290 Beozvulf and IVidsith 



may suppose that Oswy judged it expedient to remain in Ireland, 

 if not till his accession in 642, at least for a consideralile period 

 after 633.^ In this case, Aldfrith might conceivably have been 

 born as late as 642. If, on the other hand, Oswy brought his Irish 

 concubine with him to England, Aldfrith may have been born 

 later, though hardly after Oswy's marriage, since the object oL 

 that seeuTS to have been political,^ and the Christian spirit of 

 Eanfled and her Kentish relatives would hardly have been con- 

 ciliated by the presence of an alien mistress. On these grounds, 

 then, we should place Aldf rith's birth not later than 642.^ 



' However, William of Malmesbury explicitly says (Gcst. Reg. 1. i. §49) 

 that, at the death of Edwin, 'Oswald and Oswy, now grown up, and in the 

 budding prime of youth, resought their country,' and adds that the same 

 was true of their elder brother, Eanfrith. 



" Green, p. 296. 



■' Montalembert (4. 67, note i ) : 'Aldfrith was a natural son, and probably 

 the eldest of Oswy's children.' Plummer (2. 264) inclines to think that 

 Aldfrith was younger than Ecgfrith, citing from Bede's Vit. Mctr. Cxidb. 

 (21. 51-2) these lines as referring to Aldfrith: 



Utque novus Josia, fideque animoque magis quam 

 Annis maturus, nostrum regit inclitus orbem. 



But, as Josiah ascended the throne at the age of eight, and reigned thirty- 

 one years, it would be diificult to make out how Bede, writing before 705, 

 when Aldfrith died (cf. Plummer i. cxlvi), could refer to the king as a 

 'modern Josiah, mature in faith and soul rather than in years.' And in fact 

 Bede was referring to Aldfrith's son, Osred, who did actually succeed his 

 father at the age of eight (see p. 291, note 4) ; and, since Osred had not 

 yet become the prodigy of wickedness into which he had developed before his 

 death at the age of nineteen, Bede must have been writing in 706, the year 

 of the Synod of the Nidd, or soon after. Folcard, in his life of John of 

 Beverley, has a good word for Osred at the time of the synod, calling him 

 (Hist, of ilie Church of York i. 254) 'a man of piety and faith.' 

 ^thelwulf, writing a century later than his reign, intimates that Osred 

 at least began well. Aldfrith, says the poet (Simeon of Durham, ed. 

 Arnold, i. 267-8), 



natum genuit, qui nomine clarus 

 Gentibus enituit, Saxonum regmina servans 

 Gestis ct verbis, et omni strenuus actu 

 Exstitit a primis, scd non moderatus, in annis. 



The whole matter becomes clear when Bede's lines {Op. Hist. Min., ed. 

 Stevenson, p. 25) are read with attention; between his account of Aldfritli 

 (see p. 320, note 2) and the two lines quoted above occur tliese two (for 

 Tyrio . . . oslro see Virgil, C. 3. 17; Horace, A. P. 228) : 



