160 
Deira, comprehending Yorkshire and Durham. It had been 
the kingdom of ^thelwald, St. Oswald's son, from 650 to 
about 660, and then of Oswin's eldest son, Alhfrith, until 
664, when there is reason to suppose he was one of the 
victims of the great pestilence. 
Thenceforward, Deira and Bernicia (the district to the 
north of it) were united under one sceptre, wielded in suc- 
cession by Oswin and his sons Ecgfrith and Aldfrith, the 
latter of whom, however, was only said to be his son ( dicehatur) . 
During the reign of the last, we find the residence of the 
family at Driffield. Although neither of his contemporaries, 
the Yen. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, nor Eddi, in his 
Life of St. Wilfrid, mention the place of Aldfrith's death, 
and although the MSS. of the Saxon Chronicle are equally 
silent in this respect, a later MS. (Cotton Tiberius, B. iv.), 
amongst other notices, apparently derived from some lost 
Northumbrian chronicle of the eighth century, has this 
notice : " A.D. 705. Her Aldfrith Northanhymbra cyning 
forthferde xviiii kl Janr on Driffelda " [At this time 
Aldfrith king of Northumbria deceased on the 14th of 
December in Driffield] ; valuable as specifying not only 
the place but the exact date of Aldfrith's death. 
The ring may well have belonged to this family, and its 
peculiar device, different from that of every other known 
ring of Anglo-Saxon times, seems to point out that member 
of the family for whom it was originally made. The lost 
jewel or enamelled or embossed device of the Agnus Dei, or 
of St. John the Baptist with that symbol (perhaps shaken off 
by the ploughshare and still hidden in the field), and the 
legend Ecce Agnus Dei, indicate a special devotion on the 
part of its owner to the great precursor of Our Lord. Such 
a devotion is indicated in a very remarkable way on the two 
crosses which once formed the monument of Alhfrith, now 
at Bewcastle in Cumberland, and Ruthwell in Annandale. 
