with them. With his southern border thus secure, he turned to the west, and found an ally in Cadwalla, King of North Wales. Cadwalla was presumably a Christian, but he seems to have had no scruple in allying himself with a pagan for the conquest of a dangerous neighbour (we have already heard in this chapter of Edwin's conquests in Wales). Penda and Cadwalla encountered Edwin at a place which is called in the Chronicle Heathfield, and which has been identified, not, one would think, with much. probability, with Hatfield Chase in Hertfordshire. Edwin was defeated and slain. Penda did not feel himself strong enough to attempt the conquest of Northumbria, but turned his arms elsewhere. The English of Leicestershire and of Lincolnshire submitted to him, and he wrested from Wessex some of its territories. In fact, he busied himself with building up the powerful Mercia of which we shall hear so much hereafter. Northumbria, meanwhile, had leisure to recover itself. Oswy, a kinsman of Edwin, had been placed on the throne of Deira; and Eanfrid, eldest son of the Ethelfrid who had been the enemy of Edwin, to that of Bernicia. Both had been baptized, both relapsed into paganism, and both, it is said, perished by the hands of Cadwalla. The eyes of the people were then turned to Oswald, Eanfrid's younger brother. His first act was to march against the British princes, whom he found encamped at Hexham, near the Roman Wall. Oswald was a firm adherent to the faith which his kinsmen had deserted.

I "North Wales," it will be remembered, was so called to distinguish it from West Wales, the south-western portion of the island.

OSWALD KNEELS TO THE CROSS.

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He bade his followers make a cross of wood, and fix it when made in the ground. He is said to have held it with his own hands till the hole in which it was to stand was filled in with earth. Then turning to his men he said, "Soldiers, let us bend our knees, and beg of the true and living God to protect us from the insolence and fierceness of our enemies, for he knows that our cause is just." He then bade them kneel down and pray. In the battle that followed the soldiers of the cross, though far inferior in numbers to their enemies, were completely victorious. Cadwalla fell on the field of battle. After the victory, Oswald's right to reign over the two kingdoms was no longer doubted. He inherited, too, something, we cannot say how much, of his predecessor's superiority,1 and stands accordingly sixth in Bede's list of the Bretwaldas.

Oswald's reign was short, lasting only for nine years, or, eight only, if we exclude "the unhappy year," as it was afterwards called, when paganism was in the ascent. He was overthrown by the same king who had defeated and slain Edwin. The struggle was for East Anglia, if it did not actually take place in that region, and it was, in its chief motive, a struggle of the old faith against the new. East Anglia had acknowledged the supremacy of Oswald, and Penda of Mercia marched into it. The East Anglian king, Sigebert, had retired into monastery; but the people

1 We hear of his standing sponsor for Cynegils of Wessex, and of his confirming, in the character of Bretwalda, that prince's gift of Dorchester (of the Thame) to Birinus. Bede also speaks of his having compelled the Picts and Scots to do him homage.

insisted that he should leave his cell to lead them into battle. He so far consented that he joined the army, but he refused to carry any arms. He was slain in the battle, his army was routed, and his kingdom passed for a time into the hands of Penda. Oswald marched against the conqueror, and met him at Maserfield, a place which has been variously located at Oswestry in Shropshire, Winwick in Lancashire, and Mirfield in Yorkshire. The battle went against the Northumbrians, and Oswald was slain, exclaiming, it is said, with his last breath, "Lord, have mercy on the souls of my people."

Penda marched eastward, ravaging as he went, till he came to the strong fortress of Bamborough. Unable to take it by assault, he had a vast pile of combustibles heaped up by its walls, and set fire to. It was through the prayers of St. Aidan, as the legend goes on to say, that the direction of the wind was suddenly changed, and the place saved. Oswald died in 642, and was succeeded by his brother Oswy, seventh and last of the Bretwaldas.

For some time Oswy seemed to have little claim to the rank or power implied in this title. He had troubles at home. He had to divide Northumbria

A beautiful story is told of Oswald. Sitting one day at the table with St. Aidan, he was told that a crowd of poor was waiting at his gate and asking for alms. The king commanded that the dishes, of which the guests had not yet begun to partake, should be divided among the poor, and even broke up into small pieces the great silver dish which had been placed before him, and distributed the fragments. The saint caught the king's right hand in his own and said, “May the hand that has done this thing never decay!" and when, by Penda's orders, the limbs of the dead king were exposed on stakes till they rotted, the hand which had been thus blessed was found uncorrupted.

DEFEAT OF PENDA.

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with a rival belonging to the ancient house of Ella, Oswin by name. For six years Oswin ruled Deira, and when, after an unsuccessful rebellion against his superior, he was put to death, was succeeded by a son of Oswald. The death of Oswin took place in 651. Penda, too, was growing more powerful. He had subjugated Wessex, and had even induced its king to renounce Christianity. When he threatened Northumbria, and indeed went so far as to invade it, he was bought off by presents, and by the surrender of hostages. Alliances, too, of marriage, knit the two kingdoms more closely together. The eldest son of Oswy married the daughter of Penda, and Penda's son, Peada, became the husband of his daughter, after having first received baptism. But Penda, though in his latter years he showed something like tolerance of the new faith, could not submit to the supremacy of a Christian overlord, and such a supremacy seemed at hand. In 655 (he was then nearly eighty years old) he marched into Northumbria, and met Oswy near Leeds. The Northumbrian vainly endeavoured to appease him with gifts and offers of submission. He declared that nothing would satisfy him but the extermination of the whole nation. The battle was long and furious. Thirty chieftains, British and English, had followed Penda to the battle, and of these two only survived, one of them being a Northumbrian chieftain who had gone over to the enemy, but who, on the morning of the battle, repented of his treachery. The old king was swept from the field by the crowd of fugitives. Many perished in the battle and in the field; many more in

the river Aire, which was then in flood. Its waters were afterwards said to have avenged the five kings, who had perished by the sword of the old pagan. Two events quickly followed on Penda's death. Mercia became Christian, and Oswy's dignity as Bretwalda became a reality.

For some years Mercia seems to have been actually subject to the Northumbrian king, and to have been governed by his deputies. Then the Mercian nobles took Wulfere, youngest son of Penda, who had been living in concealment, and put him on the throne. The Middle Angles and Lincolnshire returned to their allegiance. We hear, too, of domestic strife in Oswy's family, his son claiming an independent kingdom, and even turning, or threatening to turn, his arms against his father. Another trouble which came upon him in his later years was the great pestilence that raged through the island in 664. In 670 he died, and was succeeded by Egferth, his son. A few words will now suffice to finish the story of Northumbria as the leading power in England. At first, Egferth inherited the power and more than the power of his father. Wulfere of Mercia was compelled to own his superiority, and to surrender to him the newly occupied districts of Mid Anglia and Lincolnshire. Then he attacked the Welsh tribes on his north-western borders, and added the whole or part of the ancient British kingdom of Cambria to his dominions. In the pride of his success he resolved to push his conquests still further. He marched into the territory of the Picts, who occupied the country north of a line between the Clyde and the Forth, where