← Back to the beginning of Book III, Chapter 24. How when King Penda was slain, the province of the Mercians received the faith of Christ, and Oswy gave possessions and territories to God, for building monasteries, as a thank offering for the victory obtained. [655 a.d.]

Diuma was made the first bishop of the Mercians, as also of Lindsey and the Midland Angles, as has been said above,14 and he died and was buried among the Midland Angles. The second was Ceollach,15 who, giving up his episcopal office before his death, returned into Scotland. Both these bishops belonged to the nation of the Scots. The third was Trumhere, an Englishman, but educated and ordained by the Scots. He was abbot of the monastery that is called Ingetlingum,16 and is the place where King Oswin was killed, as has been said above; for Queen Eanfled, his kinswoman, in expiation of his unjust death, begged of King Oswy that he would give Trumhere, the aforesaid servant of God, a place there to build a monastery, because he also was kinsman to the slaughtered king; in which monastery continual prayers should be offered up for the eternal welfare of the kings, both of him that was murdered, and of him that commanded the murder. The same King Oswy governed the Mercians, as also the people of the other southern provinces, three years after he had slain King Penda; and he likewise subdued the greater part of the Picts to the dominion of the English.

At this time he gave to the above-mentioned Peada, son to King Penda, because he was his kinsman, the kingdom of the Southern Mercians,17 consisting, as is said, of 5,000 families, divided by the river Trent from the Northern Mercians, whose land contains 7,000 families; but Peada was foully slain in the following spring, by the treachery, as is said, of his wife,18 during the very time of the Easter festival. Three years after the death of King Penda, the Mercian chiefs, Immin, and Eafa, and Eadbert, rebelled against King Oswy, setting up for their king, Wulfhere,19 son to the said Penda, a youth whom they had kept concealed; and expelling the ealdormen of the foreign king, they bravely recovered at once their liberty and their lands; and being thus free, together with their king, they rejoiced to serve Christ the true King, for the sake of an everlasting kingdom in heaven. This king governed the Mercians seventeen years, and had for his first bishop Trumhere,20 above spoken of; the second was Jaruman;21 the third Ceadda;22 the fourth Wynfrid.23 All these, succeeding each other in order under King Wulfhere, discharged episcopal duties to the Mercian nation.

← III.23 How Bishop Cedd, having a place for building a monastery given him by King Ethelwald, consecrated it to the Lord with prayer and fasting; and concerning his death. [659-664 a.d.] · Contents · [[BEH III.25|III.25 How the question arose about the due time of keeping Easter, with those that came out of Scotland.[664 a.d.] →]]

Footnotes

  1. Oswald; v.s. c. 9. ↩

  2. “Ealdormen,” Green, “Making of England,” p. 301. But they probably included many British chiefs (v. Nennius, and cf. infra “duces regii”). ↩

  3. Oswy’s younger son. He succeeded his father in 670 or 671 (v. IV, 5, and for the events of his reign, IV, V, passim). ↩

  4. The wife of Penda. ↩

  5. Cc. 14 and 23. The reason for his conduct is not explained. Probably he had hoped to establish his claims on Northumbria through Penda’s assistance, but shrank from actually fighting against his country. ↩

  6. Cf. c. 22, ad fin., note. How he gave occasion for the war is not known. ↩

  7. The river has not been identified, and there is great uncertainty even with regard to the district. Below, Bede says that Oswy concluded the war in the district of “Loidis,” by which he must mean Leeds, as in II, 14, and most commentators adopt this view. In this case, the river may be the Aire, or more probably the Went, a tributary of the Don. Others believe the district to be the Lothians, following the account in Nennius, who describes Oswy as taking refuge before the battle in a city called Iudeu, supposed to be either Edinburgh or Carriden (cf. I, 12, note), and the river has been supposed to be the Avon in Linlithgow. ↩

  8. She is mentioned as joint-abbess with her mother, Eanfled, of the monastery of Whitby (IV, 26). Eddius calls her “sapientissima virgo,” “semper totius provinciae consolatrix optimaque consiliatrix.” Her influence helped to restore Wilfrid to the bishopric. She was the friend of St. Cuthbert, who is said to have wrought a miraculous cure on her behalf. It was to her that he prophesied the death of her brother Egfrid (IV, 26, p. 285, note). ↩

  9. Hartlepool in the county of Durham (cf. IV, 23). ↩

  10. For the main facts of her life, v. IV, 23. She was Abbess of Whitby at the time of the Synod (c. 25). ↩

  11. Whitby. It was a mixed monastery (cf. IV, 23). ↩

  12. The ancient life of Gregory the Great, by a monk of Whitby, tells how Edwin’s body was translated thither from the place where he fell. For the fate of his head, cf. II, 20. ↩

  13. In 655: cf. V, 24 (death of Penda). ↩

  14. Cf. c. 21, where, however, Lindsey is not mentioned. For the successive conquests of Lindsey by Northumbria and Mercia, v. IV, 12, p. 243, note. Though it must have passed to Northumbria after Oswy’s victory, it was still apparently included in the Mercian diocese. ↩

  15. C. 21, ad fin. and note. “Scottia,” as usual, means Ireland, which includes Iona (cf. II, 4). ↩

  16. Cf. c. 14. ↩

  17. I.e., he confirmed Peada in the government conferred on him by his father, Penda, if we may assume the Southern Mercians to be identical with the Middle Angles: cf. c. 21, p. 180. ↩

  18. Alchfled, Oswy’s daughter: v.s. ibid. ↩

  19. He has been already mentioned, cc. 7, 21. He was a vigorous ruler; he freed Mercia from Northumbria, reconquered Lindsey, established his supremacy over the East Saxons (cf. c. 30), and curtailed the power of Wessex. His attempt, however, to extend his power to the north of the Humber ended in 675 in his disastrous defeat by Egfrid, King of Northumbria (IV, 12) and his death followed immediately after. He was the first Christian king of all Mercia, and he was zealous in putting down idolatry (Florence of Worcester). ↩

  20. Cf. supra and c. 21. ↩

  21. He succeeded in 662. Cf. c. 30. ↩

  22. C. 23, p. 187, and note. ↩

  23. IV, 3, 5, 6. He was deposed by Theodore for some act of disobedience not known (IV, 6), and went to the Continent, where, travelling in Neustria, he was mistaken for Wilfrid and cruelly ill-treated by the emissaries of Ebroin (v. V, 19, note), “errore bono unius syllabae seducti,” as Eddius, the biographer of Wilfrid, remarks. ↩

← Back to the beginning of Book III, Chapter 24. How when King Penda was slain, the province of the Mercians received the faith of Christ, and Oswy gave possessions and territories to God, for building monasteries, as a thank offering for the victory obtained. [655 a.d.]