The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith

by H A CULLEY

  When his scouts came to report that the second army of Picts were now well to the south east of them he breathed a sigh of relief. By now he calculated that he must be near the point where he had to turn and head north. If he’d judged it correctly, it would bring him and his men out fifteen miles to the west of Dùn Èideann and at least five miles behind the Picts.

  Behrtfrith had told him that he planned to be in position to the south of the stronghold and the settlement that surrounded it on the sixth of September. As it was now the fifth Swefred believed that he had judged it perfectly, but he couldn’t be certain until he made contact with the rear of the enemy army. He and his men marched along the coast for another three miles before camping for the night.

  Apart from several showers of rain and leaden skies which threatened more, the weather had been typical for late summer. They had passed burned out farmsteads and settlements as they moved eastwards, which angered the men and made them eager to get at their foes. Detachments stayed to bury the dead and then raced to catch up with the main body. By the time they set up camp revenge was the only thing on everyone’s mind.

  Swefred gathered everyone around him and he stood on one of the baggage carts so everyone could see him. Of course, not everyone one could hear him - there were too many for that – but those who could relayed his message to those who couldn’t.

  ‘Vengeance is a meal best served cold,’ he began. ‘I know that you are thirsting to get at the men who have slain our women, children, old men and bondsmen and ravaged the countryside many of you call home. However, tomorrow we must set about our work with cold determination, discipline and purpose. It’s no good rushing at the bastards piecemeal, eager to kill as many of them as you can. Too many will slip through our fingers that way. We need to be methodical and stay in formation. We have them in a trap. Don’t let any escape. Be a ring of steel around them and tighten the noose until they are all dead.’

  The cheering that greeted his little homily was so loud that Swefred feared the enemy might hear it. Of course, they were still probably five or six miles away – two or three hours march on the morrow. Allowing for moving into formation, he considered that they should be in position by a little before noon if they left at dawn. Noon was when Behrtfrith had asked him to attack the Picts’ rear.

  Swefred rode forward with the captain of his gesith, a man called Uurad, the same name that his father had borne. The fact that he was half-Pict and he was about to slay a lot of his father’s people didn’t seem to bother him particularly. He’d served Osfrid before he’d joined Swefred; that was after Eadwulf had kicked him and his fellow warriors out of Bebbanburg. He was totally loyal to Swefred, as were all his gesith. He was the sort of leader who men followed because they wanted to do so above all else; not just because he paid, fed and clothed them.

  As they cautiously crested a low ridge nine miles from Dùn Èideann they saw a large encampment about a mile ahead of them. They quickly withdrew and Swefred and Uurad crept forward on their bellies until they were partly hidden by a bush on the skyline. The Picts were busy getting ready to move out, men were forming up, tents were being packed onto carts and a forage party headed out to the south.

  It was a fine day, but chilly – the sort of day where the air was clear and you could see a long way. Swefred could just make out the stronghold of Dùn Èideann on top of its rock some seven miles away. Suddenly he spotted movement between the Dùn and the encampment. Several riders were approaching from the east at a gallop. Almost certainly they had come to report that they had found their way blocked by Behrtfrith’s army.

  Swefred had almost expected the Picts to race off to engage the Northumbrians but evidently their leader had more control over his men than some of his predecessors. The work of striking camp continued whilst a party of some forty horsemen, some mounted on ponies but many on steeds similar to the one he was riding rode off to investigate. He assumed that it was their leader, his nobles and his bodyguard.

  He wondered idly whether the man in charge might be King Nechtan himself. He hoped so. His death should restore peace to the border for some time to come. He’d seen enough and he and Uurad slithered back down to where the rest were waiting.

  ~~~

  Behrtfrith sat beside King Osred to the rear of their army. He had similar numbers to the Picts but he’d drawn them up in a formation designed to inflict maximum casualties on them. The archers and boys with slings were in front, ready to withdraw through the spearmen behind them as soon as the Picts got close. Then came the warriors from the various warbands together with the ealdormen and the thegns. They formed the front rank some six hundred strong.

  Behind them stood fifteen hundred members of the fyrd in three ranks. Their job was to push at the backs of the warriors and prevent them from being forced backwards. If a warrior fell, then one of the fyrd from the second rank would take his place. Like the warriors they were equipped with spear and shield but not all had the helmet, sword or seax possessed by the warriors. None had the protection of a byrnie or a thick leather jerkin like those in the front rank.

  The formation was bowed like a shallow bowl. The numbers of the fyrd in the centre were denser than on the flanks so as to prevent the centre of the bowl from giving way. As the battle progressed and more and more Picts became engaged, the flanks would move forwards and inwards to confine the Picts and eventually encircle them on three sides. It was a formation called the bull’s horns which Aldfrith had read of and told Behrtfrith about; but he’d never seen it used and he didn’t know how well it would work.

  At first all went as planned. The Picts charged en masse and the first few rows were killed or wounded by the archers and slingers before they retreated through the shield wall. The furious onslaught by the Picts drove the centre in and, instead of closing the horns, the ring of steel was in danger of breaking asunder.

  Seeing this Behrtfrith dismounted and, followed by his gesith, he forced his way through the fyrd until he reached the front rank in the centre, or what was left of it. At that moment a man in the front rank was killed by an axe-weilding Pict. Before the man could pull the axe clear of the corpse Behrtfrith thrust his sword into the belly of the axeman and, pulling it out, he barged the Pict behind him out of the way with his shield and cut the man next to him down.

  He had created a momentary breach in the enemy line and, followed closely by his gesith, they started to widen it, cutting and hacking furiously until they had cleared an area around them. Now the Northumbrian centre advanced until their line was restored. The wings of the horn also pushed forward, cramming the Picts into a smaller and smaller area.

  It was at that moment that disaster struck. One of Picts, a boy of twelve, had crawled forward with the broken half of a spear he’d picked up until he was in front of Behrtfrith, who was fighting off two men with his sword and shield. The boy looked up and saw the ealdorman in his byrnie nearly on top of him. He edged forward another foot just as one of Behrtfrith’s assailants fell dead on top of him. Nevertheless the boy had an arm free and he stabbed upwards under the hem of the byrnie and into the Northumbrian’s groin.

  The wound wasn’t immediately fatal itself, but Behrtfrith dropped his guard in reaction to the sudden agonising pain and a Pict managed to grab the rim of his shield, pulling it downwards. Another man saw the opening and thrust his spear through it and into Behrtfrith’s neck. He dropped to his knees, his sword and his shield dropping from his hands, and a Pict with an axe swung it, taking his head clean off.

  His gesith fought on but the heart had gone out of them and word of the hereræswa’s death swept through the Northumbrian ranks. Once more the Picts pushed hard to break through the shield wall and all might have been lost if it wasn’t for the king.

  Osred had watched the progress of the battle closely from his horse and when he saw the centre of the line buckling for the second time, he rode his horse through the ranks, pushing men aside, until he reached the front. Stabbing down with his spear
he skewered three men before his horse was killed by a spear thrust into its chest.

  The king leaped clear as it collapsed under him and landed on the spearman who’d slain his horse. With a cry of rage he hacked at the man’s neck with his seax and then, pulling his sword from its scabbard, he started to lay about him like a man possessed. The Picts drew back out of range of his flashing blades and he pressed home his advantage, his men following him with cries of Osred, Osred. The enemy centre broke and started to pull back.

  It was at that moment that Swefred joined the fray. His men had charged through the Picts’ baggage train, setting fire to it as they went, and continued into the rear ranks of the Picts. Right at the rear were the horsemen. They tried to escape but they were quickly surrounded, pulled from their mounts and killed.

  The Picts now started to panic. They were leaderless and surrounded. Swefred halted his men and re-formed them, warriors in the shield wall and the fyrd behind. Slowly they advanced driving the Picts before them. It wasn’t much of a fight. The ones at the back were always the least experienced, the cowards and those who were wounded but who could still fight. They were no match for Swefred’s warriors. Slowly the net around the Picts tightened as more and more fell.

  The Northumbrians didn’t escape unharmed. They had lost a couple of hundred in the first part of the battle and they continued to suffer casualties, but they were in the tens, not the hundreds. Finally the encircled Picts had had enough and they surrendered.

  Swefred called for his men to stop the slaughter but Osred wasn’t finished.

  ‘No quarter, no quarter,’ he yelled as he continued to hack and thrust at the Picts before him.

  At first his men did as he told them but then more and more were sickened by the unnecessary killing and they gradually stopped. Eventually even Osred ended his onslaught, too exhausted to continue.

  When they counted the bodies the next day the Northumbrians had lost just over three hundred dead and those likely to die of their wounds, but there were fifteen hundred dead Picts. There were no wounded; the king had ordered them killed where they lay. A couple of hundred had escaped and there were three hundred prisoners who would be sent to the slave markets.

  Behrtfrith had achieved his aim of destroying the invaders; it was just a pity he didn’t live to see the scale of his victory.

  ~~~

  ‘You played your part well, Swefred,’ Osred told him, somewhat grudgingly, the next day when he called his commanders together to plan his strategy for dealing with the second column. ‘It’s just a pity that you allowed Nectan to escape.’

  Swefred shook his head. ‘He wasn’t the commander of this column, Cyning. We killed all the leaders; not one escaped. The man in charge was the Mormaer of Angus. He died together with two more mormaers. King Nectan must be with the other column.’

  ‘Are you contradicting me, Swefred?’

  ‘No, just telling you the facts.’

  ‘And I’m telling you that you failed to capture Nectan and for that you must be punished.’

  ‘Just a moment, Osred. You do not have the power to punish anyone; least of all Swefred who carried out a difficult mission with great success yesterday. As he says, there is no evidence that Nectan was with this column.’ Eochaid was incensed at the injustice of what Osred had just said.

  ‘Don’t argue with me, Eochaid, or you too will be dealt with. In case it’s escaped your notice, one of my regents is dead and my aunt is ill and in no position to rule. I’m taking full control of my kingdom.’

  ‘That is not what the Witan decided,’ Edmund of Eoforwīc stated firmly. ‘You are still fifteen and you are not to rule without regents until you’re eighteen. The Witan will just have to appoint new regents.’

  ‘He is quite correct, Cyning,’ Bishop Eadfrith said with a certain amount of glee.

  He detested Osred as an apostate and a rapist of nuns.

  ‘Who won the battle yesterday? You’d probably all be dead of it wasn’t for me. I will rule and you will all obey me or I’ll find ealdormen and bishops who will.’

  ‘We all owe you a great debt of gratitude for your valour yesterday, Cyning. Perhaps I can suggest a compromise? That you come into your kingdom this December when you are sixteen.’

  The speaker was the Ealdorman of Catterick, one of Osred’s few close friends. To the disgust of Swefred, Eochaid and a few others, the rest supported the compromise and Osred reluctantly accepted it.

  As Swefred later told his wife, ‘it seems that your father was wrong; we don’t have two and half years to prepare for hell; just three short months.’

  Chapter Twenty One – Swefred the Hereræswa

  712 AD

  With one Pictish army dealt with, the Northumbrians turned their attention to the one in the south making for the River Twaid. Osred tried to take command of the army but he was voted down and, much to his anger, Swefred was elected as the new hereræswa. He immediately sent out scouts to locate the Picts and, in the meantime, moved the army to Penecuik.

  When he received news that the Picts were in the range of hills known as the Monadh Pentland and heading south east towards the junction between the Twaid and a small river called Leither Water he called a war council and outlined his plan for dealing with them.

  The Northumbrians outnumbered their enemy by almost two to one and presumably they were not yet aware of the fate that had overtaken their fellow Picts. Only Osred spoke against the plan, but he was ignored, which only increased his resentment.

  Swefred needed a Pict from among the captives to unwittingly decieve the enemy leader. His would be a vital role in his plan and he needed to be young enough to be gullible, but old enough to be credible. In the end he chose a thirteen year old boy who was the son of a minor chieftain.

  The boy was hauled into Swefred’s presence and told that he was to be the hereræswa’s new body slave. Swefred didn’t speak his language but Uurad, who acted as interpreter, had been brought up bilingual by his parents. As might have been expected, the boy spat at Swefred and declared defiantly that he’d rather die. He was punched in the head for his insolence and then taken outside and shown a noose hanging from a tree. When it was put around his neck he quickly changed his mind.

  The main problem was that, as the boy didn’t speak English, he couldn’t very well overhear the misinformation that Swefred wanted passed on to Nectan. He got around that by using a warrior in one of the Lothian warbands who also spoke the language. He was told to pretend to be a renegade Pict who was helping the Northumbrians and he fulfilled the role admirably.

  The boy was allowed to overhear the three men talking with Uurad translating for the supposed benefit of the pretend Pict. Later that night the man who had acted as a Pict came and took the boy into the woods where a horse waited.

  ‘Ride and tell King Nectan what the Northumbrian turds intend. They would know I’d betrayed them if I disappeared, but hopefully they’ll think that you just ran away. You’ll find our army camped at the old hill fort at Dunslair. Follow the direction the sun rises until you come across a small river then follow it south for about twelve miles until you see the old fort on the east bank. Clear? Good. Now get going.’

  ~~~

  Swefred sat on his horse beside Uurad as they watched the retreating Pictish army below them as it snaked along the valley floor. The day had started overcast and had deteriorated. Now it was drizzling and if the rain got much heavier it would be difficult to make out the enemy at this distance. Not that it mattered.

  Swefred’s whole objective had been to get the Picts to leave the hill fort. Like many similar constructions of the Britons who’d inhabited the region before the coming of the Romans, the defences consisted of a series of concentric ditches and earthen ramparts culminating is a palisade which ran all the way around the top of the hill. If the Northumbrians had been forced to assault it they would undoubtedly have won, given their superior numbers, but at some cost. This way Swefred hoped that he could keep casua
lties to a minimum.

  Osred had peevishly refused to accompany an army commanded by Swefred and had ridden back to Eoforwīc with his gesith and a few companions, including the Ealdorman of Catterick. The latter’s departure had robbed the army of forty warriors and two hundred and fifty member of the fyrd but Swefred reckoned that was a price worth paying to rid himself of the malevolent stares the king kept giving him.

  He left behind a niggling worry in the back of Swefred’s mind about the future, though. It was only three months before Osred would be old enough to rule on his own and he knew it would soon pass. Then the king would be free to take his revenge on Swefred and his family. He had to do something before that happened but, rack his brains as he might, he couldn’t come up with any ideas except flight into exile. He banished such thoughts and tried to concentrate on the immediate problem.

  The river valley the Picts were following would take them to an area known as Auchencorth Moss, a boggy area which they would have to skirt. If, as he hoped, they skirted it to the north, they would have to cross two minor tributaries before coming to the river known as the North Esk. That was where he planned to bring them to battle. Unfortunately, this time his plans went wrong.

  The first he knew that the enemy had done the unexpected was when his scouts came in to report that the Picts had opted for the southern route around Auchencorth Moss. Not only had Swefred been outwitted, his army was on the wrong side of the North Esk now. By the time that they had crossed the river and headed up into the high hills to the south west of Dùn Èideann they would be at least half a day’s march behind the Picts. He had to think of some way to delay them.

  Numerous streams and small rivers ran down the steep sided valleys in the Monadh Pentland. The enemy’s line of retreat lay over two high ridges and, from what the Ealdorman of Dùn Èideann had told him, the enemy were likely to head across the open moorland before crossing one ridge and then the other, higher one that lay two miles apart. They could then descend onto the broad coastal plain and choose any of a number of routes back to Stirling.