We must now turn to Alcuin’s native kingdom of Northumbria, over whose evil fortunes he grieved so greatly in the home of his adoption.
I do not know how better some idea can be formed of the political chaos to which Northumbria was reduced in the time of Alcuin than by reading a list of the kings of that time. It is a most bewildering list.
All went well so long as Eadbert, the brother of Archbishop Ecgbert, reigned. He was the king of Alcuin’s infancy and boyhood and earliest manhood. His reign lasted from 737 to 758, when he retired into a monastery. He was the 21st king, beginning with Ida who created the kingdom in 547. He was succeeded by (22) Oswulf his son, who was within a year slain by his household officers, July 24, 759, and was succeeded on August 4 by (23) Ethelwald, of whose parentage we do not know anything. In 765 he was deprived by a national assembly, and (24) Alchred was placed on the throne, a fifth cousin of the murdered Oswulf, and therefore of the royal line. In 774 he was banished, and went in exile to the king of the Picts, being succeeded by (25) Ethelred, the son of his deprived predecessor Ethelwald. Ethelred reigned from 774 to 779, when in consequence of cruel murders ordered by him he was driven out, and (26) Alfwold, son of (22) Oswulf, and therefore of the old royal line, succeeded. Alfwold was murdered in 788, and was succeeded by (27) Osred, the son of (24) Alchred, sixth cousin of his predecessor, and therefore of the royal line. After a year he was deposed and tonsured, and was eventually put to death in 792 by (25) Ethelred, who had recovered the throne lost by his expulsion in 779. He was killed in 796 in a faction fight, after he had put to death the last two males, so far as we know, of the royal line of Eadbert, Ælf and Ælfwine, sons of (26) Alfwold. Simeon of Durham tells us (A.D. 791) that they were persuaded by false promises to leave sanctuary in the Cathedral Church of York; were taken by violence out of the city; and miserably put to death by Ethelred in Wonwaldrenute. He was succeeded by (28) Osbald, of unknown parentage, but a patrician of Northumbria; he only reigned twenty-seven days, fled to the king of the Picts, and died an abbat three years later, in 799. He was succeeded by (29) Eardulf, a patrician of the blood royal,[131] who had been left for dead by (25) Ethelred, but had recovered when laid out for burial by the monks of Ripon. He had the fullest recognition as king; was consecrated at the great altar of St. Paul in York Minster on May 26, 796, by Archbishop Eanbald. In his reign Alcuin died. In 806 he was driven out by (30) Elfwald, of unknown parentage, but by the help of the Emperor Charlemagne he was restored in 808. He died in 810, and was succeeded by his son (31) Eanred, who was the last king but one of the royal house, and the last independent king of Northumbria, dying in 840, and being succeeded by his son (32) Ethelred II, expelled in 844, restored in the same year, and killed sine prole in 848.
This, as has been said, is a most bewildering list. It is, however, convenient to have it stated at length, inasmuch as several of these kings are named in a noteworthy manner in the letters of Alcuin. To emphasize the view that Alcuin took of the state of Northumbria, the list just given may be summarized thus, it being borne in mind that every king who reigned in Alcuin’s time after Eadbert’s death in 758 is included in the summary. Oswulf, murdered 759; Ethelwald, deprived 765; Alchred, banished 774; Ethelred, expelled 779; Alfwold, murdered 788; Osred, deposed 789; Ethelred, killed by his own people, 796; Osbald, expelled 797; Eardulf, expelled 806.
The Venerable Bede had said in his letter to Archbishop Ecgbert in 735 that unless some very great change for the better was made in all walks of life in Northumbria, that country would find its men quite unable to defend it successfully if an invasion took place. We have seen that so far as the reigning persons were concerned, the change was for the worse; we have now to see how bitterly true Bede’s prophecy, or rather his calculation of the necessary consequences, proved to be. We are taken in thought to the year 793, not quite sixty years after Bede’s letter. One excellent reign had lasted twenty-one years, the next eight reigns averaged four and a half years, and all ended in violence.
Higbald, the eleventh Bishop of Lindisfarne, 780-803, takes us back nearly to the best times of that specially Holy Isle. Ethelwold, 724-40, his next predecessor but one, was the bishop under whom King Ceolwulf, to whom Bede dedicated his famous work the Ecclesiastical History of the English Race, became a monk. It was this king-monk that taught the monks of Lindisfarne to drink wine and ale instead of the milk and water prescribed by their Scotic founder, Aidan. His head was preserved in St. Cuthbert’s coffin. Ethelwold’s immediate predecessor was Eadfrith, 698-721, who wrote that glorious Evangeliarium which is a chief pride of England, the Lindisfarne Gospels. To Bishop Eadfrith and his monks Bede dedicated his Life of St. Cuthbert, between whom and Eadfrith only one bishop had intervened. The entry at the end of the Lindisfarne Gospels connects Ethelwold and Eadfrith with the production and binding of that noble specimen of the earliest Anglian work. Put into modern English it runs thus:—
“Eadfrith, bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, he wrote this book at first, for God and St. Cuthbert and all the saints that are in the island, and Ethelwald, the bishop of Lindisfarne island, he made it firm outside and bound it as well as he could.”
The entry proceeds to tell that Billfrith, the anchorite, wrought in smith’s work the ornaments that were on the outside with gold and gems and silver overlaid, a treasure without deceit. And Aldred, the presbyter, unworthy and most miserable, glossed it in English, and made himself at home with the three parts, the Matthew part for God and St. Cuthbert, the Mark part for the bishop—unfortunately it is not said for which of the bishops, the Luke part for the brotherhood. Only one bishop came between Ethelwold, who bound this priceless treasure, and Higbald, to whom we now turn.
The Saxon Chronicle has under the year 787 this entry:—“In this year King Beorhtric [of Wessex] took to wife Eadburg, daughter of King Offa. In his days came three ships of the Northmen from Haurthaland [on the west coast of Norway]. And the sheriff rode to meet them there, and would force them to the king’s residence, for he knew not what they were. And there they slew him. These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land of the English race.”
They soon came again, this time not to the coast of Wessex, but to the coast easiest of access from their own land. In 793 this is the entry in the Saxon Chronicle:—