286 Beozvulf and Widsith 



The leadership of Northumbria, now much oppressed by the vic- 

 torious Penda, continued in the northern line, the next notable 

 king being Oswy, brother of Oswald, who, like him, had been 

 converted in lona. After the death of the Deiran Oswin in 651, 

 and of a successor about whom history has little to say, Oswy 

 became king of all Northumbria by the battle of the Winwsed, in 

 which Penda was slain, and so continued from 655 to 671, for the 

 first part of this time being supreme throughout England. A 

 rebellion of the Mercians, which began in 659, somewhat abridged 

 the power of Northumbria, without, however, much affecting its 

 internal strength and prosperity. In 664, at the famous Synod 

 of Whitby, the king, who, according to Bede,^ had been 'instructed 

 and baptized by the Irish, was very perfectly skilled in their lan- 

 guage, and thought nothing better than what they taught,' found 

 their contentions at length overruled by the arguments of Wil- 

 f rith ; and thus England, by a decisive act, cast in her lot wath the 

 Christians of the Continent, instead of remaining markedly pro- 

 vincial. Oswy was succeeded by his son Ecgfrith, who ruled 

 Northumbria from 671 to 685. In 671-2 he put down a rising of 

 the Picts, and by 675 had entered upon a war with Mercia, which, 

 having steadily grown in power for sixteen years, now undertook 

 to throw off the Northumbrian yoke, though, as the event proved, 

 without success. Four years later the struggle was renewed, 

 without seriously affecting the balance of power, though IMercia 

 gained a certain advantage. In 684 Ecgfrith sent his general, 

 Berht, with an army to attack Ireland, and, according to Bede,^ 

 'miserably wasted that harmless nation,^ insomuch that in their 

 hostile rage they spared not even the churches and monasteries,' 

 the region devastated being the eastern portion of county Meath,'* 

 In the next year, 685, Ecgfrith fell in battle against the Picts at 

 Dunnichen, near Forfar, and, according to Simeon of Durham, 

 was buried in lona. But the story of Ecgfrith would be incom- 

 plete without including such events as his share in the founda- 

 tion of Jarrow,"' the future home of Bede, in the last years of his 



^ Eccl. Hist. 3. 25. 



' Eccl. Hist. 4. 26. 



= Cf. Wm. Malm., Gcst. Reg. 1. i. §51. 



* 'The Irish coast from Dublin to Droghcda' (Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 169). 



'^ Plummcr i. xi, note 2; i. 370; 2. 361. 



