Ring-giver of men, and also his brother,
The aetheling, Edmund, struck life-long glory
In strife round Brunanburh, clove the shield-wall,
Hacked the war-lime, with hammers’ leavings,
Edward’s offspring, as was natural to them
By ancestry, that in frequent conflict
They defend land, treasures and homes
Against every foe. The antagonists succumbed,
The nation of Scots and sea-men
Fell doomed. The field darkened
With soldiers’ blood, after the morning-time
The sun, that glorious star,
Bright candle of God, the Lord Eternal,
Glided over the depths, until the noble creature
Sank to rest. There lay many a soldier
Of the Men of the North, shot over shield,
Taken by spears; likewise Scottish also
Sated, weary of war. All day long
The West Saxons with elite cavalry
Pressed in the tracks of the hateful nation,
With mill-sharp blades severely hacked from behind
Those who fled battle. The Mercians refused
Hard hand-play to none of the heroes
Who with Olaf, over the mingling of waves,
Doomed in fight, sought out land
In the bosom of a ship. Five young
Kings lay on the battle-field,
Put to sleep by swords; likewise also seven
Of Olaf’s jarls, countless of the raiding-army
Of Seamen and Scots. There the ruler of
Northmen, compelled by necessity,
Was put to flight, to ship’s prow,
With a small troop. The boat
Was pushed afloat; the king withdrew,
Saved life, over the fallow flood.
There also likewise, the aged Constantine
Came north to his kith by flight.
The hoary man of war had no cause to exult
In the clash of blades, he was shorn of his kinsmen,
Deprived of friends, on the meeting-place of peoples,
Cut off in strife, and left his son
On the place of slaughter, mangled by wounds,
Young in battle. The grey-haired warrior,
Old crafty one, had no cause to boast
In that clash of blades – no more had Olaf
Cause to laugh, with the remnants of their raiding-army,
That they were better in works of war
On the battle-field, in the conflict of standards,
The meeting of spears, the mixing of weapons,
The encounter of men, when they played
Against Edward’s sons on the field of slaughter.
The Northmen, bloody survivors of darts,
Disgraced in spirit, departed on Ding’s Mere,
In nailed boats over deep water,
To seek out Dublin and their own land again.
Likewise the brothers both together,
King and aetheling, exultant in war,
Sought kith, the land of Wessex.
They left behind to divide the corpses,
To enjoy the carrion, the dusky-coated,
Horny-beaked black raven,
And the grey-coated eagle, white-rumped,
Greedy war-hawk, and the wolf,
Grey beast in the forest. Never yet in this island
Was there a greater slaughter
Of people felled by the sword’s edges,
Before this, as books tell us,
Old authorities, since Angles and Saxons
Came here from the east,
Sought out Britain over the broad ocean,
Warriors eager for fame, proud war-smiths,
Overcame the Welsh, seized the country.
* * *
In any case, there was no seismic change in the political landscape after 937. Athelstan died two years later and was succeeded by capable kings. Olaf briefly became king of Northumbria and raided into East Lothian where he died in 941. Some said it was in vengeance for his desecration of the shrine of St Baldred. Northumbria was reduced to the status of an earldom by King Eadred of Wessex in 954 although its boundaries were still extensive in the east, stretching to the Lammermuirs and probably beyond.
Strathclyde continued to act independently and to control Cumbria. There is a persistent tradition that Dunmail, ‘the last king of Cumbria’ (commemorated in a retail park near Workington), fought a battle at Dunmail Raise in 945. A large cairn marks the site on the pass between Thirlmere and Grasmere and it was also a meeting place on the old county boundary between Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dunmail was probably Dyfnwal III of Strathclyde and his opponents are reputed to have been on different sides at Brunanburh. The likelihood is that the earls of Northumbria were pushing westwards with the encouragement of their overlords in the south.
Whatever the reality behind the mists on Dunmail Raise, Strathclyde was aggressive elsewhere in the tenth century. King Amdarch attacked and killed Constantine’s successor, Culen, and his brother Eochaid somewhere near Abington at the headwaters of the Clyde. The Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland states that Amdarch acted ‘for the sake of his daughter’. Perhaps she had been raped.
By 973, Kenneth II, King of Scots, had persuaded Edgar of England to cede part of northern Bernicia to him and the territory to the north of the Lammermuirs became part of an expanding Scotland – but not until another elaborate ceremony of submission had taken place. This time it was marine as well as Roman. Here is an extract from the Melrose Chronicle:
In the year 973, Edgar the peaceful king of the English was at last consecrated king of the whole island, with the greatest honour and glory, in the city of Bath . . .
Some time afterwards, after sailing around northern Britain with a huge fleet, he landed at the city of Chester; and eight underkings met him, as he commended them, and swore that they would stand by him as his vassals, both on land and on sea: namely Kenneth, king of Scots; Malcolm, king of the Cumbrians; Maccus, king of very many islands; and another five: – Dufnal, Sigfrith, Higuel, Jacob, Iuchil.
With these one day he entered a boat, and, placing them at the oars, he himself took the rudder’s helm, and skilfully steered along the course of the River Dee, and sailed from the palace to the monastery of St John the Baptist, the whole crowd of earls and nobles accompanying him in similar craft. And after praying there, he returned to the palace with the same pomp: and as he entered it he is related to have said to the nobles that then only could any of his successors boast that he was king of England, when he obtained the display of such honours, with so many kings submitting to him.
At Caddonlea, a few hundred yards south of the modern village of Clovenfords, which lies to the west of Galashiels, there is a wide and level area of haughland divided by the Caddon Water. A thousand years ago, a great army mustered on its banks. From the north, down Gala Water, rode the war bands of Malcolm II, the successor of Kenneth who had rowed Edgar, and down the Tweed from the west came the host of King Owain of Strathclyde. The humiliations of Chester would soon be banished to history.
In their tents on Caddonlea the kings and their captains planned a campaign – a war in the east against Bernicia, now a province of the English kings. As plans were laid, news of the arrival of the great host crackled like wildfire down the Tweed, undoubtedly reaching the ears of the Bernician Earl Uhtred. Probably without waiting for a full muster, the Bernicians hurried north from Bamburgh, anxious to keep the Scots and the Strathclyde Welsh out of their rich farming hinterland.
As reports ricocheted east and west, Malcolm and Owain put on their war gear, struck camp at Caddonlea and moved downriver. They probably crossed the banks and ditches of the Catrail near the Rink fortress and marched into Bernicia when they forded the Tweed below Abbotsford.
Carham is a sleepy hamlet that lies only a few hundred yards beyond another frontier – the modern border between England and Scotland. The
re, on the banks of the Tweed, the armies clashed. The Bernician spearmen were cut to pieces but it seems that King Owain of Strathclyde was amongst the dead. In the wake of victory, Malcolm II gained all the territory north of the river. Carham did not establish the line of the modern frontier – there were still lands between the Tweed and the Cheviots in Bernician hands – but it did hasten the end of the old kingdom won by Aethelfrith four hundred years before.
Owain was not the last king of Strathclyde. His line lingered for another two generations. By the 1070s, however, the kings of the Scots were at last in control. Here is the entry from the History of the Kings of England: ‘For at that time Cumberland was under the dominion of King Malcolm, not through just possession, but through violent subjugation.’
By 1070, Scotland was not yet a complete kingdom. The Norse earls of Orkney were powerful, there were aristocrats in Galloway with royal pretensions and Moray had recently made a king in the figure of Macbeth. But, after Malcolm Canmore’s violent subjugation of Strathclyde, the old frontiers began to fade and the kingdoms they defined retreated into the shadows to be almost forgotten.
Bibliography
I have made the conventional distinction between primary and secondary sources even though no bibliography could contain the most important archive, that of the feet and the eyes. In the primary sources listed below all of the introductions are very worthwhile.
Primary sources
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. M. Swanton, J.M. Dent, 1996
Bede, The Eccesiastical History of the English People, ed. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Penguin, 1969
Bede, The Age of Bede, ed. D.H. Farmer, Penguin, 1965
Calendar of Border Papers, ed. J. Bain, 1894
Liber de S. Marie de Calchou, The Bannatyne Club, 1846
Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, Penguin, 1979
Tacitus, Agricola and Germany, trans. A.R. Birley, Oxford Paperbacks, 1999
Tacitus, Annals of Imperial Rome, trans. M. Grant, Penguin Classics, 1956
Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, ed. A.L. Jenkins, 1892
White, Rev. G., The Natural History of Selbourne, Wordsworth, 1996
Secondary Sources
Aitchison, N., The Picts and Scots at War, Tempus, 2003
Bates, C., A History of Northumberland, 1895
Birley, A.R., Garrison Life at Vindolanda, History Press, 200
Brooke, D., Wild Men and Holy Places, Canongate, 1994
Campbell J. ed., The Anglo Saxons, Penguin, 1982
Cowie, T. (ed.), An Introduction to the Archaeology of the The Manor Valley, Peeblesshire Archaeological Society, 2000
Cunliffe, B., The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek, Penguin, 2001
Cunliffe, B., Europe Between the Oceans, Yale UP, 2008
Darton, M., The Dictionary of Place-names in Scotland, 1992
Davies, J. A History of Wales, Penguin, 1990
Davies, J., The Making of Wales, Sutton 1999
Davies, N., Europe: A History, Pimlico, 1996
Fraser, A.F., The Native Horses of Scotland, John Donald, 1987
Fraser, J.E., From Caledonia to Pictland, EUP, 2009
Frere, S.S., Britannia, Pimlico, 1967
Gardiner, Robert (ed.), The Earliest Ships, Conway, 1996
Higham, N.J., The Kingdom of Northumbria, 1993
Hill, D. and Worthington, M., Offa’s Dyke, The History Press, 2003
Hunter, J., The Last of the Free: A Millennial History of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Mainstream, 1999
Johnstone, P., The Sea-craft of Prehistory, Routledge, 1980
Koch, J.T., The Gododdin on Aneirin, University of Wales Press, 1997
Lowe, C., Angels, Fools and Tyrants, Canongate, 1999
Lynch, M., Scotland: A New History, Pimlico, 1991
Marner, D., St Cuthbert, The British Library, 2000
Miles, David, The Tribes of Britain, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2005
Moffat, A., The Borders: A History from Earliest Times, Birlinn, 2002
Moffat, A., The Wall, Birlinn, 2008
Morris, J., The Age of Arthur, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973
Nicolaisesn, W.F.H., Scottish Place-names, Birlinn, 2001
Ostler, N., Empires of the Word, HarperCollins, 2005
Ottoway, P, Roman York, Tempus, 1993
Reed, M., The Landscape of Britain, Routledge, 1990
Rennie, E B., The Cowal Shore, Argyll, 2006
Ridpath, G., The Border History of England and Scotland, 1778
Rivet, A.L.F. and C. Smith, The Place-Names of Roman Britain, Batsford 1981
Smyth, A.P. Warlords and Holy Men, EUP, 1984
The Source of Manor, Lyne and Manor Youth Group, 1999
Stenton, F.M., Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford University Press, 1989
Thomas, A.C. Celtic Britain, Thames & Hudson, 1986
Ward, B., Bede, Continuum, 1990
Watson, W.J., The Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, Birlinn, 1993
Whitrow, G.J., Time in History, OUP, 1988
Woolf, A., From Pictland to Alba, EUP, 2007
Yeoman, P., Pilgrimage in Medieval Scotland, Batsford, 1999
Index
Note: Entries in small capitals refers to feature boxes
Abercorn, bishopric of 221
Aberfoyle 51
Aberlemno Stone 147, 148, 149, 150, 209
Addinston, Lauderdale 6, 170
Adomnan of Iona 17, 166, 174, 178, 196–7, 198, 210, 212, 242, 244
Adventus Saxonum 176
Aedan macGabrain, King of Dalriada 5–6, 166–7, 169–70, 173, 244
long range campaining of 167
Aella, King of Deira 131, 171
Aeron 133, 145
Aet Aegdanes Stan (Aedan’s Stone) 170
Aeternus 100
Aethelbald, King of Mercia 200 (box), 222
Aethelbert, King of Kent 176
Aethelfrith, King of Bernicia 5–6, 169, 170–72, 176, 244, 259
Aethelric of Bamburgh 133
Aethelwald, Bishop of Lindisfarne 198–9, 220
Aethelwald Moll, King of Northunbria 233–4
Aetius 103
Agricola, Julia 37
Agricola, Julius 28, 38, 39, 40, 41, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 60, 62, 63, 64, 69, 71, 76, 201, 208
Aidan 139, 178–80, 183–4, 203
Alaric 91, 92
Albinus, Clodius 81
Alchred, King of Bernicia (Rex Anglorum) 234
Alcuin of York 210, 211 (box)
Aldfrith (Flann Fina mac Ossu) 209–10, 210–15, 221–2
Aldhelm of Malmesbury 212
Alfred the Great of Wessex 236–7
Alt Clut (Dumbarton Rock) 74, 75, 189, 243–4, 244 (box), 245, 247, 250–51
Altrieve, Yarrow 7
Amdarch, King of Strathclyde 257
AMESBURY 105
Anavionenses 31, 34, 67, 79, 80, 132
Ancrum Moor 69
Anderson, Robert 151
Aneirin 142, 143, 145, 150, 172
Angelcynn 176
Angles (Angeln) 97, 107, 115, 120, 123
Anglesey (Mona) 28
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 252
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 171, 197–8, 233, 234, 251, 252, 255–6 (box)
Anglo-Saxons 112, 114, 128
Annals of Ulster 118, 185, 242, 247
Annan 24, 31, 202
Annandale 31, 33, 34, 35, 41, 50
Antiquities of Roxburghshire and Adjacent Districts (Jeffrey, A.) 191
Antonine Wall 5, 73, 74, 75
Antoninus Pius 66, 67, 68
Apollo 20, 23
Appleby 134
Applincross 184
Aquae Sulis 93
Aquileia 90
Arbeia, fort of 197, 198
Arbroath, Declaration of 47, 48
Arderydd 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132
Argentocoxus 84, 85
Argoed Llwyfein 133, 134
ARMES PRYDEIN FAWR 125
Armetrid 124
Artgal, King of Strathclyde 247–8, 249, 250
Arthur 111, 112, 113–15, 128, 131, 135, 146, 150
legacy of 116
romances concerning 120
Asser of Wessex 236–7
Athaulf 92
Athelstan, King of Wessex and Mercia 251–4, 255–6 (box), 257
Atlantic Celtic (Q-Celtic) 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 75, 76
Attacotti 86, 88
Attila 103
Augusta, Julia (Domna Julia) 84
Augustus Caesar 92
Auldhame 186, 190
Aurelianus, Ambrosius 104, 105, 106, 112, 113
Aurelius, Marcus 75, 81
Avienus, Rufus Festus 16
Badb, war-goddess 58
Badon Hill 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116
Bamburgh 139, 140, 141, 209–10, 222
Castle of (Din Guairoy) 122, 123
Bannawg 242
Bannock Burn 242
Bannockburn, battle of 72, 147
Bar y Bwlch 7
Barbarian Conspiracy 86, 88, 89, 91
Bardsey (Ambros) 28
Barra 29
Bass Rock 186, 187 (box)
Bassas River 111
Batavians 62
Bath 93, 114
THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURTH 255–6
The Faded Map: The Lost Kingdoms of Scotland Page 29
