94 Transactions. 



and a quarter after the event he was recording, and may or may 

 not have clearly known the facts. At all events, his account is 

 open to more interpretations than one. It is not clear whether 

 Edelfrid's brother, Theobald, who is stated to have been killed in 

 this war with his force, was in league with the Scots, and in 

 rebellion against his brother ; or whether he had been slain by 

 the Scots in a previous encounter — -Edelfrid himself " putting an 

 end to the war," as Bede expresses it, by a final victory at 

 Daegsastan. Nor does Bede say whether Aidan, the king of the 

 Scots, had come to the assistance of the Britons, whom Edelfrid 

 was ravaging, or whether he himself was a rival invader of the 

 territory. We frequently find in subsequent history that the 

 Scots of Dalriada and Galloway came to the assistance of the 

 Strathclyde Britons, and that at last they exercised a suzerainty 

 and protectorship over the Britons, but we never hear of their 

 making any attempt on tneir own account to extend their 

 dominions into the southern part of the island. Edelfrid, one of 

 the immediate successors of Ida the Angle, was a famous planter 

 of the Anglian race and colony in the country that was after 

 wards known as Northumbria. But the native Britons could 

 not have been entirely driven from the Roman defences along 

 the line of the Wall, to which we know they long clung, and 

 which afterwards, when led by Caedwallada, they re-occupied, 

 and for a time resumed their sway over Northumbria, terribly 

 ravaging the Anglian community there. It is, therefore, exceed- 

 ingly probable that the Britons, unable to make a stand against 

 Edelfrid, had called in Aidan, king of the Irish Scots (who were 

 a race of military adventurers rather than a nation in those 

 times), and were endeavouring to hold or regain their ground in 

 the western and northern part of the isthmus, wlien they were 

 encountered and defeated at this battle. The locality is all in 

 favour of its being the scene of such a struggle. We conceive of 

 the northern forces making their way along the Catrail and 

 being joined by the Romanised Britons, at its junction with the 

 Maiden Way, ready, if they were successful, to make a descent 

 upon the Anglian settlements down the valley of the North 

 Tyne, where Caedwallada advanced in after times to the 

 scene of the battle of Heavensfield. But there might, and 

 probably would, be another reason for their concentrating 

 at this spot. Bede calls it "a famous place," and probably* 

 because of its being .so famous, felt it unnecessary to 



