This story will be incomplete if a concluding narrative is not given of the subsequent fates of the friends and relatives of King Edwin and his paladins, of their children and immediate descendants, as well as a brief notice of the historian to whose laborious zeal our knowledge of this striking episode in our annals is due.

As soon as Sivel had performed his pious duties, he took refuge at Driffield, for the Welsh were close upon his track.

Penda and Cadwalla met after the slaughter. As the former was wounded, he determined to return to Mercia, after making a bargain for a share of the plunder. Cadwalla dispersed his army in large parties, moving northwards to kill, harry, and destroy. The Welshmen committed every conceivable atrocity: neither age nor sex was spared, and the savages revelled in their cruelty. Bilbrough and Ulfskelf were sacked. Hemingborough escaped, but of Stillingfleet not a vestige was left, and the ancient buildings of Aldby were levelled with the ground. Few houses escaped their fury. Finally, they occupied York itself, where there were new scenes of devastation and horror.

Osric collected the remnant of the Deirans at Driffield, who proclaimed him their King. He declared that he adhered to the religion of his ancestors, and if the wretched old Coifi had not died soon after he polluted the sanctuary of Woden, he would probably have been taken to Godmundham and put to death. After months of preparation, Osric advanced to York, where the King of Gwynedd still remained. The King of Deira attacked the Decumanian Gate; but Cadwalla sallied out with his whole army and put the English to flight. Osric was himself among the slain. Cadwalla then marched northwards to subdue the Bernicians. On the death of Edwin, the sons of Ethelfrith had returned from their exile among the Picts, and the eldest, Eanfrid, had been accepted as King of Bernicia. On the approach of the ferocious Welsh King, he sued for peace, and it was arranged that there should be an interview. Eanfrid came to the enemy's camp with six attendants, and was foully murdered by Cadwalla. Eanfrid had also adhered to the religion of his ancestors. Consequently both these gallant young princes, Osric and Eanfrid, are vilified and slandered by the monks.

Oswald, the son of the peerless Alca, then succeeded, and was joyfully received, both by the Bernicians and Deirans, as their King. He saw that there could be no terms with the faithless Welshman—he must be stamped out. Cadwalla was in the neighbourhood of Hexham, near the Great Wall. When Oswald reached a spot called Heavenfield, he put up a cross, helping to fix it in the ground himself. Then, raising his voice, he cried to his army, "Let us all kneel and jointly beseech the true and living God Almighty in His mercy to defend us from the haughty and fierce enemy. He knows that we have undertaken a just war for the safety of our nation." Advancing towards the enemy at dawn, he gained a great victory, and Cadwalla was killed at a place called Denisburn, perhaps Dilston.

Oswald came to York, and visited the melancholy ruins of Aldby, where his happy childhood had been passed with his mother, and where he had been torn from the arms of Bergliot by the savage Ethelfrith. He consulted with Sivel, and encouraged him to persevere with the work of building the church of St. Peter at York until it was completed. Oswald applied to the monks of Iona for a bishop, and in 635 they sent him a devout man named Aidan, to whom he assigned the island of Lindisfarne as his episcopal see. "A man of singular meekness, piety, and moderation, and zealous in the cause of God." Oswald was acknowledged as Bretwalda of all Britain in succession to his uncle, Edwin the Great, and "when raised to that height of dominion he always continued humble, affable, and generous to the poor and strangers." The ruthless savage Penda had to add one more crime to the long list before his cup was full. He invaded Northumbria, and killed the good and saintly Oswald at the battle of Maserfield, probably at Winwick in Lancashire, in the year 642. Oswald's niece Osfrith, Queen of the Mercians, translated her uncle's bones to the Abbey of Bardney in Lincolnshire in 697, and in 909 they were removed into Mercia. The monks traded much with them, as a means of working miraculous cures.

Oswald was succeeded in Bernicia by his half–brother Oswy, who had received a mother's care from Queen Alca, though not her son. He usurped the rights of Oswald's son Ethelwald, the grandson of Alca. In Deira Oswin became king in succession to his father Osric. This excellent prince had been brought up by Bergliot with the sons of Lilla, to whom he was warmly attached. Trondhere, the eldest, became his adviser and constant companion. The younger son, Trumhere, entered the priesthood. During the first year of Oswin's reign the Princess Bergliot died, and was buried by her sons, by Lilla's side, in the old Roman fort at Hemingborough. Oswin was a man of wonderful piety and devotion, and governed Deira very prosperously, with the aid of Sivel, Trondhere, and Bishop Aidan, during seven happy and prosperous years. He was tall and graceful, affable and always courteous, and most generous, so that he was beloved by all ranks of the people. He was warmly attached to Aidan, who was astonished at his humility, a virtue rare in kings.

A story was recorded by Sivel, and repeated by Bede, which exemplifies this virtue. The King had given Aidan an extraordinarily fine horse, either to use in crossing rivers or in any extraordinary emergency, for ordinarily the Bishop travelled on foot. Soon afterwards, meeting a beggar, Aidan dismounted and presented the horse, with all its royal furniture, to the miserable creature. This was told to the King when he and the Bishop were going in to dinner. Oswin said, "Why did you give the beggar that royal horse which was necessary for your use? Are there not many other horses of less value which would have been good enough to give to the poor?" Aidan answered, "What is it you say, O King? Is that foal of a mare more dear to you than the Son of God?" Upon this they went in to dinner, and the Bishop sat in his place, but the King, who had just returned from hunting, stood warming himself, with his attendants, at the fire. Suddenly, calling to mind what the Bishop had said to him, Oswin ungirt his sword, gave it to a servant, and hastily knelt before the Bishop asking forgiveness. Aidan was much moved, and, starting up, raised the King, saying he was entirely reconciled, if he would sit down at meat and lay aside all sorrow. The King then began to be merry. The Bishop, on the other hand, became so melancholy as to shed tears. His priest asked him in Gaelic why he wept. In the same language Aidan answered, "I weep because I know the King will not live long. For I never before saw so humble a king, whence I conclude that he will soon be snatched out of this life, for this nation is not worthy of such a ruler."

It was too true. In 650 the ambitious Oswy collected a great army to invade Deira. Oswin assembled a smaller force, and advanced, with Trondhere, to Catterick. But finding that the King of Bernicia had a much larger number of troops, he dismissed his men to their homes to avoid useless bloodshed, resolving to go into concealment until better times. A certain Earl named Hunwald promised him a safe place of retirement at Gilling. But Hunwald was a traitor. The place was betrayed to Oswy. On the 20th of August 650 a commander named Ethilwin and several followers forced their way into the house. Like his father Lilla before him, Trondhere threw himself before his master to protect him from the blows of the assassins. But in vain. He was slain and thrown aside, and then the good King Oswin was despatched. One may hope that this was not done by order of Oswy, and that, as in the case of Henry II. and Becket long afterwards, he was only guilty of a hasty word misinterpreted by an unscrupulous servant. For some time the crime was concealed.

It was not known to Sivel, who could hardly have taken a lenient view of the King's conduct, when bitterly resenting the murders of the son of Lilla and of the nephew of Hereric. But he was even then on his death–bed. During the reign of Oswin the last of Edwin's paladins had been chief of the Billingas, but he had resigned the duties and given up all his rights to Saebald's grandson Osbert, whose two brothers, named Adda and Utta, had become priests. For Sivel was now advanced in years. He lived at York, occupied with his chronicle, his coinage, and the completion of King Edwin's church of St. Peter, or York Minster. His cousin Utta had been one of his clerks, and had since taken orders, but continued to attend on Sivel in his old age. At last his long and useful course was finished, having reached his seventy–first year, and survived all his friends. More than two hundred years afterwards there was a moneyer at York of the same name, who struck coins for King Edwig, and who may not improbably have been a descendant of Sivel's cousin Saebald. Osbert, Adda, and Utta conveyed the body of the last surviving paladin of Edwin the Great from York to Bilbrough. They buried Sivel in the tumulus of his father Vidfinn, by the side of his beloved Forthere. The tumulus was then raised to nearly twice its present height.

Adda became Abbot of Gateshead, and was afterwards employed in the conversion of the Mercians. Utta was "a man of great gravity and sincerity, and on that account honoured by all men, even the princes of the world." When King Oswy resolved to send an embassy to Ercombert, King of Kent, who had succeeded to his father Eadbald, in 641, to ask for the hand of the daughter of Edwin the Great, he had consulted Sivel with regard to the selection of an ambassador, who recommended his cousin Utta. But the mission did not start until after the funeral of Sivel. King Oswin, Bishop Aidan, and Sivel died within a week of each other; and soon afterwards the mission left York.

Bishop Aidan, before his death on 31st August 650, made an excellent suggestion to Utta. He thought it likely that a storm would be encountered either going or returning, and he gave Utta a keg of oil, saying that if he threw it overboard the rough sea would become smooth. The experiment was remarkably successful, as Bede was told by a priest named Cynemund, who had it from Utta himself.

Eanflaed, the daughter of Edwin by Ethelburga of Kent, arrived safely, and was married to King Oswy, the step–son of her aunt, the peerless Alca. She was then twenty–five years of age. The Queen was horrified when she heard of the murder of her cousin Oswin, and recoiled from her husband. He appears to have protested his innocence. Eventually a monastery was built at Gilling, where daily prayers were said for the soul of Oswin, and for forgiveness to the repentant Oswy. The first abbot was Trumhere, the younger son of Lilla and Bergliot, and brother of the murdered Trondhere. Born in 611, Trumhere was a cousin of the slaughtered King, his mother Bergliot having been a sister of Oswin's father. He was brought up in the same monastery with Chad, the future saint, but not under his direction, as Bede says, for they were contemporaries. Trumhere went from Gilling to be the first bishop of the Mercians, with his see at Repton. Resigning his bishopric into the hands of King Wulfhere, who appointed Jaruman to succeed him, Trumhere retired to a monastery. When a very old man, he was the instructor of the historian Bede, and told him the anecdote of St. Chad, remarked upon by Jeremy Bentham in his Life of Christ, touching his habit of praying whenever there was a storm, and the reason he gave for the practice. St. Chad succeeded Jaruman as bishop of the Mercians, and having transferred the see from Repton to Lichfield, he died there in 674. Trumhere survived him for sixteen years.

A few years after Oswy's marriage, his kingdom was exposed to the desolating incursions of the bloodthirsty King Penda of Mercia. He did all in his power to appease the old man. His son Egfrith was even given up as a hostage to the Mercian Queen Cynthryth. He offered immense gifts if Penda would return home and cease to devastate the country. But Penda refused them, swearing to destroy Oswy and all his race. Oswy became desperate. He said, "If the Pagan will not accept our gifts, let us offer them to Him that will, the Lord our God." He vowed that if he was victorious he would dedicate his youngest daughter, Elflaed, to the service of God.

On 15th November 655, the two armies met on the banks of a stream near Leeds, which was much swollen by the rains. The place was called Winwidfield. Penda's army was vastly superior in numbers to the Northumbrians, and consisted of all the power of the Mercians, besides a contingent of East Anglians led by their king, Ethelhard. The dethroned son of Oswald, Etheldwald, the grandson of Alca, was a spectator, but he did not engage in the battle against his countrymen. Oswy had with him his (illegitimate?) son Alchred. After a well–contested battle, the Mercians were forced back into the swollen water of the flood, where there was much loss of life. Both Penda and Ethelhard were among the dead. There was a great slaughter, and Oswy gained a complete victory. The unfortunate son of Oswald is not again mentioned, and his fate is unknown.

Oswy became very powerful. He was acknowledged as Bretwalda in succession to Oswald, and for some years he personally administered Mercia. Afterwards Peada, the son of Penda, having become a Christian, was allowed to succeed, and was followed by his brothers Wulfhere (659) and Ethelred (675), who married Oswy's daughter Osfrith. Oswy must have been a man of considerable ability. He died on 15th February 676, leaving a son, Ealhfrith, by a first wife, and four children by Eanflaed. These were Egfrith, his successor; Elfwin, cut off in his youth, which was full of promise; Osfrith, the Mercian Queen; and Elflaed the nun—the four grandchildren of Edwin the Great.

The daughters of Braga now claim our attention. Her younger sister Nanna, or Mary Audr, as Godric loved to call her, died at Driffield soon after their flight thither, and was buried by the side of her brothers. Like her namesake, the wife of Balder, she could not survive the death of her lord. Braga lived on. At the time of Hereric's flight she had a strange dream. She fancied that she was seeking for him most carefully, and could find no sign of him anywhere. After having used all her industry to seek him, she found a most precious jewel under her garment, which, whilst she was looking at it very attentively, cast such a light as spread itself throughout all Britain. It was thought that this dream was fulfilled in the life of her daughter St. Hilda. Soon after her daughters were grown up, Braga died, and was buried at Stillingfleet with her sister and brothers.

Braga's eldest daughter, Hereswith, married Ethelhard, King of East Anglia, who was slain fighting for Penda at Winwidfield. Her son Aldwulf, who succeeded, eventually became a monk. Hereswith herself retired to the monastery of Chelles near Paris. Hilda wished to follow her sister, but Bishop Aidan recalled her and induced her to lead a monastic life on some land near the banks of the river Wear. She was made Abbess of Heruteu (Hartlepool), and, after some years, was removed thence to be Abbess of Streaneshalch (Whitby), where she was an example of good life and a person of singular piety and grace. She also had considerable influence in church and state; and the famous synod, with Oswy presiding, when Wilfrid confuted Colman in the Easter controversy, was held in her abbey. She was a great sufferer during the last year of her life, and died at Whitby on 17th November 680, aged sixty–six years. She had built another monastery at Hackness, and at the moment of her death one of the Hackness nuns named Bega (St. Bees) saw her in a vision being carried up to heaven by angels. When the monks came next morning with the news, the Hackness nuns told them that they had known it for some hours. Thus died St. Hilda, the child of Hereric and Braga.

Elflaed, the grandchild of King Edwin, was entrusted to her cousin Hilda when she was at Hartlepool, and removed with her to Whitby. On Hilda's death, Elflaed became abbess, and, on the death of Oswy, her mother Eanflaed came to pass the last years of her life with her child. They translated King Edwin's body from Aldby to Whitby, and there they both died and were buried. Oswy was also buried at Whitby. The death of Elflaed took place in 714.

Both the children of Alca were canonised—St. Oswald and St. Ebba. The sweet little Ebba was brought up by Bergliot at Hemingborough, and early took to a religious life. She was abbess of the monastery of Coludi, now called Coldingham, in Berwickshire. Bede tells us that Ebba died before 679, when the Abbey of Coldingham was burnt down.

Egfrith, the grandson of King Edwin, succeeded his father Oswy in 670, at the age of eighteen, and married Etheldrida, daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, who preferred a monastic life, and bore him no children. Eventually she obtained her husband's permission to take the veil at Coludi, where St. Ebba, Egfrith's cousin, was abbess, whence she removed to Ely. In 679 this king and his brother–in–law of Mercia had an unfortunate quarrel, and there was a battle on the banks of the Trent, in which young Elfwin, Egfrith's brother, was killed. He was a youth of great promise aged eighteen, and his loss was deplored by both sides. This made it easy for Archbishop Theodore to offer his mediation, and the combatants were appeased. Egfrith was restless and ambitious. In 684 he sent an army to invade Ireland; and the following year he himself led a force to ravage the country of the Picts, much against the advice of Bishop Cuthbert and his other councillors. He was led into an ambush at Dunnichen, on the coast of Forfarshire, and slain on the 20th of May 685, aged forty years, and having reigned fifteen.

Ealhfrith, a son of King Oswy, but not by Eanflaed, succeeded his brother Egfrith, and retrieved the ruined state of the kingdom. He had been instructed by St. Wilfrid, and was very learned in the Scriptures. Adamnan, the Abbot of Iona, was ambassador at Ealhfrith's court, and presented a book he had written on the Holy Places to that King, who sent him back to his country well rewarded. In 697 Osfrith, Queen of the Mercians, sister of Egfrith and grandchild of King Edwin, was murdered, but the circumstances are not related. Her husband Ethelred abdicated in 704 and became a monk at Bardney, where he died in 716. Their son Coelred succeeded his cousin Kenred as King of Mercia in 709, and dying in 716, he was buried at Lichfield. Coelred survived his aunt Elflaed by two years, and was thus the last descendant of King Edwin.

King Ealhfrith of Northumbria died at Driffield in 709, and was succeeded by his son Osred, who was then eight years of age. When only fifteen, he appears to have been murdered, and a usurper named Coenred, or Kenred, seized the government and held it for two years. He was followed by a king named Osric, who reigned for eleven years, when he is said to have been slain. Then, in 731, King Ceolwulf became ruler of Northumbria, and reigned until 739. He was not of the family of Oswy, but was descended directly from Ida, the first King of Bernicia. He became a monk in 739, leaving the kingdom to his cousin Eadbert, whose brother was Egbert, the Archbishop of York. This learned prelate collected a large library, and ruled the see from 729 to 776. Alcuin was his scholar. Eadbert, after a reign of twenty years, also became a monk in 757, and died in 768.

The Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede is the source whence nearly all the information respecting the historical persons in this story is derived. Bede was born during the reign of King Egfrith in 673, in the country between the Tyne and the Wear. Egfrith granted a tract of land to a friend of his named Biscop in 675, on which he founded Wearmouth; and in 682 Biscop erected the monastery of Jarrow on the banks of the Tyne, and became abbot under the name of Benedict. This remarkable man travelled several times to Rome, bringing back books and works of art, masons and glaziers. Bede lived in the monastery of Jarrow all his life, from the age of seven. He received instruction in theology and the Scriptures from Trumhere, the son of Lilla and Bergliot, then very old, who thus trained him for his future historical labours. Bede was ordained priest in 705, during the reign of King Ealhfrith of Northumbria, by John, Bishop of Hexham, better known as John of Beverley. Bede seldom left his monastery, but he certainly paid a visit to Archbishop Egbert at York, and was also most probably the occasional guest of Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, who was a man of singular learning and a great patron of literature. It was Ceolwulf who requested Bede to write the ecclesiastical history, and to whom Bede sent the sheets for his perusal. The great historian died on the 26th of May 735, four years before the retirement of King Ceolwulf into a monastery.

Bede wrote his history about a century after the death of Edwin the Great. He received his education from the son of Lilla, and derived his materials for the Northumbrian part of his history from the chronicle of Sivel. It was providential that such a man should have arisen at such a juncture, gifted with talent and ardour in the pursuit of learning, and that the times should have been favourable for the composition and preservation of his work. He lived under the reigns of enlightened Kings of Northumbria, whose culture was due to the impetus given to progress by Edwin and his paladins. To one of those kings, the good Ceolwulf, he dedicated his history. He enjoyed the friendship of the best and most learned of the Archbishops of York before the conquest, Egbert, the brother of Eadbert the King. He was furnished with materials from many quarters. But for Bede's history, written under these favourable circumstances, we should know nothing of the early proceedings of the makers of England, nothing of the story of Edwin the Great.

In spite of the excessive number of monkish miracles he records, which testify to his simplicity, and show that he was not in advance of his contemporaries in the matter of credulity, Bede is transparently honest. His authorities are perfectly safe in his hands, and he gives all his information without a word of alteration. The confidence we may justly repose in its author increases the interest as well as the value of the earliest of our histories.

THE END

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.