And then sir Ector threw his shield, his sword, and his helm from him; and when he beheld sir Launcelot’s visage, he fell down in a swoon; and when he awoke, it were hard for any tongue to tell the doleful complaints that he made for his brother. “Ah! sir Launcelot,” said he, “thou wert head of all Christian knights!” “And now, I dare say,” said sir Bors, “that sir Launcelot, there thou liest, thou wert never matched of none earthly knight’s hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare a shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrod horse; and thou wert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman; and thou wert the kindest man that ever stroke with sword; and thou wert the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights; and thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever eat in hall among ladies; and thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe, that ever put spear in the rest.”
Then there was weeping and dolor out of measure.
—Malory’s Morte d’Arthur.
Ethelfrith, who succeeded Ethelric, gave the fort to his second wife, Bebba, after whom it was named Bebbanburgh, which soon became Bamburgh.
In the days of King Edwin, who succeeded Ethelfrith, Bamburgh was the centre of a kingdom which extended from the Humber to the Forth, and as Northumbria was at that time the most important division of England, the royal city of Bernicia was practically the capital of the country. The reign of King Oswald, though shorter than that of Edwin, was equally noteworthy from the fact that in his days the gentle Aidan settled in Northumbria, and king and monk worked together for the good of their people, and Bamburgh became not only the seat of temporal power but the safeguard and bulwark of the spiritual movement centred on the little isle of Lindisfarne. On the accession of Edwin, Oswald, son of Ethelfrith, had fled from Bernicia and taken refuge with the monks of Iona, living with them till the time came for him to rule Northumbria in his turn. As soon as possible after the inevitable fighting for his political existence was over, he sent to Iona for a teacher to come and instruct his people in the truths he had learned; and a monk named Corman was sent. He, however, was unable to make any impression on the wild and warlike Saxons of the northern kingdom, and he soon returned to Iona with the report that it was useless to try to teach such obstinate and barbarous people. One of the brethren, listening to his account, ventured to ask him if he were sure that all the fault lay with the people. “Did you remember,” said he, “that we are commanded to give them the milk first? Did you not rather try them with the strong meat?” With one accord the brethren declared that he who had spoken such wise words was the man best fitted for the task, and the gentle Aidan was sent to Oswald’s help. In such a fashion came the Gospel to Northumbria, and Aidan became the first of the long roll of saints whose deeds and lives had such incalculable influence on Northumbrian history. From Aidan’s arrival in 635 until the death of Oswald the relations between the king and the monk who had settled on Medcaud or Medcaut, soon to be known as Lindisfarne, and later as Holy Island, were those of friend to friend and fellow-worker, rather than those of king and subject.
After the death of Oswald, his conqueror Penda, the fierce King of the Mercians, harried Northumbria, and appearing before the walls of Bamburgh prepared to burn it down. Piles of logs and brushwood were laid against the city and the fire was applied. Aidan, in his little cell on Farne Island, to which he had retired, saw the clouds of flame and smoke rolling over the home of his beloved patron. Raising his hands to Heaven, he exclaimed, “See, Lord, what ill Penda is doing!” Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the wind changed, and drove the flames away from Bamburgh, blowing them against Penda’s host, who thereupon ceased all further attempts against the city.
Not long after this, Aidan was at Bamburgh, when he was seized with sudden illness, and died with his head resting against one of the wooden stays of the little church. Penda came again the next year, and this time both village and church were burnt, all except, says tradition, the beam of wood against which Aidan had rested in his last moments.
When the Danish ships appeared off our shores, in the two centuries following, Bamburgh was attacked and plundered several times. In the days of William Rufus, as we have seen, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, rebelled against the Red King, in company with his uncle the Bishop of Coutances, Robert of Normandy, and William of St. Carileph, Bishop of Durham. Rufus marched into Northumberland, but the quarrel was adjusted for the time; though private strife between the two Bishops led to Mowbray’s driving the monks of Durham from the Priory at Tynemouth and replacing them by monks from St. Albans.
Later, however, Mowbray disobeyed a summons from the Red King, who once more marched into Northumberland. He reached Bamburgh, and invested it, but failed to make any impression on that impregnable stronghold, within whose walls were Mowbray and his young wife, the Countess Matilda, and his nephew, who was Sheriff of Northumberland. Rufus, finding all attempts to carry the fortress useless, began to build a wooden fort, called a Malvoisin, or “Bad neighbour”; and so anxious was he to have it speedily erected that he made knights and nobles as well as his men-at-arms take part in the work.
Mowbray, from the battlements, called out to many of these by name, openly taunting those who had secretly promised to join him, or had expressed themselves as in sympathy with his disobedience. His words gave great amusement to Rufus and the nobles who were truly loyal, and much mortification and vexation to those whom he so ruthlessly exposed. Rufus left the “Bad neighbour” to continue the siege and went southward.