The movement to political unity

The inter-related history of several kingdoms is apt to confuse us with its intricate detail and its picture of appalling confusion. It is well, therefore, to remember that the two main themes before 900 A.D. on which I will concentrate are the political unification of the country and the conversion and christianization of England, with a practical rather than theoretical assessment of the political, social, economic, and cultural consequences.

Though for the sake of clarity it is better to discuss them separately, they were never so divorced in fact and dependse so much upon each other that the graph of their success and failure is the same. During the seventh and eighth centuries the political centre of England moved from Northumbria to Mercia and then into Wessex. There were other kingdoms in the south-east of the country where settled conditions of life were more easily attained so that the first rulers to whom the title 'Bretwalda' was accorded came from that quarter; Alle of Sussex at the close of the sixth century, Ethelbert of Kent until his death in 616 A.D., and Redwald of the East Angles for some ten years afterwards. The south-eastern kingdoms had a serious defect; they had no room for expansion a Northumbria had into the Strathclyde and Scotland, and Mercia into Wales, and Wessex into Devon and Cornwall, and therefore, unless by going to war, not with the Celts but their own more formidable kinsmen, they could not enlarge the small scope of their authority. It soon became evident that it was just a question which of the great powers was going to absorb them.

The Kingdom of Northumbria

The seventh century is acclaimed as the 'golden age' of Northumbria when there seemed to be a possibility, though it never actually became a fact, that it would lead the country into unity, and when it was without doubt the home of a finer culture than was to be seen elsewhere in contemporary Europe.Why it should have first attained fame is largely bound up with events elsewhere in the country, with which it is preferable to deal separately, but naturally it made its own contributions towards its own success.

The early attainment of natural frontiers

It is evident that the Anglian settlers were involved in a long and fierce struggle with the Celtic people. In its political geography Northumbria included at first the two provinces of Deira, occupying central and eastern Yorkshire, and Bernicia, lying to the north of it as far as the Forth. For many years they had gone their own ways and been ruled by separate dynasties; of these the first satisfactory notice we have is from Bede, who refers to the House of Ida in Bernicia (547) and the House of Aelle in Deira (560), but neither of these kings has left any permanents traces of his activities.The first ruler to begin the consolidation of an Anglian kingdom in the north was Ida's grandson Ethelfrith (593-616); though his domination was transient, based as it was solely on military prowess, yet he gave clear definition of the twofold task to which his successors were to address themselves throughout the seventh century. First he turned to the work of defence against outside enemies in the north and in the west. In 603 A.D. he gained the victory of Dawston in Liddlesdale over a coalition between the Scots of Dalriada, Argyle and the Britons of Strathclyde. In this, the first of the Anglo-Scotish conflicts, he secured his position south of the Forth. In, or shortly before, 616 A.D. he defeated near Chester the Britons of the region between the Upper Severn and the Dee, extending his authority to the Irish Sea and driving a permanent wedge between the Celts of Wales and the Celts of Strathclyde.

The military might of Ethelfrith was overcome in 616 A.D. by Redwald of the East Anglians during his brief period of agression and Ethelfrith himself was slain; still, he had provided his kingdom with not unsatisfactory or indefensible frontiers; the Humber in the south, the North Sea and the Irish Sea to east and west and the narrow land-frontier of the Forth and Clyde in the north. It meant that the rulers of Northumbria would have an opportunity to settle down and face the problem of how to organise the work of government and force their subjects into unity.

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