Tynemouth 19, 293
Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club 157
U
Uí Néill clan 55, 56, 61, 63, 70
Ulster 61, 143, 194
Ulster Chronicles 64
Urien, King of Rheged 14, 25, 26, 147
Uscfrea 129
Utta 263, 264
V
Vale of Pickering 89, 90, 95, 130, 226, 292, 293
Vale of York 26, 88, 95
Verulamium 337
Victricius, bishop of Rouen 247
Vikings 80, 86, 314n, 360–61, 382
Viktor, St 336
villa regia (royal estate centre) 41, 87, 110, 132, 135, 180, 215, 267, 275, 282, 292, 318, 380
vills 16, 182, 214–15, 218, 222, 250, 269, 273, 344, 380, 381, 384, 414
Vindolanda 151, 212
Vitalian, Pope 308n, 317, 323
Vortigern 39–40, 41
Votadini 211
Vynegot 366
W
Waddington, Clive 225
Wade, General 152, 164
Wales 18, 20, 46, 51, 72, 78, 131–32
Wamba, king of the Visigoths 62
Wash, the 80, 86, 94, 218
Wear River 267, 313, 368
Weardale 212
Wearmouth 183
Wearmouth monastery 267n, 312
Wellington, Duke of 386
Welsh Annals 29n, 77, 98–99, 102, 156, 232, 234
Went River (Winwæd) 285
Wessex 3, 50, 93, 94, 125, 186, 187, 190, 192, 199, 218, 227, 235, 266
kings of 317, 342
West Heslerton, North Yorkshire 89, 90, 91, 130, 226
West Saxons 104, 107, 110, 186
Western Isles 18
Whitby 5, 292, 293, 311–13, 314n, 348, 350
Whitby, Synod of (664) xiv, 129, 301, 312–13, 314–15, 316, 317–21
Whitby Abbey 5, 311, 313, 314
Whitby double monastery 313–14, 382
Whitby Life of Gregory 42n, 348–49
White Church, Durham 353
White Well, Heavensfield 369
Whithorn, Galloway 74, 179
Whitley Castle 158, 159n, 360
wics 4, 38–39, 91–92, 170, 312
Widsith 375
Wigheard 317n, 323, 324
Wilfaresdun 273
Wilfrid, St 179, 199, 303, 308, 317n, 345
and Hexham 157, 163, 295, 296, 342
fosters the cult of Oswald 163, 257, 352
pilgrimage to Rome via Lyons 303–5
seeks patronage of kings 254–55
and Willibrord 255, 256, 257
British churches purged and taken over 268
Paulinus’s church at York repaired 295, 337, 339, 349
building projects at Ripon 295, 339–40, 342
personality 297, 303, 305, 382
at Alhfrith’s court 305–6
Synod of Whitby 318, 320
and new see at York 323, 324, 339
conflict with kings and archbishops 324, 382
fails to persuade Æthelthryth to fulfil her wifely duties 341
makes an enemy of Iurminburh 342, 350, 351
loses the king’s favour 343–44
threatens Ecgfrith 350–51
exiled from Northumberland (681) 257, 351–52
monasteries bequeathed by him to his relatives 346, 382
founds Selsey 257, 368
Willa 80
William I, King 131, 354, 385
Willibrord 255, 256, 367
Wilmott, Dr Tony 5, 212
Wintringham, North Yorkshire 115n
Winwæd, Battle on the (655) 285–87, 290, 325, 345
Winwick, Cheshire 233, 368
Wixna 80
Woden (Germanic god of war) 11, 31, 108, 133, 150, 214, 235, 252, 253
Wonders of Britain, The 29n, 232–33
Wood, Ian 292–93
Woodbridge, Suffolk 79
Wooler 209
Woolf, Alex 102n, 373n
Worcester 50, 191n
Wrocansætan 231, 250
Wroxeter, Shropshire (Virconum Cornoviorum) 231n
Wulfhere, King 308n, 316, 317, 339n, 342–43, 346
X
Xanten, Germany 336–37
Y
Yeavering (Ad Gefrin) 15, 32, 53, 167, 172, 205, 215, 221–25, 241, 296
Grave AX 113
baptisms by Paulinus 114
grandstand 115–18, 130–31, 155n, 196–97
church 119, 267, 275, 276
Building D2 119
township razed 130, 132, 135, 249–50
Building B 185
Area C 185
circular house 209–10
Building D3 210
Paulinus’s visit 215–16
Aidan’s death 275, 276
Building B 275–76
Building C4 276
Yffi 129
Yffings 129, 132, 133, 134, 193, 264, 370
Yggdrasil 252, 253
York (Eoforwic) 39, 68, 105, 132, 133, 301, 360, 378
Roman grandeur 87–88
revival by Edwin 88, 116–17
oratory 104, 107, 114
stone church 114, 119, 130, 267, 295, 337, 339, 349
Edwin’s head housed at York 244, 337–38, 349
becomes second metropolitan see 119, 323, 337, 338, 350
York, Archbishop of 50, 129
York Minster 88, 119
Yorkshire Wolds 6, 88–89, 91, 92, 95, 110, 115n, 133, 318
Young, Rob 169–70
Z
Zeddam, Netherlands 367
Ziegler, Michelle 369
Zug, Switzerland 370
About this Book
In AD 632 the most powerful ruler in Britain – Edwin, Christian king of Northumbria – was defeated and killed by an invading Welsh force allied with the pagans of Mercia. His kingdom, stretching from the Humber to the Forth, fragmented into bloody chaos. Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd, laid waste the ancestral lands of the Idings – Anglian rulers of Northumbria since the middle of the previous century – and imposed a reign of terror on the Northeast.
Eighteen months later a prince of the Northumbrian royal house, Oswald Iding – exiled from boyhood in the northwestern Christian kingdom of Dál Riata and known as ‘Whiteblade’ for his fighting prowess – marched south with an army of Anglian exiles and Scottish warrior-monks. Engaging with the Welsh close to Hadrian’s Wall, he annihilated their army and slew their king. Like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Aragorn, for whom he is the inspiration, Oswald Whiteblade had returned in glory to reclaim his birthright.
Before the slashing swords of his Mercian enemies terminated his brief reign (634–42), King Oswald conceived a Northumbrian golden age: he re-united and re-Christianized the Northeast; forged a hybrid culture of Briton, Irish, Scot and Anglo-Saxon; and founded a monastery on Lindisfarne where monks would fashion manuscripts as sumptuous as any produced in the European Middle Ages. Recognised as overlord of almost all the kingdoms of Britain, he was the first English king to die a Christian martyr. His political legacy was nothing less than the idea of Britain as a Christian state. The cult of his relics shows that he also tapped into something darker, more pagan and animistic.
Max Adams’s narrative rescues from Dark Age obscurity an unjustly forgotten English hero. But The King in the North is more than just a biography of the first great English monarch: it is a stunningly researched, beautifully written and revelatory history of seventh-century Britain in all its aspects.
Reviews
“Engrossing... a tearaway voyage through stirring times” —Miranda Seymour on The Prometheans
“Extensively researched and well-written” —TLS on Admiral Collingwood
“A compelling narrative”—Literary Review on Admiral Collingwood
About the Author
MAX ADAMS studied archaeology at York University and has excavated widely in Britain and abroad, publishing more than thirty papers in academic and popular journals as well as se
veral monographs. He has made a number of television programmes as the ‘Landscape Detective’ and co-convenes the Bernician Studies Group at the University of Sunderland, where he teaches in the Lifelong Learning programme. His active research interests include the monastic geography of County Donegal in Ireland and the Dark Age landscapes of the North of England. He is the author of Admiral Collingwood (2005) and The Prometheans (2009), which was a Guardian Book of the Week.
A Letter from the Publisher
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First published in 2013 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © 2013 by Max Adams
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781781854181
ISBN (E) 9781781854174
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