The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith

by H A CULLEY

  ‘Go back and keep an eye on them. Come and find me if they start to move. I’ll go and tell the eorl.’

  Catinus thought about the situation as he cantered back to talk to Beornheth. They had some five hundred warriors plus around fifty archers and his horsemen. In total they numbered barely a third of the enemy’s strength.

  It had been Ecgfrith’s decision not to bring the fyrd, just the war bands. The fyrd were intended to protect their homeland, not engage in an offensive operation and, besides, it was the planting season. However, they had one advantage; the Britons expected them to advance down the valley to engage them.

  It had been raining off and on for the past week and, whilst it was unpleasant to wear soggy clothing most of the time, it did mean that the river would be high. Beornheth explained his plans to his commanders whilst the men set up camp in the hills south of the road.

  Just before dawn they dismantled the camp and set off in two groups. Catinus led his fifty horsemen through the hills and, once they’d dropped down into the next valley, they rode as fast as they could along the valley and back over the intervening hills down towards the old Roman fort at Bremetennacum where the Britons had established a major settlement. Beornheth and he were gambling that only old men, women and children would be left there.

  The settlement was surrounded by a palisade but the gates stood wide open and Catinus couldn’t see any sentries. Now he and his men changed pace to a wild gallop, trying to reach the gates before the alarm was given and they were shut before they could get there.

  Catinus could feel his stallion slowing down; it was blown and he swore in frustration. However, Uurad and several of his younger warriors overtook him and were only fifty yards from the gates when someone gave the alarm. Several old men, women and a few children grabbed the heavy gates and started to swing them shut. It wasn’t easy. They were hung from leather hinges which had stretched over time, which meant that the bottom of the gates grazed the ground in places. Normally it took four men to shut one gate and, although there were now twice that number heaving at each gate they kept getting in each other’s way and the horsemen thundering towards them made them panic.

  Several abandoned the attempt just as they’d nearly managed to succeed and fled into the narrow lanes. Uurad got there first, closely followed by Leofric and half a dozen others. Seeing that the gates were secure, Catinus yelled to Eadstan and he and half a dozen men peeled off and headed around Bremetennacum to seal off the west gate.

  Catinus told his men to dismount outside and enter the place on foot. To ride down the narrow lanes would be courting disaster. Although only old men, boys not yet old enough to train as warriors and a few disabled men opposed them, they were determined to sell their lives dearly in defence of their home. As they made their way cautiously towards the centre of the settlement a few of the Northumbrians were wounded and two were killed by slingshots stones and hunting arrows.

  When he saw Leofric fall he lost his temper. It was his intention to round the inhabitants up and take them prisoner but he hadn’t counted on losing men, especially those he was close to, such as his former body servant.

  ‘No quarter!’

  The cry was taken up and his men. Their behaviour in normal circumstances was reasonably civilised – for warriors - but now blood lust drove them on. They started to kill all those they could lay their hands on, be they unarmed greybeards, women or children. When Catinus saw the bodies of two little girls and three boys, none of whom could have been older than seven, he realised what he’d done; but by then it was too late.

  The only survivors were the hundred or so who had reached the west gate, only to be faced by more of Catinus’ warriors. They surrendered and even the most bloodthirsty of the Northumbrians had had enough of wanton killing by the time that they reached them. They were spared and Catinus let them flee down the valley heading towards the sea. He didn’t have the resources to guard them and he was sickened by what he’d done. Releasing them was the least he could do.

  Half an hour later his men had finished looting the huts and the king’s hall. They rode through the settlement with blazing torches setting fire to the huts. Soon the place was a blazing inferno and black smoke rose into the still air. Satisfied that it would be seen by the Brigantian army, he led his men up the Ribble Valley towards the rear of the enemy. Most of his men were in a sombre mood on reaction to what they’d done, but Catinus was more than sombre; he was deeply depressed.

  His orders were to attack the enemy formation from the rear but his heart was no longer in this campaign and he ordered Eadstan to take over whilst he rode into the hills to be by himself. Drefan watched him go, wondering whether he should follow.

  ‘Come on, we’d better keep an eye on him,’ Uurad said softly in his ear and the two rode after him at a distance, taking the two packhorses that Drefan had been leading with them.

  When Catinus eventually reached the summit he turned and walked his horse slowly along the ridge above the Ribble Valley. Eventually the site of the battle came into view. It was obvious that Beornheth’s tactics had worked. Whilst a few hundred of his warriors had advanced to engage the Britons, his archers had descended the hillside from the south and then proceeded to pepper the rows of Britons from the flank. Taken by surprise, the Britons didn’t know what to do at first, but as more and more of his men on the right flank fell, the King of the Brigantes sent half his men up the hillside to attack the archers.

  The latter merely withdrew in front of the Britons as they laboured up the hill but kept stopping to send volley after volley of arrows into the leading warriors. Some of the Britons got increasingly reluctant to continue with this folly and slowed to a crawl. Several hundred continued to pursue the archers however. When they neared the ridgeline, out of breath and exhausted, the other half of Beornheth’s men appeared over the crest and charged down into them.

  It was a rout. Out of the seven hundred men who had been sent up the hill only two hundred made it back down. Once they reached the bottom they kept going, back towards Bremetennacum. That was then they saw the black smoke starting to rise towards the blue sky above. They stopped, uncertain what to do. Some wanted to continue to see what had happened to their families, but others, single men in the main, fled into the hills.

  Whatever they decided hadn’t mattered in the end. Those who stayed in the valley encountered Eadstan and his horsemen and fled before them back towards the main fight. Most of the others who had headed for the hills were rounded up in the weeks that followed.

  By the time that Catinus dismounted and sat on a rock to survey the scene below him fighting had almost stopped in the valley. It was evident from the piles of bodies that the remaining Britons had been caught between the two halves of the Northumbrian army and were increasingly squeezed into a smaller and smaller space. Completely routed, some tried to escape into the river and were swept away, others were cut down where they stood.

  Catinus sat and wept. Partly because of Leofric’s death, but also for the Brigantes who had effectively been wiped out as a tribe in a single day.

  ‘Lord, you can’t stay here. Night is falling and we need to go back down to the camp,’ Uurad said eventually.’

  Catinus nodded dumbly.

  ‘Thank you for staying with me. Drefan, you’ve been a good servant but I shan’t need a servant where I’m going.’

  ‘What do you mean lord? You’re not going to ..’

  ‘Kill myself? No, that would be a sin, however much the idea appeals to me at the moment. No, I’m going to Lindisfarne to become a monk. I shall see out the rest of my days within sight of Bebbanburg across the bay whilst I try and atone for my sins.’

  ‘What about Bebbanburg? You’re the ealdorman.’

  ‘My son ran the shire without me for seven months and he was younger then. I’m sure he’ll manage very well without me. Besides, my brother will be his chaplain and he can help him until he’s older.’

  ‘Will you allow me to
accompany you until you reach Lindisfarne?’

  ‘Thank you, Uurad, but I’d rather you stay here with Eadstan for now.’

  ‘What about me lord? You’ll still need a servant until you reach Lindisfarne.’

  ‘Very well. I suspect that Osfrid might need a servant after that.’

  The boy smiled wanly. ‘I’d like that but it won’t be the same as serving you, lord.’

  Catinus nodded but said no more.

  When he told Beornheth it was plain that the eorl didn’t understand or approve of his decision, but all he said was that he should ride north to Caer Luel first and see Ecgfrith.

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll make a twelve year old boy an ealdorman though. Perhaps you’d better stay in post until he’s sixteen and old enough to be classed as a warrior.’

  ‘No, my mind’s made up. I’ll not kill another human being and I need the peace and quiet of the monastic life to repent my sins.’

  Osfrid was furious with his father when he told him he no longer had any desire to be the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg and had decided to retire to Lindisfarne as a monk. He refused to speak to him and, from then on, if he saw him around the monastery, he’d either turn away or, if he couldn’t avoid him, he’d ignore him. It was as if his father had ceased to exist.

  Ecgfrith had accepted Catinus’ decision but he’d refused to make someone as young as Osfrid an ealdorman. Instead the shire was to be administered by Conomultus until the king decided what to do about it.

  Two months later Prior Cuthbert sent for Osfrid.

  ‘Osfrid, I’m not pleased with you. Your attitude towards Brother Catinus is upsetting all of us. An atmosphere of barely concealed hostility is not conducive to the peace and harmony we seek to cultivate here. The abbot believes that either you or he must go and your father is hardly at fault here, so it’s you who should leave.’

  ‘But where would I go,’ the boy asked in dismay.

  ‘Perhaps you should have thought of that,’ Cuthbert said grimly. ‘However, I have proposed another solution and Abbot Eata is prepared to give you one last chance.’

  Osfrid studied his feet and didn’t reply for a minute whilst he thought, then he exhaled sharply.

  ‘I know I’m at fault and I sort of understand why my father has sought the solace of the monastic life to expiate what he sees as his sins. I can’t see why it was necessary, after all they were Britons and now they’ve all been enslaved or expelled from what used to be called Rheged.’

  After the campaign Ecgfrith had divided the former earldom of Rheged in two, appointing two of his gesith as the ealdormen of Cumbria in the north and Luncæstershire in the south.

  ‘You seem to forget that your father was born a Briton in Mercia and you are half British yourself.’

  Osfrid looked as shocked as if Cuthbert had struck him across the face. It was something he was vaguely aware of, but which he had pushed to the back of his consciousness. Now he was forced to confront it.

  ‘Do you repent your attitude, especially the breaking of the commandment to honour your father?’

  ‘Yes, Brother Prior. I’ll go and find him now and beg his forgiveness.’

  After Catinus had heard his contrite son out he didn’t say anything but just pulled him into an embrace and kissed him on the cheek – a display of affection he’d never shown him before.

  ‘I never stopped loving you, Osfrid, even though you hurt me dreadfully.’

  ‘I always loved you too father. It’s just that I’d always dreamt of being Ealdorman of Bebbanburg one day and I hated it when that was taken away from me. I can see now that I was being petulant though. I’ll follow whatever path God wants me to.’

  ‘Prior Cuthbert didn’t tell you then?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘King Ecgfrith has written to Abbot Eata to say that he has decided what to do about Bebbanburg. Your uncle will continue as the administrator of the fortress and the shire for now and Eadstan will command the warband, but the king will confirm you as the ealdorman when you reach sixteen.’

  Osfrid could hardly contain his excitement.

  ‘Careful, you’ll hug me to death!’

  Osfrid let go of Catinus with a mumbled apology but his father just smiled at him.

  ‘The other bit of news is that you are to train as a mounted warrior with Ruaidhrí when you leave here. Perhaps he might even take you with him when he pays the occasional visit to his father in law.’

  It took a moment for the import of this to dawn on Osfrid, then he realised that Ruaidhrí’s father in law, Benoc, was also the father of Godwyna.

  Chapter Eight – The Division of the Diocese

  678-9 AD

  Bishop Wilfrid was furious. He had grown used to being the only bishop in the north of England and the stipends from the diocese and the three monasteries of which he abbot provided him with a large income. Now Archbishop Theodore had come up with the ridiculous idea, in Wilfrid’s opinion, that his diocese was far too large and needed to be sub-divided.

  It was true that he confined himself to visiting Ripon and Hexham, the other places where he was abbot in addition to the monastery at Eoforwīc, but there were priests and monks who could visit the other settlements throughout the north. He didn’t see why he needed to do so as well.

  As if Theodore’s interference wasn’t bad enough the king had also taken him to task at one of the meetings of his inner council. Whilst the Witan met infrequently, the inner council normally met weekly to advise the king on the minutiae of ruling his large kingdom.

  ‘Bishop, I’ve received several complaints that members of your household are dressed far too lavishly, indeed some of them look more like nobles than servants.’

  ‘Cyning surely it is my business how I choose to …’

  ‘I haven’t finished, far from it,’ Ecgfrith snapped.

  Wilfrid looked annoyed at the interruption and at the tone the king had used.

  ‘I’m told that you have also recruited a warband of your own, is this true?’

  ‘Yes, Cyning. I need protection on my travels around my diocese and guards to protect the tithes due to the Church.’

  ‘No other prelate seems to need protection. You don’t see Abbot Eata with an armed escort, or Abbess Hild. They seem to manage to travel about and cover a lot more territory than you ever do.’

  Wilfrid’s eyes narrowed. Ecgfrith’s queen, Eormenburg, had never hidden her dislike of him and Hild positively detested him. No doubt one or other, or perhaps both, had been dripping poison in the king’s ear.

  ‘You will disband your warband forthwith and in future you will dress your household in clothes more befitting their station in life. And I do mean immediately.’

  ‘Yes, very well, if I must,’ Wilfrid replied testily.

  He was well aware that many of the other members of the king’s inner council were trying to hide their glee at the bishop’s discomfiture, and failing.

  ‘Can we move onto more important matters, Cyning?’

  ‘I’ll decide what is important, bishop. Yet again I must ask you not to interrupt me. I haven’t finished. Archbishop Theodore had written to me about the division of the Northumbrian diocese into four smaller sees.’

  ‘Four? I’m only aware of his ridiculous proposal for three.’

  ‘You’re forgetting Lindsey. The Mercian Bishop of Lindocolina fled when Wulfhere ceded it to me. Since then it seems to have been taken under your wing but with no proper sanction for you to do so.’

  ‘I was under the impression that the archbishop had agreed with King Ethelred that Lindsey should now come under the Lichfield diocese.’

  ‘He had no right to do so. Lichfield is in Mercia but Lindsey is part of Northumbria.’

  ‘But since the death of King Wulfhere recently during his war with Wessex I thought that the new king, Ethelred, had declared the treaty between you null and void.’

  ‘He’s merely playing politics. He was the one who agreed the truce. He may have do
ne so in his brother’s name but he was the one who swore to uphold it. In any case, he’s in no position to challenge me over Lindsey with Wessex still contesting who controls Hwicce and the Welsh giving him problems as well.

  Now back to the organisation of the Church in my kingdom, I tend to agree with Theodore that the kingdom is too much for one man. His proposal to create three sees based at Lindisfarne, Hexham and Eoforwīc seems to have merit in my eyes. Of course, you would remain as bishop here.’

  ‘And who would these other bishops be?’

  ‘Trumbert at Hexham and Eata at Lindisfarne.’

  Trumbert was the prior at Ripon and therefore could be counted as one of Wilfrid’s supporters but Eata and Wilfrid had fought as novices on Lindisfarne and they loathed each other.

  ‘Surely as the metropolitan bishop of the north I should appoint my junior bishops?’

  ‘You are not an archbishop, Wilfrid, and certainly not the equal of Theodore. He is the metropolitan for the whole of England.’

  ‘But I was appointed by the Pope himself to be in charge of the Church throughout Northumbria.’

  ‘That was in Vitalian’s day, now Donus is the Pope and Archbishop Theodore has his support for his reforms.’

  Wilfrid seethed with rage but he knew when he was beaten – at least for now.

  ‘In that case, Cyning, I must travel to Rome and lay my case before Pope Donus.’

  ‘If you must, you must. In view of the time it will take I must appoint someone to be my Bishop of Eoforwīc until we get the Pope’s decision.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, Cyning. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘No, take all the time you like. Don’t return until you receive my permission to do so.’

  Wilfrid knew that in effect he was being banished.

  ‘Who will you appoint whilst I’m away?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your concern but Abbess Hild has recommended her prior, Bosa.’

  Wilfrid’s heart sank. If Hild was his enemy, so was Bosa. With Eata and Bosa as bishops any influence he could exert through Trumbert whilst he was away would be negated.