Bernicia and the Deiri formed, at this period, two Saxon kingdoms, which lay bordering on each other. Ethelfrith governed the portion that stretched from Northumberland to between the Tweed and the Frith of Forth; and Ella, dying, left his son Edwin, then an infant, to succeed him as king of the Deiri—a part of England now divided into the counties of Lancaster, York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Durham. The Northumbrian king, Ethelfrith, appears at this time to have been the most powerful of all the Saxon monarchs; and no sooner was Ella dead, than he took possession of the Deiri; nor was a sovereign to be found throughout the whole of the Saxon kingdoms bold enough to draw his sword in the defence of Edwin. The child was, however, carried into Wales, and entrusted to the care of Cadvan, who was himself a British king, though now driven into the very corner of those territories over which his forefathers had for ages reigned. There is something romantic in this incident of the child of a Saxon king having to fly to his father's enemies for shelter, and in being indebted to those whom his own countrymen had rendered all but homeless, for his life. Ethelfrith, however, had at one period desolated more British districts than any of his predecessors, and in proportion as he was hated by the Cymry, so would they endeavour to cherish an object armed with such claims as Edwin's, in the hope of one day seeing him a leader, and at their head, when again they measured swords with their old enemies. But this they were not destined to witness, nor were they able to protect the young king when he grew up, for Ethelfrith was ever in pursuit of him—the figure of the stripling Edwin seemed to stand up between him and the kingdom of Deiri, as if he felt that, whilst the son of Ella was alive, he but sat insecurely in the midst of his new territory. For several years Edwin was compelled to wander about from province to province, keeping both his name and rank a secret, and trusting to strangers to protect him, as if he feared that the emissaries of Ethelfrith were ever at his heels—until even his existence seems to have been a burthen to him, and he doubtless many a time cursed the hour that ever he was born the son of a king. From infancy had his life been sought, by one who ought to have defended him when he was left a helpless child, and heir to the possessions his father had won by conquest—by murder; for sorry we are, as true historians, to state, that not a Saxon king throughout the whole British dominions could trace his origin to any other source: nor had William the Norman, on a later day, any better claim to the British crown. The title of royalty was ever in ancient times written with a red hand. Thank Heaven! it is no longer so, nor has the brow which a golden crown encircles, any need now to be first bathed in human blood.
Edwin is somehow endeared to us, through having descended from that king whose name attracted the attention of monk Gregory in the slave-market of Rome, when he was first struck by the beauty of those British children; for they came from the Deiri, the kingdom which he governed, whose name called forth the Allelujah to which the good monk, in the joyousness of his heart, as he saw the figure of Hope glimmering brightly in the far distance, gave utterance. From very childhood Edwin's life was a romance, and many a painful feeling must he have endured whilst sheltering amongst the Britons in Wales, who were then writhing beneath the oppression of their Saxon conquerors: allusions to his own father, or his kindred, or curses heaped upon his countrymen, must ever have been issuing from the lips of the humbled Cymry; and who can tell but that to avoid these painful feelings, he set out alone—a stranger amid strangers. Weary of this wandering life, he at last threw himself upon the generosity of Redwald, king of East Anglia, and who was at that time honoured with the proud title of the Bretwalda of Britain, as Ethelbert of Kent had been before. Edwin acquainted him with his secret, and Redwald promised to protect him. But his hiding-place was soon known to Ethelfrith, who lost no time in sending messengers to Redwald, first with the offer of rich presents, then with threats: and when he found that neither persuasion nor bribes were effective, he determined to wage war against the king of East Anglia, unless he at once gave up Edwin. Redwald at last wavered, for in almost every battle the Northumbrian king had been victorious; nor would he probably have seized upon the Deiri, in the face of six powerful Saxon sovereigns, but for the consciousness of the strength he possessed, and the terror attached to his name. The East Anglian king at last reluctantly promised to surrender his guest. Edwin had a friend in Redwald's court who made him acquainted with the danger that awaited him, and urged him at once to escape. But the poor exile, weary of the miserable existence he had so long led, and the many privations he had endured, refused to fly for his life. "If I am to perish," said the young king, "he that destroys me will be disgraced, and not myself. I have made a compact with Redwald that I will not break. And whither should I fly, after having wandered through so many provinces in Britain without finding a shelter? How can I escape my persecutor?" His friend was silent, and left Edwin to sit alone and brood over his own thoughts. Night came and found the sorrowful king still sitting upon the same cold stone beside the palace, where he appears to have fallen asleep, and to have dreamt that a strange figure approached him, placed his hand upon his head, and bade him to remember that sign; after having caused him to make several promises as to what he would do in future, if restored to his kingdom, the stranger seemed to depart, having first held out hopes that he should conquer his enemies, and recover the territory of Deiri. There was nothing very wonderful in such a dream, beyond the fact that it should afterwards become true; and, although we cannot go so far as the venerable chronicler Bede, in the belief that some spirit had appeared to the young king—still dreams and visions are so interwoven with the sleep that resembles death, and seem, somehow, more allied with the shadows which we believe to people another state of existence, that we can easily imagine, at that dark period, how firm must have been the reliance of our forefathers upon the phantoms which were thus conjured up, by the continuation of such a train of waking thoughts.
Such miracles as the early monkish historians devoutly believed in, the boldest writer would scarcely venture to work out in a book professedly treating of only the wildest subjects of fiction. Yet there are amongst the writers of history those, who think it an act of dishonesty to pass over the dreams, visions, and miracles of the early ages, and a want of faith not to believe in them now, as our forefathers did in the olden time. They might as well insist upon our copying out the recipes from such old works as were to be found in the closets of our grave grandmothers many generations ago; and adopting all the spells and charms therein recorded, as invaluable cures for almost every disease under the sun. What we look upon as firm faith in one age, and believe to be such, we treat as the weakest folly in another, without in either case outraging reason, or bringing to the investigation an uncharitable spirit. For past credulity, a sigh or a smile are enough to mark our pity or censure, but to be partakers of the same belief are thoughts against which the common understanding rebels, even much as we may love the marvellous. A dream is not a miracle, nor the fulfilment of it a proof of the interference of the Almighty.
The young king had found favour in the eyes of the queen of East Anglia, and she reasoned with Redwald, and boldly showed him how base an act it would be, to give up their guest to the man who, having robbed him of his kingdom, now sought to take away his life. "A king should not violate his faith," said she, "for gold, for good faith is his noblest ornament." Redwald's heart seems ever to have guided him aright when he admitted not fear into the counsel, so he nobly resolved, instead of giving up his guest, to fight for him, and in place of basely selling his life, to win him back the province he had been driven from. And, after such a resolve, he doubtless felt himself more worthy of the title of the Bretwalda of Britain. We regret that Time has not even spared us the name of this noble Saxon queen, that we might add one more woman to the list of these angelic immortalities, who stand like stars upon the brow of the deep midnight, that then hung so darkly above the clouded cliffs of Albion. When Redwald had once decided, he began to act; he waited not to be attacked, but, with such forces as he could muster, rushed at once to the boundary of the Deiri. He met Ethelfrith, ere he was wholly provided for his coming, on the banks of the river Idel, near Retford, in Nottinghamshire, at that time probably a portion of the kingdom he had wrested from Edwin. Redwald had his guest, his honour, and his kingdom to fight for: Edwin his life, and the possessions he inherited from his father—Ethelfrith, a long-cherished vengeance to appease—a kingdom he had seized upon without any one having before dared to dispute his claim—and East Anglia, now a fair prize, if he could but win it: he had a bad cause, yet not a doubt about obtaining the victory, for he had many a time driven the Picts and Scots, with whole hosts of the Cymry, banded together, before him, further to the north than any, excepting the Romans, had ever before done. His dreams had never been broken by the thought of a defeat, even when the monks of Bangor were praying against him; he conquered, and drove the British kings before him like withered leaves before a storm when the yellow Autumn is waning into Winter. No Christian fire had ever burnt upon his pagan altars—to Woden, the god of battles, had his sacrifices ever been offered up. Redwald, more vacillating, kept two altars in the temple in which he worshipped,—one dedicated to the grim idol which his warriors still believed in—the other where he at times knelt beside his fair queen, and sent up his wavering prayers, between the shrine of Woden, and the True God. No truer picture was probably ever drawn of the state of these truly pagan and half-Christian Saxons in the early times, than is here presented; that mingled fear of offending Woden, while the heart yearned for the love of Him whom they believed to be the Giver of all good, for God and good were in their language the same.
Before commencing the battle, Redwald divided his forces into three divisions; one of these he placed under the command of his son, Rainer, and the wing which the young prince headed, commenced the attack. Ethelfrith commanded his veteran forces to dash at once into the centre of the enemy's line; and so suddenly and unexpectedly was this manœuvre accomplished, that it was like the instantaneous bursting of a thunder-storm down some steep hill side, covered over with the tall and yellow-waving corn of summer, through which the torrent and the tempest cut a path, for so was the division under prince Rainer dispersed, driven aside and cut asunder, that before the two bodies led on by Redwald and Edwin had time to wheel round, and check the force of that mighty avalanche, the prince was slain, and scarcely a warrior, who but a few moments before had charged so cheerfully under his war-cry, remained alive.
For a few moments the terrible tide of battle rolled backward, seeming to recoil from beneath the very force with which it had broken, as if the vanward waves but rushed again upon those that followed, to be driven on with greater might upon the desolated and wreck-strewn beach. Back again was the overwhelming tide borne with mightier force, and thrown off in a spray of blood from the points of ten thousand unflinching weapons, while Redwald himself, with lowering brow, and lip compressed, strode sullenly onward, and hewed his way into the very heart of the contest. Ethelfrith, outstripping his followers, rushed headlong into the very centre of the battle; the gap he had hewn with his own powerful arm closed behind him, and there stood between him and the remains of his army, an impenetrable wall of the enemy—where he fell, the last billow of the battle broke, for the companion waves had rolled out far to seaward, and only the shore over which they had broken was left, strewn over with the wrecks of the slain. Death had at last done his mighty work; and under his dark and awful banner Edwin had distinguished himself; those gloomy gates had opened the way to the kingdom from which he had so long been driven. Through the assistance of Redwald, he not only became the king of the Deira, but conquered the broad provinces of Bernicia, driving before him the sons of Ethelfrith, and sitting down sole king of Northumbria, for he united under his sway the kingdoms which Ida had governed, and Ella, his father, had won. Thus, the youth who had so long been a wanderer and an exile, who scarcely knew where to fly for shelter, who was ever in fear of his life, became at last the undisputed monarch of two mighty Saxon kingdoms, the Deira and Bernicia.
Edwin no sooner found himself firmly seated on the throne of Northumbria, than he sent into Kent, and solicited the hand of Edilburga in marriage. She was the daughter of the late Ethelbert, so distinguished for his kindness to the Christian missionaries. Probably Edwin had become acquainted with her while he wandered "homeless, amid a thousand homes." Her brother Eadbald had, by this time, become a Christian, had hurled down his heathen idols and pagan altars, and established himself beside the church at Canterbury, which had long been the metropolis of Kent. Eadbald justly argued, that it was wrong for a Christian maiden to become the wife of a pagan husband, of one who could neither share with her the holy sacrament, nor kneel down to worship before the altar of the same Holy God. Edwin bound himself by a solemn promise that he would offer no obstacle to the royal lady following her own faith, but that all who accompanied her, whether women, priests, or laymen, should have full liberty to follow their own form of religion; and that if, upon close examination by the wise and good men of his own faith, he found the Christian creed better than that of Odin, he might at last adopt it. The Saxon princess had the fullest confidence in the promise of the pagan king, and with a long train of noble and lowly attendants, headed by Paulinus, who was by this time created a bishop, she left the home of her fathers in Kent, and as Rowena had beforetime done, went to sojourn among strangers. Many a prayer was offered up by the way, and the holy rites of the church to which she belonged were daily celebrated. Timidly must the maiden's heart have beaten when she first set foot within that pagan land; but she probably remembered the time when many of her father's subjects were idolaters.
Nothing for the first year seems to have ruffled the smooth course of love between the pagan king and his Christian queen. Paulinus continued to preach, but made no converts; and the love of Edilburga, and the worship of Odin, went on together hand in hand; for though Edwin himself listened to the music of lips as sweet as those of Bertha, which had murmured conversion into the ears of Ethelbert, yet his creed remained unchanged. He loved, listened, and sighed, with his heathen faith still unshaken. It was at the holy time of Easter, while Edwin was seated in his palace beside the Derwent, that a messenger suddenly arrived from Cwichhelm, the pagan king of Wessex, and sought an audience, to make known his mission. He was, of course, admitted. While kneeling lowly to deliver his message, the stranger suddenly started up, drew forth a dagger which was concealed under his dress, and was in the act of rushing upon the king, when Lilla, a thane in attendance, threw himself, in a moment, between the body of the monarch and the assassin—just in that brief interval of time which elapsed between the uplifting and the descending of the weapon; yet with such force was the deadly blow driven home, that the dagger passed clean through the body of Lilla, and slightly wounded the king. Although the swords of the attendants were instantly drawn, yet the assassin was not cut down until he had stabbed another knight with the dagger, which he had drawn from the body of the faithful thane who so nobly sacrificed his life to save that of the king. On the same evening, (it was Easter Sunday,) Edilburga was delivered of a daughter—the event probably hastened by the shock the murderer had occasioned. Edwin returned thanks to Odin for the birth of his child; and when Paulinus again drew his attention to the God who had so miraculously preserved his life, he promised he would follow the new faith which the bishop was so anxious to convert him to, if he was victorious over the king of Wessex, who had sent out his emissary to destroy him. Edwin further consented that his daughter should be baptized, as an earnest of his good faith. Several of his household were at the same time united to the Christian church.
The account of Edwin's campaign against the king of Wessex is so very vague and uncertain, that we are compelled to pass it over altogether. It appears, however, that he slew his enemy and returned home victorious—still he delayed his baptism, although he abandoned his idol-worship, and might often be seen sitting alone, as if holding serious communion with himself; still he was undecided whether or not to change his ancient faith. He also held long and frequent conversations with Paulinus, and had many serious discussions with his own nobles. He was even honoured with a letter from the pope, urging him to abandon his idols. Edilburga also received a letter from the same high authority, pointing out her duty, to do all that she could, by her intercession, to hasten his conversion; but Edwin still remained unchanged. The stormy halls of Odin and the boisterous revels in which the spirits of the departed warriors were ever supposed to partake, were more congenial to the martial hearts of the Saxons, than the peace, humility, and gentleness which clothed the Christian religion. A vision or a miracle is again called in by the venerable Bede to complete the conversion of Edwin. This we shall pass over without openly expressing a feeling of doubt or disbelief. The means which the Almighty might take to bring about the conversion of a heathen nation are beyond the comprehension of man. We doubt not the light which fell upon and surrounded Saul, when breathing slaughter against the Christians whilst he was on his way to Damascus, for there we at once acknowledge the wonder-working hand of God. It required no such powerful agency for Paulinus to become acquainted with Edwin's previous dream. Nor does there appear to have been anything miraculous in the token which the king was reminded of; neither was the incident at all so startling as it first appears to be, for he had beyond doubt made Edilburga acquainted with the subject of his dream, and what would not a woman do, to accomplish the conversion of a husband she loved? Even after all, Edwin assembled his nobles and counsellors together openly, to discuss the new religion before he was baptized, for the vision or miracle had not yet dispelled his doubts.
When Edwin assembled his pagan priests and nobles together, and threw open before them the whole subject, Coifi, who had long administered the rites at the altar of Odin, and, as it appears, reaped but little benefit, thus spoke out, plainly and feelingly, at once. (We trust Edilburga was not present.) "You see, O King, what is now preached to us; I declare to you most truly, what I have most certainly experienced, that the religion which we have hitherto professed, contains no virtue at all, nor no utility. Not one of your whole court has been more attentive to the worship of your gods than myself, although many have received richer benefits, greater honours, and have prospered more than I have done. Now, if these gods had been of any real use, would they not have assisted me, instead of them? If, then, after due inquiry, you see that these 'new things' which they tell us of will be better, let us have them without any delay." Coifi was weary of waiting for the good things which stood ready prepared for him in the halls of Valhalla; he wanted to have a foretaste whilst living.
But we will leave plain-spoken Coifi to introduce the next orator, who was one of Nature's poets, though a pagan; and the passage is doubly endeared to us, by the knowledge that on a later day, Alfred the Great translated it, word for word, and letter for letter. We regret that we cannot give the original, for there are many words in it which seem out of place, such as we believe the eloquent orator never uttered, although Bede lived about this time, and probably heard it from the lips of some one who was present when it was spoken. It ran nearly as follows: "The life of man while here, O King, seems to me, when I think of that life which is to come, and which we know not of, like a scene at one of your own winter feasts. When you sit in your hall, with the blaze of the fire in the midst of it, and round you your thanes and ealdermen, and the whole hall is bright with the warmth, and while storms of rain and snow are heard out in the cold air, in comes a small sparrow at one door, and flies round our feast; then it goes out another way into the cold. While it is in, it feels not the winter storm, but is warm, and feels a comfort while it stays; but when out in the winter cold, from whence it came, it goes far from our eyes. Such is here the life of man. It acts and thinks while here, but what it did when we saw it not, we do not know, nor do we know what it will do when it is gone." He then finished by adding something about the new religion, and prayed of them to adopt it, if it was more worthy of their belief, and opened clearer views respecting a future state than the old.
Paulinus was present, and when he had satisfactorily answered all questions, a fearful feeling still seemed to linger amongst the pagans, as to who should first desecrate their old temple, and overthrow the idols and altars before which they had so long worshipped. "Give me a horse and a spear," said Coifi, "and I will." They were brought to him. We cannot help picturing Coifi in his eagerness to get rid of the old religion, nor how Paulinus, with his dark hair, hooked nose, swarthy countenance, and darker eyes, just looked for a moment at Edwin, as the pagan priest hurled his spear at the idol temple, and profaned it. "The people without thought him mad." What Coifi thought of the people is not on record. He knew what the idols were better than they did. Witness the results of his own experience; for day after day, and year after year, had he administered to the shrine, yet received no reward; and doubtless Coifi thought that, let the new religion be what it might, it could not be worse than the old one. When he had hurled his spear against the temple, it was profaned, and could never more be dedicated to the worship of Odin; for such an act was held impious by the ancient Saxon pagans. The building was then destroyed, and the surrounding enclosures levelled to the ground. This scene took place near the Derwent, not far from the spot where Edwin had so narrow an escape from the assassin Eumer. In Bede's time it was called Godmundham, or the home of the gods. After this, Edwin and his nobility were baptized, and through his persuasion, the son of his protector, Redwald, embraced Christianity, and diffused it amongst his subjects in East Anglia. Edwin himself, as we have shown, had in his younger days been a wanderer and an exile; and although we have no account of the privations he endured, they were doubtless great, and perhaps we should not much err in surmising that many a time he had endured the pangs of hunger and thirst: for on a later day he caused stakes to be fastened beside the highways wherever a clear spring was to be found, and to these posts, brazen dishes were chained, to enable the weary and thirsty traveller to refresh himself. For houses were then few and far apart, and the wayfarer had often to journey many a dreary league before he could obtain refreshment, as the monasteries were the only places in which he could halt and bait. In Edwin's reign, and through his kingdom, it is said that a woman with an infant at her breast might walk from the Tweed to the Trent without fearing injury from any one. He seems to have been beloved by all, and Edilburga ever moved beside him like a ministering angel.
But Edwin was not destined to go down peaceably to his grave; some quarrel arose between him and the son of his old Welsh host, Cadvan: what the cause was, we know not; it, however, led to a severe battle, and as it was fought near Morpeth, it is evident that the Welsh king was the invader. Edwin was, as usual, victorious, and chased Cadwallon into Wales. Some time after this event, there sprang up a renowned pagan warrior amongst the Saxons, named Penda, who governed the kingdom of Mercia, a portion of Britain that up to this period scarcely attracts the historian's attention. This Mercian king, Cadwallon prevailed upon to unite his forces with his own, and attack the Northumbrian monarch. The battle is believed to have taken place at Hatfield Chase, in Yorkshire, at the close of autumn in the year 633; in it king Edwin was slain, together with one of his sons, named Osfrid. Most of his army perished—a clear proof of the stern struggle they made to conquer. Cadwallon, and his ally, Penda, the pagan king, overran the united kingdoms of Northumbria, desolating the Deiri and Bernicia in their march, and spreading terror wherever they appeared. Edilburga escaped with her children into Kent; Paulinus accompanied her, for the Christian churches appear to have been the chief objects which the Mercian monarch sought to destroy.
The world seemed to have no charms for Edilburga after the death of her royal husband. Her brother, Eadbald, the king of Kent, received her kindly and sorrowfully: the widowed queen, by his consent, built a monastery at Liming, and afterwards took the veil.
Such was the end of the beautiful daughter of Ethelbert, she who when a girl had many a time seen Augustin at her father's court, and doubtless looked with childish wonder on the holy banner which the missionaries bore before them, whereon the image of the Blessed Redeemer was portrayed, when they first appeared in Kent. Upon the death of Edwin, the kingdom of Northumbria was again divided. Osric, a descendant of Ella, ascended the throne of the Deiri, and Eanfrid, the son of Ethelfrith, whom Edwin had driven into exile, reigned over Bernicia. Osric soon perished, for Cadwallon still continued his ravages, and while the king of Deiri was besieging a strong fortress which the Welsh monarch occupied, an unexpected sally was made, and in the skirmish Osric was slain. Eanfrid met with a less glorious death, for while within the camp of Cadwallon, suing for peace, he was, even against all the acknowledged laws of that barbarous age, put to death. This Welsh king appears to have been as great a scourge to the Saxons as ever king Arthur was in his day, nor does his old ally, Penda, seem to have been a jot less sparing of his own countrymen;—but his doings will form the subject of our next chapter.
In fourteen battles and sixty skirmishes is Cadwallon said to have fought, and so odious was the last year in which he distinguished himself—so blotted by his ravages and the apostasy of many of the Saxon kings, that Bede says, the annalists, by one consent, refused to record the reigns of these renegades, so added it to the sovereignty of Oswald. The most important event that we have to record in his reign was the victory he obtained over Cadwallon, which occurred soon after he was seated upon the throne of Bernicia. Oswald was already celebrated for his piety, and previous to his battle with the Welsh king, he planted the image of the cross upon the field, holding it with his own hands, while his soldiers filled up the hollow which they had made in the earth to receive it. When the cross was firmly secured, he exclaimed, "Let us all bend our knees, and with one heart and voice pray to the True and the Living God, that He in His mercy will defend us from a proud and cruel enemy: for to Him it is known that we have commenced this war, for the salvation and safety of our people." All knelt, as he had commanded, around the cross, and when the last murmur of the solemn prayer had died away, they marched onward with stouter hearts to meet the terrible enemy. Of the battle we have scarcely any other record than that which briefly relates the death of Cadwallon and the destruction of his army. The spot in which the cross was planted was called "Heaven-field," and was for ages after held in great reverence. But neither the piety of Oswald, nor his victory over the Welsh king, could protect him from the wrath of Penda: and the scene of our history now shifts to the kingdom of Mercia, which, up to this time, had seemed to sleep in the centre of the Saxon dominions: for those who had settled down in the midland districts had, with the exception of Crida, scarcely left so much as a name behind, and he is only known as the grandfather of Penda. To the deeds of the latter we have now arrived, and he who assisted to slay five kings, is the next stormy spirit that throws its shadow upon our pages.
Hitherto the kingdom of Mercia has scarcely arrested our attention, but the time at last came when it was destined to rise with a startling distinctiveness above the rest of the Saxon states, under the sovereignty of Penda. As the midland counties bordered upon the Deiri, it is not improbable that Mercia had been subject to the sway of the more northern monarchs, until the grandson of Crida appeared, and, struck by its fallen state, resolved at once to raise it to its true dignity. We have seen him before figure in the battle where he joined Cadwallon, and overthrew the once-powerful Edwin; then he gained but an empty victory, he now resolved to retrace his steps and reap a more substantial harvest or perish in the attempt. Above sixty years had already rolled over his head, yet for military skill and talent he had scarcely an equal, and when, ten years before, he was crowned king of Mercia, many foresaw that his would be a terrible reign; he had linked himself with the British—daringly thrown down his gauntlet and challenged all comers; no one was found bold enough to pick it up. Wherever he appeared, Mercy fled with a shiver, and Hope placed her fair hands before her eyes to weep: from step to step did he advance as he grew grey in crime, still glorying in the hoariness of his iniquities. Bold, ambitious, and cruel, he sought out danger wherever it was to be found, and attacked Power in the very heart of his stronghold; he knew only Mercy by the name of Death, nor shunned he the fate to which he consigned others. He hated not the Christians who adhered rigidly to the tenets of their new creed, but if they halted between two opinions, he abhorred them; while on his part he worshipped Odin, and never left the altars of his grim war-god dry for want of a victim. Endowed with a strong and fearless mind, and a body that age only seemed to harden, he led the way from battle to battle, and victory to victory, while the neighbouring kings looked on and trembled. No marvel that such a conqueror found ready allies amongst the Cymry, or that they were ever eager to join him when he required their aid, while he in return seems to have stood ready armed for any cause, that might chance to fall in his way, and but for his assistance to Cadwallon, Edwin might probably have died an old man in his bed, with Edilburga and his children kneeling beside him. But ambition was the rock on which nearly all these ancient kings were wrecked; the open ocean was not wide enough for them; wherever it was rumoured that danger lurked, there they at once steered—they deemed it but cowardly to wait for the coming of death, so seized the helm and sailed boldly out to look for his dark dominions. To be chained to the domestic hearth was to them a misery, the bark of the old hound, and the recognising flutter of the familiar hawk, and the prattle of children became weary! weary! Old household affections but palled; Edilburga might smile, and Paulinus pray, but the tramp of the war-horse, and the ringing of the sword upon the buckler, and the clang of the battle-axe, as it cleaved its way through helmet and armour, were sweeter sounds than these; the spirit within but yearned for the sleep which was purchased by a dearly won victory; even the eyes of grey-headed old men brightened when the contest was talked over in which they had fought, and they went out of the hall, tottering at every step, to bask in the sunshine, and sigh over the deeds done in those "good old times." Wearisome was the morning light to their eyes, which dawned not upon the tented field; they loved better to see the banner of the red dragon of the Britons waving upon some distant height, opposite to which their own standard of the white horse fluttered, than to watch the motion of the trees, or the rustle of the yellow corn, or to hear the bleating and the lowing of "the cattle upon a thousand hills:" to such belonged Penda, the ruler of Mercia.
Whether the death of Cadwallon, the British king, with whom Penda's forces were allied when Edwin was defeated at the battle of Hatfield-chase, caused the Mercian monarch to invade Bernicia, to revenge his fall and defeat, or whether the love of conquest alone induced Penda to undertake this expedition, is not recorded, neither is it clearly made out that he was not present at the battle in which Cadwallon was slain. Whatever were his motives, he attacked and slew Oswald, without any apparent cause of quarrel, and in him perished one of the best of the Northern kings. It is said that while the barbed javelin which caused his death was still fixed in his breast, he never for a moment ceased to pray; and that for centuries after his death his name was ever linked with the following pious sentence: "May the Lord have mercy on their souls! as Oswald said, when he fell on the battle-field." It is also recorded of Oswald that one day, as he was about to partake of the refreshments which were placed before him in a silver dish, the almoner, whose office it was to relieve the poor, stepped in and informed him that a number of beggars were waiting without soliciting alms:—when his eye alighted upon the rich vessel in which the dainties were piled, the thoughts of their wants, and his own unnecessary luxuries, rose before him with so striking a contrast, that he ordered the untouched food to be distributed amongst the beggars, and the silver dish to be broken up and given to them; yet Penda caused the head and limbs of this pious and charitable king to be severed from the body, transfixed on stakes, and exposed to the public gaze. He then marched through Northumbria, spreading death and desolation wherever he trod; attacked the castle of Bamborough, and, unable to carry it by storm, demolished all the buildings in the neighbourhood, and piled up the wood and thatch around the strong fortress, and then set fire to the ruins he had heaped together. Fortunately for the besieged, the wind changed just as the flames began to rise, and the eddying gust blew back the blazing ruins upon the besiegers. Penda then turned his back upon Northumbria, and we next meet with him in Wessex, where he makes war upon Cenwalch, for some insult the latter had offered to Penda's sister; Cenwalch is driven out of his kingdom, remains in exile three years, and then returns, having doubtless reconciled himself to the Mercian king. When he had finished his work in Wessex, and Sigebert had resigned his crown, he directed his steps to East Anglia, for Redwald had long since slept with his fathers: he had also founded a school, from which it is not improbable the present University of Cambridge sprung; and having given his kingdom to his kinsman Ecgric, and built a monastery, into which he at last retired, he had long since taken a farewell of all his greatness. But Sigebert had been renowned in his day; and now danger was knocking at the door, the East Anglians were unwilling that an old warrior should be pattering his prayers when he ought to be wielding his battle-axe; and it is recorded that his former subjects drew him forcibly out of the monastery, and compelled him to lead them on against Penda. With only a white wand in his hand, and probably robed in his monkish habiliments, the old soldier took the command of the battle; his religious scruples, however, preventing him from using any warlike weapon. We can almost picture him, pale with his ascetic life, for no one had adhered more rigidly to the monastic rules than he had done, standing with his white wand uplifted amid a throng of warriors, pointing to the most salient points of the opposing army, with a martial glimmer just lighting up for a moment the cold grey eye, which for years had only contemplated that glory which he hoped to enjoy beyond the grave. We can imagine the sudden contrast of sounds—from the low muttered prayer, or the holy hymns chaunted within the walls of his monastery, to the shout, the rush, the struggle, and the clanging of arms. Nor is it difficult to picture the look of contempt with which the pagan king Penda would gaze upon his ghostly opponent, or to imagine the bitter jeers to which the hardened heathen would give utterance as he wiped his bloody battle-axe, and gazed upon the monk-king and his crowned kinsman, as they lay together amid the slain—for both Sigebert and Ecgric fell, and their whole army was routed or slaughtered by the hitherto invincible Penda.
Anna succeeded Ecgric, and Sigebert; but scarcely was he seated upon the perilous throne of East Anglia, before the pagan warrior again made his appearance; for although Penda was now an old man, grey-headed, and eighty years of age, he could no more live without fighting than he could without food. Anna had been guilty of sheltering Cenwalch, the king of Wessex, after Penda had dethroned him; an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the hoary old heathen; so he marched once more into East Anglia, and slew him. He had by this time sent five kings and thousands of their followers as offerings to Odin, and not yet satisfied, he resolved once more to visit the northern kingdoms, for the pleasant vallies which stretched on either side the Trent had no charms for Penda. The "thirty-armed river," as Milton has called it, could not retain him within its boundaries; he liked not the air of our midland counties, so set off to pay another visit to the Deiri or Bernicia, with every mile of which he was doubtless familiar. He had grown grey in fighting battles, had been a king thirty years, and during the whole period was either preparing to attack, marching, or fighting. The old chroniclers compare him to a vulture, a wild beast, ravenous for prey, and one whose chief delight was in the clashing of arms, and the shedding of human blood.
After having slain Oswald and brutally exhibited his remains, he appears to have paid frequent visits to Oswy, who succeeded him. But Oswy had no disposition to fight, and therefore endeavoured to keep the quarrelsome old Mercian quiet by exhausting the Northumbrian treasury. Growling like a tiger, Penda refused to accept all the treasures he could heap together; he was neither to be bought over by gold nor prayers; he came to fight, and fight he would; he seemed like a drunken man who is determined to quarrel, even if he has to run his head against the first post he meets with. He had come, he said, to extirpate the whole race of the Northumbrians—the Deiri, Bernicia, and all—he came to kill.
When Oswy found that all entreaties were in vain, he mustered his forces together, which were far inferior to Penda's in number. Before commencing the battle, Oswy vowed, like Jephthah of old, that if he obtained the victory, he would dedicate his daughter to the service of the Lord; and having formed this resolution, he issued forth to meet the mighty man-slayer, who had hitherto scarcely sustained a single defeat. The Northumbrian, with a heavy heart, divided the command of his little army between himself and his son Alfred. The battle took place somewhere in Yorkshire, but where cannot now with certainty be pointed out; it was in the neighbourhood of a river, and not far distant from York. The contest was terrible; the army under the command of Penda appears to have been made up of Britons and Saxons, some of whom were dragged reluctantly into the battle, and but waited the first favourable moment to turn their arms against the dreaded chieftain. The low land in the rear of Penda's army was flooded; beyond, the deep-swollen river was already roaring as if in expectation of its prey. Penda charged as usual—hot, eager, and impetuous, as if the victory was already his own; but the old man's arms were not so strong as they had been,—he could not see his way so clearly as he had done beforetime. Odilwald, who occupied a favourable position, had not yet stirred a step. It seems as if one portion of Penda's mighty force was jealous of another; there was the river roaring behind, and Oswy bearing down upon them before. Midway all was confusion, and in the midst of it stood Penda, blinded with fury, and bleeding from his wounds. Over the dying and the dead trampled the victorious army of Oswy. Over Penda they trod, who lay upon the ground a hideous mass, his grey head cloven open by a blow from a battle-axe. None paused to survey him. Before the Northumbrians the routed host rushed onward, onward, until the ringing of armour, and the clashing of blade upon blade, sunk into a gurgle, and a moan, and a splash; and still the river tore on its way, as if in haste to make room for more. Downward the defeated plunged, into deep beds, where the hungry pike slept, and the slimy eel lay coiled. The flooded fields were manured with the dead; hideous sights which many a rich harvest has since covered; the river-bed was clogged up with the bodies of the slain, which fishes fed upon, and winter rains at last washed away—rich relics to pave the floor of that gloomy hall, where Hela the terrible reigned. If ever there was a clattering of skulls in Valhalla it was then; or if Odin ever rushed out with open arms, to meet the bloodiest of his worshippers, it was when the soul of Penda came. What a crimson country is ours! what rivers of gore has it taken to make our green England what it is! No marvel that even the rims of our daisies are dyed crimson by contact with such a sanguinary soil.
Oswy, after this unexpected victory, now overran Mercia, and subjected it to his sway. His daughter Alchfleda he also gave in marriage to Peada, the son of Penda, and installed him in his father's kingdom, on condition that he should introduce Christianity into his dominions. Alfred, the son of Oswy, in return married the daughter of Penda, whose name was Cyneburga. Thus on each side a pagan was united to a Christian, and the work of conversion went on prosperously; for there were now but few corners of the British dominions in which the true faith was not introduced. Such changes were enough to make the stern old Saxon heathen leap out of his grave. In his lifetime no one would have been found bold enough to have proposed them. Alchfleda's mother was still living, and remained a firm follower of the old idolatrous creed; she seems to have accompanied her daughter into Mercia, and had doubtless in her train many a grey old veteran, who still bowed the knee before the altars of Odin, and who looked upon a religion which taught peace, good will, and charity to all mankind, with disdain. It is not clearly made out by whose instigation Peada was assassinated. Both his wife and her mother stand accused of the deed, but no cause is assigned for the former perpetrating so dreadful a crime; nor can any other reason be assigned for the latter having done it, beyond what we have given. Peada, however, fell at the holy time of Easter, which seems to have been a favourite season for assassination amongst the pagan Saxons, in proof of which numerous instances might be quoted. Before his death, Peada commenced the famous monastery of Peterborough, which his brother Wulfhere completed. Nor was Wulfhere content with only finishing the minster, for he gave to the Abbot Saxulf, to the monks, and their successors for ever, all the lands and waters, meads, fens, and weirs, which lay for many miles around it, and covered in extent what forms more than one English shire. Wulfhere, like Sigebert, appears to have been as much of a monk as a warrior, though a little of old Penda's blood still flowed in his veins; and when Cenwalch, of Wessex, who had been humbled and disgraced by Penda, resolved to have his revenge upon the son, although he was at first successful, the Mercians at last became conquerors, and Cenwalch was again exiled, and his kingdom fell into the hands of the Mercian sovereign.
The king of Essex, about this time, made frequent visits to Oswy's court, and the Northumbrian sovereign lost no opportunity of dissuading him from following his idol worship. The arguments Oswy used, though simple, were convincing; he told him that such objects as were fashioned out of stone or wood, and which the axe or the fire could so readily destroy and consume, could not contain a Godhead. Such reasoning had the desired effect, and the king of Essex, together with numbers of his subjects, abandoned their pagan belief. The sovereign of Sussex was also converted through the instrumentality of Wulfhere, who was as eager to spread the doctrines of Christianity as his father had ever been to uphold the worship of Woden. Cenwalch, the king of Wessex, who, like so many others about this period, keeps crossing the busy stage at intervals, only to fill up the scenes, at length died, but whether in exile or not is uncertain. Saxburga, the widowed queen, stepped into the vacant throne; but the Wessex nobles refused to be governed by a woman, although she wielded the sceptre with a firmer hand, and ruled the kingdom better than her husband had ever done; strengthening her forces, and ever holding herself in readiness in case of an invasion. Still there was ever some one amongst her nobles who shared her rule; and one of these, a descendant from the renowned Cerdric, led her forces against the king of Mercia. Essex was at this time under the sway of Wulfhere, and it is likely enough that he looked with a jealous eye upon the bold front which Saxburga's kingdom presented, after the death of Cenwalch, who had been so frequently conquered. A battle was fought in Wiltshire, in which neither party appear to have reaped any material advantage; and in little more than a year after the contest, both the leaders were in their graves. Oswy, the conqueror of Penda, had before this died, and his son Ecgfrid became the king of Northumbria, in which the Deiri and Bernicia were now united. Alfred, who had married Penda's daughter, after having aided in destroying her father and his powerful army, at the battle in Yorkshire, was not allowed to succeed Oswy, on account of some flaw in his birth. Nearly all beside, of any note, who figured in this busy period, had passed away, excepting the last son of Penda, named Ethelred, who, after the death of Wulfhere, ascended the Mercian throne. Ecgfrid fell in a battle against the Picts, though not before he had invaded Mercia, for although Ethelred had married his sister, it seemed as if the hostile blood which had so long flowed between the sons, Oswy and Penda, was not to be blended by marriage. The archbishop Theodore stepped in between the combatants, and healed up the breach long before Ecgfrid perished. About this time, also, died Cadwaladyr, the last of the Cymry who aspired to the sovereignty of Britain. His death was the cause of a battle being fought. Similar unimportant events make up the catalogue which closes the account of this period. The Saxon kingdoms seemed to stand upon an ever-moving earthquake: one was swallowed to-day, and cast up again on the morrow: the earth was ever rocking and reeling: kings came and went, as the images shift in a kaleidoscope. If one year saw a sovereign victorious, the next beheld him dethroned and an exile; he put on his crown, or laid it aside, just as his more powerful neighbour bade him. When fortune placed him uppermost, he retaliated in the same way on his former conqueror. Still we have before us the stirring times of Offa the Terrible; Egbert and Ethelwulf followed by the stormy sea-kings, whose invasions were more merciless than those of the Saxons; for the history of this period is like an ocean studded with islands, some of which lie near together, others wide apart; and many which, from the distance, seem to have a barren and forbidding look, are, on a nearer approach, found rich in ancient remains; and though now silent and desolate, we discover in what is left behind traces of the once mighty inhabitants, that ages ago have passed away. Such is the history of the early Saxon kingdoms. Where an idle voyager would yawn and grow weary, his intelligent companion would linger, and gaze, and ponder in silent wonder and reverential awe.