The Kings of Northumbria

The Kingdom of Northumbria was forged from two northeastern kingdoms of the late 6th century, Bernicia and Deira. Under the Christian kings Edwin, Oswald and Oswy, it became one of the most powerful realms of Anglo-Saxon England, reaching across to the Isle of Man and west Wales, and for a time eclipsed even the mighty Mercia.

Defeat by the Picts in 685 clipped Northumbria’s wings, and alongside the resurgence of Mercia signalled a gradual decline in the kingdom’s power. But the cultural and religious ‘renaissance’ led by the monastery at Lindisfarne bequeathed to all England a legacy that outlasted even the Viking invasions of the 8th and 9th centuries, and defines English identity to this day.

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Kings and Queens (7) Mediaeval History (150) Kings and Queens (7) St Bede of Jarrow (26) Northumberland (30) Mediaeval History (150) History (777)

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