The result of Edmund’s Mercian campaign seems to have been a treaty of peace, negotiated by the two archbishops Oda and Wulfstan on the lines of the peace between Alfred and Guthrum. Anlaf and his brother-king Raegnald were baptised, Edmund acting as their sponsor; and the Watling Street was again made the boundary between Englishman and Dane. The peace thus concluded lasted but a year. In 943 Anlaf and his Danes were again in Mercia, and—ominous conjunction—Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, was abetting the invaders. They stormed Tamworth, they took much spoil and great was the slaughter, but on Edmund’s approach they retired to Leicester where they were besieged by the king. Notwithstanding the escape of Anlaf and the rebel archbishop, Edmund was victorious, and next year (944) he invaded Northumbria and drove out his two rebellious god-sons, who appear no more upon the scene.

In the following year, 945, Edmund ravaged all “Cumbraland,” a region which probably included all that was left of the old kingdom of Strathclyde south of the Solway, the northern portion having been gradually appropriated by the Scottish kings. We now come to another of the great academic battlefields between English and Scottish historians. We are told by the chronicler that having ravaged Cumberland, “he let it all to Malcolm, King of Scotland, on condition that he should be his fellow-worker both on sea and land”. What was the relation thus established between Edmund and Malcolm I. who had succeeded “the hoary old deceiver” Constantine? Of course a feudal lawyer of the twelfth century pondering these words would discover in them a regular case of the relation of lord and vassal. But they do not in themselves seem to imply more than friendship and alliance, and it is admitted that the fully developed feudal theory was not yet known in England. As with the “commendation” of 921, we may probably conclude that the transaction would mean anything or nothing according to the after course of events, and the shifting of the centre of gravity between the two contracting parties. In itself this “cession of Cumberland” was probably a politic measure, as it enlisted the sympathies of the Scottish “fellow-worker” on the English side and interposed a barrier between the vikings of Dublin and their Northumbrian fellow-countrymen.

On the assassination of Edmund in 946, Edred seems to have taken up the endless task and laboured at it successfully. “He took to the kingdom and soon subdued all Northumbria to his power, and the Scots swore to him oaths that they would do all his will.” Wulfstan, the turbulent or patriotic archbishop of York, plays a prominent and singular part in Northumbrian politics during the reign of Edred; and princes of the royal houses of Norway and Denmark also bear a hand in the perplexing game. One such was Eric Blood-axe, son of fair-haired Harold of Norway, who when driven forth from his kingdom by Hakon the Good, Athelstan’s foster-son, sailed for the Orkneys, ravaged Scotland and the northern parts of England, but on receiving a message from Athelstan, who reminded him of the old friendship between himself and his father, made peace, consented to be baptised along with his wife and children, and became for a time the peaceful under-king of Northumbria. This settlement had endured during the life of Athelstan, but on Edmund’s accession, Eric, knowing that he was not beloved of the new king, and hearing a rumour that he would set another king over Northumberland, renounced his allegiance to Winchester, resumed his viking life, gathered together a new “scip-here,” chiefly from among the Irish Danes, harried Wales and all the southern coasts of England, but ere long fell in battle against the English.

Another Eric, the son of another Harold, then appeared upon the scene. This was the son of Harold Blue-Tooth, King of Denmark. In 948 the witan of Northumbria, headed by Archbishop Wulfstan, chose this Danish prince for their king, though but a year before they had solemnly plighted faith to Edred. Enraged hereat the Saxon king marched northwards and “harried over all Northumberland”. So ruthless or so careless was the work of destruction that even Wilfrid’s famous minster at Ripon perished in the flames. During Edred’s homeward march the Danish garrison of York sallied forth, and overtaking the rear of his army at Chesterford174 inflicted upon it grievous slaughter. Exasperated by the defeat, Edred, whose weak health perhaps made him exceptionally irritable, meditated a second ravage of Northumbria, but consented to forego his revenge when the witan of the northern kingdom expelled Eric and paid compensation for the injury which had been inflicted by their countrymen. We need not follow minutely the fortunes of King Eric. Expelled and restored twice, if not thrice, in the anarchy of Northumbria, he is said to have perished in 954, “deceitfully slain” (according to Roger of Wendover) “with his son and his brother in a lonely place which is called Stainmoor, by the treasonable contrivance of Earl Oswulf”. This event is memorable as finally closing the book of Northumbrian royalty. Oswulf of Bamburgh succeeds to the chief place in the northern province with the title of earl, and henceforth we hear no more of kings in Northumbria.

The strange career of the rebel archbishop, Wulfstan, came speedily to an end. In 952 Edred ordered him to be imprisoned in a fortress “because he had been often accused to the king,” or according to William of Malmesbury, “because he meditated desertion to his countrymen”. Probably the phrase “his countrymen” means merely the men of Northumbria. It is, however, possible that Wulfstan may have been of Danish descent. We have clearer information as to the Danish descent of his contemporary Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury. It certainly throws a strange light on the relation of the two races, as well as on the ecclesiastical history of the period, that the first and possibly the second of the highest places in the English Church should have been filled by scions of that still barely Christianised stock. In 954, the year of the extinction of the Northumbrian kingdom, Edred thought himself safe in giving to Wulfstan the Mercian bishopric of Dorchester, where, three years after, he died. The only other noteworthy event in the reign of Edred was “a great slaughter” which in his usual passionate way he ordered to be made among the inhabitants, probably the Danish inhabitants, of Thetford in East Anglia in revenge for their murder of the abbot Eadhelm (952). Three years after this, on Nov. 23, 955, Edred died at Frome in Somerset and was buried in the old monastery at Winchester. No nightly appearances in his case, as in that of his great ancestor, seem to have troubled the repose of the dwellers in the convent.