fought and defeated Oswiu. I have no idea why he did not kill him. He did take Oswiu's son as hostage and he received huge quantities of ransom from the Bernician King. It was as he was returning home that he was finally defeated. According to Bede, a biased and therefore suspect source, the Mercians and their allies lost more men in the flight back to Mercia than the battle. I have tried to reflect this in my account. Wherever the battle took place the result was still the same. King Penda was defeated and executed. King Oswiu and Northumbria became dominant. This was the end of Pagan England and the start of a Christian one. It remained the same until the Vikings came in a few years.
Although this is the last book in the series I have plans to write a standalone book about Arturus. It will bridge the Saxon and Viking series of my books.
Griff Hosker
June 2018
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Griff Hosker
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