BOOK III. 633. Edwin's fate. Cadwallon's successes. scure and tranquil, and an appendage to his kingdom of Deira, Edwin had no reason to apprehend any danger from this union. But the end of all battles is uncertain: the death of a commander; the mistake of a movement; a sudden unforeseen attack on some part; a skilful, even at times an accidental, evolution, has frequently made both talent and numbers unavailing. The detail of this conflict has not been transmitted, but its issue was calamitous to Edwin. He fell in his forty-eighth year, with one of his children; and most of his army perished.29 The victors ravaged Northumbria; the hoary Penda exercised peculiar cruelty on the Christian inhabitants. Consternation overspread the country. The royal widow fled in terror, under the protection of Paulinus and a valiant soldier, with some of her children, to her kinsman in Kent.30 On Edwin's death, the ancient divisions of Northumbria again prevailed, and a heptarchy re-appeared. His cousin Osric, the grandson of Ella, succeeded to Deira; and Eanfrid, the long exiled son of Ethelfrith, to Bernicia both restored paganism, though Osric had been baptized. The Welsh king Cadwallon, full of projects of revenge against the nation of the Angles, continued his war. Osric rashly ventured to besiege Gibson 29 Osfrid fell before his father. Bede, lib. ii. c. 20. Sax. Chron. 29. and Carte place the battle in Hatfield Chase. Langhorn prefers Hethfield in Derbyshire, near Cheshire, 176.; others, more absurdly, have glanced on Hatfield in Herts. Near the Yorkshire town many intrenchments are to be seen. I will not aver that rats shun the town, or that the sparrows are displeased with Lindham in the moors below it. Gibson's Add. to Camden, 725.-The men of Powys so distinguished themselves in this battle, that they obtained from Cadwallon a boon of fourteen privileges. The Welsh call the scene of conflict Meigin. Cynddelw, cited in Owen's Llywarch, p. 117. So Eadbald received them honourably, and made Paulinus bishop of Rochester. Bede, lib. ii. c. 20. Sax. Chron. 29. He gave her the villam maximam Lininge (Liming) cum omnibus adjacentibus, in which she built a monastery. Hugo. Candid. Cænob. Burg. Hist. p. 37. ed Sparke. She exhibited a novelty to the English, which produced serious consequences. She took the veil. Smith's Notes on Bede, 101. The hospitality of Eadbald seems not to have been unchequered ; her apprehension of him and Oswald induced her to send her children to France, to Dagobert, their relation. Bede, c. 20. VII. 633. him in a strong town 31, but an unexpected sally of CHAP. Cadwallon destroyed the king of Deira. For a year the victor desolated Northumbria: his success struck Eanfrid with terror, and his panic hurried him to his fate. He went with twelve soldiers to sue peace of the Welshman. Notwithstanding the sacred purpose of his visit, he was put to death. The swords of Cadwallon and his army seemed the agents destined to fulfil their cherished prophecy. The fate of the Anglo-Saxons was now about to arrive; three of their kings had been already offered up to the shades of the injured Cymry; an Arthur had revived in Cadwallon.-But the lying prophecies of hope, and human augury, have been the experience and the complaint of ages, and are never more fallacious than in ambition and war. 634. Triumphant with the fame of fourteen great battles and sixty skirmishes 32, Cadwallon despised Oswald, the brother and successor of Eanfrid, who rallied the Bernician forces, and attempted to become the deliverer of his country. With humble confidence the royal youth committed his cause to the arbitration of Providence 33, and calmly awaited the decision on the banks of the Denise.34 There, Cadwallon and the oswald deflower of his army were destroyed. 35 The return of feats him. 31 Bede, lib. iii. c. 1. The town was a municipium, and was therefore in all probability York. Smith's Notes on Bede, 103. 32 Llywarch Hen, p. 111. The piety of Oswald previous to the battle is expressed by Bede. To his arrayed army he loudly exclaimed: "Let us kneel to the Omnipotent Lord, the existing and the true, and unite to implore his protection against a fierce and arrogant enemy. He knows that we have undertaken a just war for the safety of our people."-The army obeyed the royal mandate. Lib. iii. c. 2. Camden places this battle at Dilston, formerly Devilston, on a small brook which empties into the Tyne, 854., Gib. ed. Smith, with greater probability, marks Erringburn as the rivulet on which Cadwallon perished, and the fields either of Cockley, Hallington, or Bingfield, as the scene of conflict. App. to Bede, 721. The Angles called it Hefenfield, which name, according to tradition, Bingfield bore. 35 Although Jeffry admits Oswald to have conquered at Havenfield, yet he has sent Penda to be the person defeated there; and instead of suffering his Cadwallon to perish, inflames him with rage at the disaster, and despatches him like lightning in chase of Oswald, whom he permits Penda to kill; Cadwallon then became possessed of all Britain. Lib. xii. c. 10, 11. Such is the veracity of Jeffry's history! BOOK III. 634. the Cymry to their ancient country never became probable again.36 36 The ancient bard Llywarch Hen composed in his old age an elegy on Cadwallon, whose death he lived to witness; and thus speaks of his friend : — Fourteen great battles he fought Of Lloegyr (England) The scourge and the oppressor, His hand was open; Honour flowed from it. Cadwallon encamped on the Yddon, The lion, prosperous against the Saxons. Cadwallon in his fame encamped On the top of Mount Digoll: Seven months, and seven skirmishes daily. He led the hand of slaughter in the breach; Stubborn in a hundred battles, A hundred castles he threw down. He made the eagles full; Violent his wrath in the gash; As the water flows from the fountain, So will our sorrow through the lingering day, For Cadwallon ! Welsh Arch. i. p. 121.; and Owen's Llywarch, p. 111-117. CHAP. VIII. The Reign, Actions, and Death of PENDA. - History of the THUMBRIA. CHAP. VIII. A.D. 627-634. ABOUT this time the kingdom of Mercia was not only distinctly formed, but, by the extraordinary ability of one man, was at the same time raised to a greater eminence in the Saxon octarchy than any of its pre- Rise of ceding kings, even those who had become Bretwaldas, Penda. had actually obtained. This man was Penda, who, though not classed among the Bretwaldas, would, if victory over the other Anglo-Saxon states had given the dignity, have possessed it more rightfully than any other. It has been mentioned that several petty adventurers of the Angles had successively penetrated into the inland districts, which became comprised in the kingdom of Mercia, and established settlements among the Britons in these regions. In 586, one of them, named Crida, also a descendant of Woden, began to attain a regal pre-eminence1; but as we may infer from an intimation of Nennius, that Penda first separated Mercia from the kingdom of the northern Angles, Crida must have been in subordination to the kingdom of Deira, which formed its northern frontier.2 In 627, Penda, the grandson of Crida, succeeded to the crown at that age, when documents which Gale, Script. iii. Leland from an old Crida is the first Mercian chief that is mentioned in the remain to us, with the title of king. He began to reign in 586. p. 229. Hunt. 315. Lel. Collect. ii. p. 56. Ibid. i. p. 258. chronicle observes, vol. i. p. 211., that the Trent divided Mercia into two kingdoms, the north and the south. 2 Nennius, p. 117. "Penda primus separavit regnum Merciorum a regno Nordorum." Ceorl acceded between Crida and Penda. Rad. Polych. p. 229. It was Ceorl's daughter Quenburga that Edwin married in his exile. Bede, lib. ii. c. 14. BOOK III. 634. Oswald reigns in Northum bria. men are usually more disposed to ease than activity. He was fifty years old before he became the king of Mercia, and he reigned thirty years 3; but it was to the terror and destruction of several of the other Anglo-Saxon kings. Mercia had neither displayed power nor ability before his accession; but Penda's military talents and uncommon vigour speedily raised it to a decided and overwhelming preponderance. In the year after he attained the crown, we find him in a battle with Cynegils, and his son Cwichelm, in Wessex, at Cirencester. The conflict was undecided during the whole day, and in the ensuing morning the war was ended by a treaty. Five years afterwards, at the age of sixty, he joined Cadwallon, and defeated Edwin of Northumbria, in that battle in which this prince was slain.5 The piety of Oswald was sincere, and influenced his conduct; he obtained a bishop from Icolm-kill to instruct his rude subjects; and he earnestly laboured to advance their moral tuition. His own example strengthened his recommendations on that essential duty, without which all human talents, and all human aggrandisement, are unavailing decorations. In the festival of Easter a silver dish was laid before him, full of dainties. While the blessing was about to be pronounced, the servant appointed to relieve the poor, informed the king that the street was crowded with the needy, soliciting alms. Struck by the contrast, that while he was feasting with luxury, many of his subjects, beings of feelings, desires, and necessities like his own, were struggling with poverty; remembering the benevolent precepts of Christianity, and obeying the impulse of a kind temper, he or 3 Flor. Wig. dates his accession in 627, p. 232. Penda was the eleventh descendant from Woden, by his son Wihtlæg, ibid. and Hunt. 316. 4 Hunt. 316. Sax. Chron. 29. The pacification is mentioned by Flor. Wig. 233.; and Matt. West. 217. See before, p. 350. |