Chapter 1

After Edwin’s death in battle, the kingdom of Deira, to which his family belonged and where he began his reign, devolved upon Osric, son of Edwin’s uncle Elfric, who had been baptized into the Christian Faith by Paulinus. But the kingdom of Bernicia – for the kingdom of the Northumbrians had anciently been divided into these two provinces – fell to Eanfrid, son of Ethelfrid, who claimed descent from the royal family of that province.¹

During the whole of Edwin’s reign the sons of Ethelfrid his predecessor together with many young nobles lived in exile among the Irish or Picts and were there instructed in the teachings of the Irish Church and received the grace of Baptism. But on the death of their enemy Edwin, they received permission to return to their own land, and Eanfrid, as eldest son, inherited the crown of Bernicia. As soon as they had obtained control of their earthly kingdoms, however, both these kings apostatized from the faith of the kingdom of heaven which they had accepted, and reverted to the corruption and damnation of their former idolatry.

Not long afterwards they were justly punished by meeting their death at the hands of the godless Cadwalla, king of the Britons. First Osric next summer was rashly besieging him in a strong city when Cadwalla, making a sudden sally with his entire force, caught him off his guard and destroyed him with his whole army. After this, for a full year, Cadwalla ruled the Northumbrian provinces, not as a victorious king but as a savage tyrant, ravaging them with ghastly slaughter until at length he also destroyed Eanfrid, who had unwisely visited him to negotiate peace accompanied only by twelve picked soldiers. This year remains accursed and hateful to all good men, not only on account of the apostasy of the English kings, by which they divested themselves of the sacraments of the Faith, but also because of the savage tyranny of the British king. Hence all those calculating the reigns of kings have agreed to expunge the memory of these apostate kings and to assign this year to the reign of their successor King Oswald, a man beloved of God. This king, after the death of his brother Eanfrid, mustered an army small in numbers but strong in the faith of Christ; and despite Cadwalla’s vast forces, which he boasted of as irresistible, the infamous British leader was killed at a place known by the English as Denisesburn, that is, the Brook of Denis.²