The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith

by H A CULLEY

  It was therefore just as well that a week later Swefred had a guest. He hadn’t seen Eochaid since Kendra’s funeral and he was surprised at how pleased he was to see him again.

  ‘I’m on my way to see Beorhtmund. You’ve heard that Beli of Strathclyde had died?’

  He had heard but it hadn’t really registered.

  ‘The new king, his son Teudebur, has allied himself with Óengus.’

  ‘Óengus? You mean King Nectan’s son?’

  ‘Yes, apparently there was a plot by Nectan’s elder son to seize the throne. He deposed his father and tried to kill Óengus, but he escaped. He raised an army, defeated his brother, and is now King of the Picts.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard. But I always thought that Óengus was well disposed towards us.’

  ‘Óengus has ambitions to be King of Alba, as they are now calling Caledonia.’

  ‘Well, that won’t sit well with Teudebur, will it?’

  ‘No, of course not. But he probably doesn’t know what Óengus is up to. That’s why I’m going to see Beorhtmund. We need to find a way to make him aware of the danger he faces from the Picts.’

  ‘Would you mind if I came with you?’

  ‘I was hoping that you’d say that.’

  ~~~

  Swefred realised that what he’d agreed to do was fraught with danger, but he didn’t really care. He was doing something useful and he felt more alive that he had done for a long time. He felt a twinge of guilt as he wasn’t only just putting his own life in danger but that of Uurad and Oisean, a member of his gesith, as well. He was glad that Oisean had volunteered as he was the only one of them who spoke the Brythonic tongue spoken by the Picts. Uurad went wherever Swefred went without question.

  The late autumnal day was fine but windy and there was a distinctly icy tinge to it. The waters of the Firth of Forth were choppy as the birlinn sailed north-west under the power of the wind. Swefred was making for Aberdour where, if the information he’d been given was correct, Óengus was staying at the moment.

  ‘Do you think he’ll listen to you?’ Uurad asked as he joined his lord and his friend in the bows.

  Swefred didn’t reply for a moment as he enjoyed the sensation of the prow rising and falling as it ploughed through the waves.

  ‘We used to be friends and for a while I thought he’d choose to stay in Northumbria when he turned sixteen. I even offered him a vill of his own, but he decided to return to the country of his birth once he was free to do so. He’s a Pict and that’s where his loyalties lie now. Besides, power can change a man, so I have no idea how he’ll receive me.’

  A short while later they landed and the birlinn left the small jetty to anchor offshore before anyone could think of detaining it. At first no one seemed very interested in the new arrivals so the three men started to walk up to the hall which sat on a small knoll above the settlement. The hall wasn’t very large and there was no palisade around it; Swefred was surprised that the King of the Picts had chosen to stay there.

  When they reached the hall two bored looking sentries looked them over before one asked who they were and what they wanted.

  ‘This is Ealdorman Swefred, the emissary of King Osric, who had come to see King Óengus,’ Oisean replied.

  The sentries’ air of languid disinterest vanished. They levelled their spears at the visitors and appeared nervous. They had obviously heard of the former Hereræswa of Northumbria. One of them yelled through the partly open door and a scruffy boy came running out to see what the sentry wanted.

  It wasn’t exactly true that Swefred was Osric’s emissary. The king took little interest in anything other than religion and scholarship. Bishop Wilfrith had proved to be a competent administrator and Osric relied on him to look after his regal responsibilities. Had he been consulted he would have no doubt agreed to any plan that avoided the possibility of war, but he hadn’t been. Swefred mission had been agreed by the four ealdormen of Lothian, Eochaid and himself, but that’s as far as it went.

  One of those ealdormen, Wathsige of Berwic, was now elderly and had no sons. He did have a daughter who he’d had late in life and was now twelve. If Swefred survived this mission he intended to visit Berwic on his return and put a proposition to Wathsige.

  The boy reappeared two minutes later and told the sentries that the king would see Swefred on his own, but he was to leave his weapons with his companions. That wasn’t encouraging.

  He followed the dirty urchin into the hall. He remembered that Óengus had disliked the filthy conditions in which many Picts lived and he was surprised that he employed a servant who stank as much as this lad did. He couldn’t have smelled worse if he’d been for a roll in the midden.

  The inside of the hall wasn’t much better. The rushes on the beaten earth floor were so old that they were rotting and they were full of discarded bones, animal droppings and other detritus.

  Óengus sat at the far end beside a man who was presumably his host. Whilst the king was well dressed in a clean tunic and trousers the other man looked as if he hadn’t changed his clothes in a month or more.

  The king got up as Swefred approached and they gripped each other’s forearms in greeting.

  ‘This is the local chieftain, Seathan MacBheatha. I’m here because he has a grievance against his mormaer and I need to hear both sides of the story. I apologise for the state of this place but it’s his hall, not mine. It’s good to see you again, Swefred but, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’ve aged a lot since I last saw you.’

  ‘The loss of my wife hit me hard,’ he replied. He wasn’t about to explain about Æthelwald Moll.

  ‘Yes, I was sorry to hear about Kendra.’ He paused for a moment and then turned to Seathan and spoke to him for a moment. ‘Come outside, let’s get the stink of the place out of our nostrils and go for a walk,’ he said, reverting to English.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Óengus asked bluntly once they were alone.

  ‘Because there is a rumour that you have allied yourself to Teudebur of Strathclyde and we wondered what that means for the peace between us,’ Swefred replied, equally bluntly.

  ‘Ah! You’re worried about Cumbria’s tenuous hold on the Galloway coast?’

  ‘Partly, but also about a rumour that you intend to invade Lothian again.’

  ‘Well, you can forget that. We are still suffering from the number of men we lost the last time we tried.’

  ‘In that case why ally yourself with Teudebur?’

  ‘Because Strathclyde is weak and Dalriada threatens it. I don’t wish to see Alba torn apart by internal strife any more than I want war with Northumbria. Look, what I’m about to say is for your ears only. I want your oath that you won’t repeat it.’

  ‘Then why tell me?’

  ‘So you don’t misunderstand my aspirations. You can reassure Osric, if he really sent you, or whoever did, that they need not fear me.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘In the south of England Mercia and Wessex are always struggling for supremacy and it’s weakening both kingdoms and draining their treasuries. In Alba we suffer in the same way from fighting amongst ourselves, particularly Strathclyde and Dalriada. I want to put an end to it. Ultimately I’d like to see a united Kingdom of Alba, but we are a long way from that.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Swefred said with a smile. ‘I have a feeling that, whatever you may feel, any successor who ruled all of Alba would be tempted to push his border southwards.’

  ‘Perhaps, but that’s not going to happen in our day.’

  ‘Thank you for being so candid, Óengus. I’ll go back and say I have your sworn oath that you have no intention to attack Lothian – or Galloway?’

  ‘Having the Angles rule land north of the Solway Firth makes no sense geographically or politically. However, my alliance with Strathclyde does not include taking action there. It is solely to prevent warfare between them and the Scots of Dalriada.’

  ~~~

  Swefred assured his fellow
ealdormen that the Picts did not threaten Lothian, at least not whilst Óengus was on the throne. However, both Beorhtmund and Eochaid suspected that there was something that Swefred wasn’t telling them but he refused to say more.

  He rode back south with Eochaid and Wathsige of Berwic. He had already told Eochaid that he planned to stay for a day or so with Wathsige so the two friends parted company when they reached the settlement at the mouth of the River Twaid. Eochaid was intrigued by Swefred’s decision and jumped to the conclusion that his friend planned to marry again.

  If that was his aim, he doubted whether the king would allow Swefred to succeed Wathsige when the latter died. It would make the lord of Bebbanburg, already a large shire, the most powerful noble in the north.

  But it wasn’t a wife for himself that Swefred sought. He had worried over Æthelwald Moll’s future for a while. Once he completed his training as a warrior in three years’ time he could join his gesith – or go and serve anyone else if he wished – but he wanted more for him. After all he was the son of a king, albeit an evil one, and he felt that the boy deserved more.

  He rode home under grey skies and through frequent showers but he felt happier than he had done for some time. Wathsige’s daughter was a pretty little thing and he didn’t mind admitting that he would have liked to bed her himself. Her father was interested in the match, especially as it would mean his daughter would be the wife of an ætheling and have an outside chance of being a queen one day. However he wanted to meet the boy and so Swefred headed for Lindisfarne. A place he hadn’t visited since Eadfrith had died.

  Confusingly the new bishop was also named Æthelwald. Swefred thought him a rather unworldly man whose main concern was to complete and bind the Lindisfarne Gospels written by his predecessor.

  Both boys were delighted to see him and Ulfric felt that his father was now happier in himself. Æthelwald Moll had held back when Ulfric had rushed forward to greet Swefred, but now he came and, after pausing for a moment, he threw his arms around him.

  The Master of the Novices, who had brought the boys to the bishop’s hut, seemed shocked by such a display of affection and stepped forward to haul his charges away, but Swefred shook his head at him and he stepped back. Nevertheless the monk still looked at the two of them with disapproval, whilst the bishop merely looked bemused.

  ‘I need to talk to the two of you, but separately. Wait outside Æthelwald whilst I talk to Ulfric.’

  The bishop looked startled until he realised that the ealdorman meant the boy, then he smiled and told the monk he could return to his charges. The man gave the two boys a stern look and left.

  ‘Brother Edward is a good teacher but somewhat too strict I fear,’ the bishop commented. ‘Leave my namesake with me for now and go and talk to your son.’

  ‘You and Æthelwald seem as close now as you have ever been.’

  ‘Yes, after he learned about his parents he withdrew into himself for a long time but he started to return to his old self before we left Bebbanburg and since we’ve been here we’ve become as close as we ever were, perhaps closer.’

  ‘Don’t the other boys mind?’

  ‘No, we don’t exclude them but our relationship is, well, special. They even call us the twins,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘I need to talk to you about Æthelwald’s future.’

  ‘Oh! He’s not going to leave here is he?’

  ‘No, you’ll be together until you’ve finished your warrior training.’

  ‘Good.’ He was thoughtful for a moment. ‘But after that?’

  ‘He’s an ætheling and he deserves the status that goes with his birth. I want him to marry the Ealdorman of Berwic’s daughter and I’ll petition Osric to recognise Æthelwald as the man’s heir. That means he’ll become an ealdorman when Wathsige dies.’

  ‘Of Berwic; so he won’t be far away.’

  ‘No, in due course you’ll be lords of neighbouring shires.’

  ‘Well, I hope that my time to become an ealdorman is a long way off yet; after all, you’re not that old.’

  Swefred laughed. I’m still in my thirties you cheeky rascal,’ he replied as he cuffed his son lightly about the head.

  ‘Ow! That’s what I said, you’re not that old!’

  ‘No, but I want to go to Rome before I get reach my dotage. I have decided that when, or perhaps if, Æthelwald marries Wathsige’s daughter and goes to live at Berwic I will ask Osric to make you Ealdorman of Bebbanburg, then I can go on pilgrimage.’

  ‘When will that be? When we’re sixteen?’

  ‘Perhaps, or a year later; we’ll see.’

  ‘Oh, that’s ages yet.’

  ‘It may seem that way to you but it’s just three or four years away. It’ll pass quickly enough.’

  ‘What happens when you come back? Will you want to become ealdorman again?’

  ‘No, once you’re lord of Bebbanburg that’s it. You’ll marry and have children of your own. You won’t want me hanging around.’

  He looked around him at the cultivated strips of land, the livestock grazing the pasture and the monastery’s few fishing boats out at sea.

  ‘This seems to me the perfect place for me to end my days. I can look across the bay and imagine you and your family in the fortress and spend my time preparing for the next life. After all, by the time I return from Rome I will probably be quite old,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye, but his son didn’t respond.

  ‘Everything’s changing isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, nothing stays the same for ever. You’re leaving your childhood behind you, Ulfric. Soon you’ll be a man with all the cares and responsibilities that brings. Now, we should get back. I need to talk to Æthelwald.’

  Chapter Twenty Five – Epilogue

  730 AD

  Swefred had become one of Lindisfarne’s fishermen in the short time he had been there as a monk. He’d returned from Rome in the summer of 729 and spent a month visiting Beorhtmund, Eochaid and Æthelwald Moll. His final visit was to Bebbanburg to see Ulfric, his wife and their new born son, Seofon. After that he occasionally saw Ulfric on one of his rare visits to the monastery but he never saw the others again before that fateful day at the end of April in 730.

  The day had started as normal. It was a fine day with a few clouds dotted around the clear blue sky and the sea was relatively calm with a fresh breeze blowing onshore. The odd white horse appeared on the crest of a wave but nothing indicated what was to follow.

  Swefred was out in the area between Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands to the east of Bebbanburg with another monk and a young novice. The boy was gently pulling on the oars to keep the small boat moving slowly as the two monks fished with lines to which half a dozen hooks were attached. First Swefred and then the other monk felt a tug and found that one had caught four mackerel and the other three. They had hit a shoal. For the next half an hour they were busy pulling their lines aboard, unhooking the catch, rebaiting the hooks and throwing the lines back overboard.

  All three were so engrossed that they failed to notice the changing weather until the boat started to move about violently. Swefred glanced up from the fish he was removing from his hooks and saw that the blue sky had changed to dark grey. In alarm he looked out to sea and saw even darker clouds approaching with rain visibly cascading from them.

  The wind was now getting much stronger and the odd white horse had changed into spume flecked crests which the wind was whipping away horizontally.

  ‘We need to row to shore as fast as we can,’ he yelled at the other two, who seemed petrified by the sudden change in the conditions.

  They hastened to grab an oar each whilst Swefred swung the tiller to turn the boat towards the beach under Bebbanburg’s cliffs. They never made it. A particularly large wave picked the boat up by the stern and flung it to one side so that it was beam on to the wind. The next wave rolled it over and the last thing Swefred was conscious of was something giving him a mighty thwack on his head.

  Both the
other monks managed to shed their habits and swim to the shore where they lay exhausted. Ulfric had his men search all along the coast but there was no sign of Swefred. They never did find his body.

  ~~~

  Osric lay dying of the plague. The outbreak in Eoforwīc in March 730 had been the worst to date. Wilfrith and his monks had worked tirelessly to ease the suffering of the sick but the disease kept on spreading. The first person to die in the king’s hall was Osric’s son and a few days later his wife followed him to the grave.

  At first it seemed as if Osric might be spared but then he woke up with a black lump in his groin and he knew that he didn’t have long to live.

  ‘Wilfrith, I wish to adopt Coelfirth as my son.’

  The bishop looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Cenred’s brother? But he’s three years older than you. Why would you want to do that?’

  Osric had a coughing fit and spat bloody mucus into the bowl beside his bed.

  ‘Don’t argue, just do as I say. He is to succeed me now my son is dead.’

  Wilfrith nodded. ‘If you say so, Cyning.’

  The king lay back and closed his eyes. He prayed that he would survive long enough to sign the adoption papers.

  ‘Get your scribes busy. I want to sign the deed of adoption today.’

  ‘Yes, Cyning.’

  Osric lasted for three more days after he’d signed the deed. He died on the twenty first of April 730, the same day that Swefred had drowned in the shadow of Bebbanburg. So ended the House of Æthelfrith. Although Otta survived he never became king and Æthelwald Moll wasn’t acknowledged as Osred’s son until much later.

  In accordance with the old crone’s prophesy one hundred and twenty five years earlier, Æthelfrith’s line had lasted for a mere three generations, but it had been a momentous period in the history of Northumbria.