Northumbria

One of the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, situated between the Humber and the Forth, it originally consisted of two independent kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira. Of the former kingdom Ida was the first ruler (547-49). The first ruler of Deira was Ella (560-?88), and he was succeeded by Ethelfrid, who had united the two kingdoms by 604. Redwald of East Anglia defeated and slew Ethelfrid, and Edwin, son of Ella, then succeeded to the throne of Northumbria. He extended the frontiers to the coast (including Anglesey and Man), and during his reign the kingdom was the most powerful in England. After Oswald's death (641) the kingdom disintegrated, and did not recover its former position till Oswy became king of Bernicia, defeated and killed Penda of Mercia in 654, and incorporated the northern part of Mercia in his kingdom. Mercia recovered its territory in 658, and Northumbria pushed its frontiers northward, annexing Strathclyde and Dalriada. In 685 the Picts recovered their independence. Aldfrith, the son and successor of Oswy, made no further attempts to extend his kingdom. Under his patronage learning flourished. His successors were incompetent rulers, and henceforth the political decline of the kingdom was rapid.

The first Danish raids occurred c. 793. In 827 Eanred, King of Northumbria, formally acknowledged the supremacy of Egbert of Wessex. From 876 to 954 Northumbria was largely controlled by the Danes, and subject to increasing Scandinavian immigration. After the battle of Stainmore (954) the permanent separation of Northumbria from the English kingdom ended.

Northumbria was for a considerable period the chief seat in England of literary and missionary activity. In the Golden Age of Conversion, Cuthbert flourished in his monastery of Lindisfarne, Bede at Wearmouth and Jarrow, and St Wilfred at Hexham and Ripon. In 731 Bede at Jarrow wrote his famous Eccleiastical History. The stone crosses, Ruthwell and Bewcastel as early examples, and the schools of York and Ripon as later developments, are evidence of the beauty and power of Northumbrian sculpture. It was not till the reign of William the Conqueror that Northumbria became an integral part of England.

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