94 Transactions. 
and a quarter after the event he was recording, 
not have clearly known the facts. At all events, his account is 
and may or may 
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—Kdelfrid 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 Hdelfrid 
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 their own account to extend their 
dominions into the southern part of the island. Hdelfrid, 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, when 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 
