In the year of our Lord 684, Egfrid, king of the Northumbrians, sending his general, Berct,1 with an army into Ireland, miserably laid waste that unoffending nation, which had always been most friendly to the English; insomuch that the invading force spared not even the churches or monasteries. But the islanders, while to the utmost of their power they repelled force with force, implored the assistance of the Divine mercy, and with constant imprecations invoked the vengeance of Heaven; and though such as curse cannot inherit the kingdom of God, yet it was believed, that those who were justly cursed on account of their impiety, soon suffered the penalty of their guilt at the avenging hand of God. For the very next year, when that same king had rashly led his army to ravage the province of the Picts,2 greatly against the advice of his friends, and particularly of Cuthbert,3 of blessed memory, who had been lately ordained bishop, the enemy made a feigned retreat, and the king was drawn into a narrow pass among remote mountains,4 and slain, with the greater part of the forces he had led thither, on the 20th of May, in the fortieth year of his age, and the fifteenth of his reign.5 His friends, as has been said, advised him not to engage in this war; but since he had the year before refused to listen to the most reverend father, Egbert,6 advising him not to attack the Scots, who were doing him no harm, it was laid upon him as a punishment for his sin, that he should now not listen to those who would have prevented his death.
From that time the hopes and strength of the Anglian kingdom “began to ebb and fall away;”7 for the Picts recovered their own lands, which had been held by the English, and so did also the Scots that were in Britain; and some of the Britons8 regained their liberty, which they have now enjoyed for about forty-six years. Among the many English that then either fell by the sword, or were made slaves, or escaped by flight out of the country of the Picts, the most reverend man of God, Trumwine,9 who had been made bishop over them, withdrew with his people that were in the monastery of Aebbercurnig,10 in the country of the English, but close by the arm of the sea which is the boundary between the lands of the English and the Picts. Having commended his followers, wheresoever he could, to his friends in the monasteries, he chose his own place of abode in the monastery, which we have so often mentioned, of servants and handmaids of God, at Streanaeshalch;11 and there for many years, with a few of his own brethren, he led a life in all monastic austerity, not only to his own benefit, but to the benefit of many others, and dying there, he was buried in the church of the blessed Peter the Apostle,12 with the honour due to his life and rank. The royal virgin, Elfled,13 with her mother, Eanfled, whom we have mentioned before, then presided over that monastery; but when the bishop came thither, that devout teacher found in him the greatest help in governing, and comfort in her private life. Aldfrid14 succeeded Egfrid in the throne, being a man most learned in the Scriptures, said to be brother to Egfrid, and son to King Oswy; he nobly retrieved the ruined state of the kingdom, though within narrower bounds.
The same year, being the 685th from the Incarnation of our Lord, Hlothere,15 king of Kent, died on the 6th of February, when he had reigned twelve years after his brother Egbert,16 who had reigned nine years: he was wounded in battle with the South Saxons, whom Edric,17 the son of Egbert, had raised against him, and died whilst his wound was being dressed. After him, this same Edric reigned a year and a half. On his death, kings of doubtful title, or of foreign origin,18 for some time wasted the kingdom, till the lawful king, Wictred,19 the son of Egbert, being settled in the throne, by his piety and zeal delivered his nation from foreign invasion.
← IV.25 Of the vision that appeared to a certain man of God before the monastery of the city Coludi was burned down. · Contents · [[BEH IV.27|IV.27 How Cuthbert, a man of God, was made bishop; and how he lived and taught whilst still in the monastic life. [685 a.d.] →]]
Footnotes
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For Berct, cf. V, 24 (sub 698), note. The circumstances which led to the invasion are not known. ↩
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The Picts north of the Forth, cf. c. 12, ad fin. Their king at this time was Bruide mac Bili, who was Egfrid’s distant kinsman. In 672 Egfrid had crushed a rising of Picts under the same king. ↩
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Cf. cc. 27-32. He had a mysterious intimation of the disaster at the hour of the king’s defeat and death, and warned the queen (Eormenburg), who was with him at Carlisle (v. Bede’s Life of Cuthbert, and the Anonymous Life). He is also said to have prophesied the king’s death a year before to Elfled, Egfrid’s sister (v. III, 24). ↩
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At Nechtansmere or Dunnechtan, identified with Dunnichen, near Forfar. Egfrid was buried in Iona, where Adamnan, the friend of his successor, was Abbot. ↩
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Cf. c. 5 ad init., note. If he succeeded in February, 670, this would be his sixteenth year. ↩
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III, 4, 27; IV, 3; V, 9, 10, 22, 24. His English birth and long residence in Ireland fitted him to be a mediator. ↩
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Vergil, Aen. II, 169. ↩
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The Dalriadic Scots (Cf. I, 1, note; I, 34) and the Britons of Strathclyde. ↩
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Cf. c. 12. ↩
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Abercorn on the Forth, cf. I, 12; IV, 12, and note. ↩
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III, 24, 25; IV, 23; V, 24. ↩
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Cf. III, 24, p. 190. ↩
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III, 24, and note. Elfled succeeded Hilda as abbess, and apparently ruled jointly with her mother. ↩
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Cf. V, passim, and Bede’s two lives of Cuthbert. His mother’s name is said by the Irish authorities to have been Fina. He had lived among the Irish islands (“in insulis Scottorum,” and “in regionibus Scottorum”) for the sake of study, according to Bede, but William of Malmesbury implies that Egfrid may have been responsible for his exile. He was a man of great learning and of scholarly tastes. In Bede’s “History of the Abbots,” we are told that he gave eight hides of land for a MS. which Benedict Biscop had brought from Rome. ↩
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Cc. 5, 17, 22. ↩
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Cc. 1, 5. ↩
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Apparently at one time joint-king with Hlothere. Certain dooms are ascribed to them both. According to Thomas of Elmham, he was killed in war against Caedwalla, king of Wessex, and his brother, Mul, who were at this time encroaching on Kent. ↩
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Mul seems to have usurped the throne for a time. ↩
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In 692 we find him reigning as joint-king with Swaebhard (V, 8 ad fin.). He must have succeeded in 690, if Bede’s dates are correct; cf. V, 23, where it is said that he died on April 23, 725, after a reign of thirty-four and a half years. ↩