The British History Podcast

So we have King Penda of Mercia in a pretty powerful position... and Northumbria had been broken up into Bernicia and Deira with Oswiu ruling the former and his Nephew ruling the latter… and as for East Anglia, their King, Anna, was on the run because he was in an awkward position having offered sanctuary to the King of Wessex, who foolishly spurned Penda’s sister, and then when King Penda came to visit, King Anna was defeated and he found himself in Exile (though not in Wessex, even though his former ally had returned to his own throne… so that’s a bit cheeky). But yeah, Anna was taking a bit of a sabbatical… And northern domination was broken, at least for now.

When we left off Cenwalh of Wessex had left his wife, irritated Penda (since his wife was Penda’s sister), and gained a fancy new wife but lost his kingdom when Penda arrived to have a little chat with him. So he did what many nobles of the time seemed to do… he fled into exile. In the case of Cenwalh (and presumably his wife) he legged it to East Anglia and the court of King Anna. Support the Show

King Anna and East Anglia was growing in power… gathering enough influence to provide sanctuary to one of King Penda’s enemies and even bringing new regions of the Fens under his control. Further, he was a devout King, converting both Penda’s former brother-in-law, King Cenwalh of Wessex, and also providing a great deal of support for the growing monastic community in his Kingdom. However, Penda had other plans... and this episode will see the Penda tally be raised to four dead kings and two exiled kings. Meanwhile, King Cenwalh, despite the danger that Penda posed, would retake the throne of Wessex. And it looks like Oswiu might have wanted to reform Northumbria, or at least have his kids do it... and fighting would break out that would lead to murder and arson. All to the horror of Bishop Aidan.

118 – Oswiu and Oswine: There’s No Anglo Saxon Word for Take Backsies

Oswald was the King of Northumbria and son of AEthelfrith who was killed by Penda at Maserfield. Oswiu was his brother Osric of Deira was the King of Deira, and nephew of Edwin, who was killed by Cadwallon. and Oswine was the son of Osric… So to recap… Oswald and Oswiu are brothers and Bernician. Osric and Oswine are father and son, and are Deiran. Isn’t this fun? Support the Show

117 – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Oswald was the King of Northumbria and son of AEthelfrith who was killed by Penda at Maserfield. Oswiu was his brother Osric of Deira was the King of Deira, and nephew of Edwin, who was killed by Cadwallon. and Oswine was the son of Osric… So to recap… Oswald and Oswiu are brothers and Bernician. Osric and Oswine are father and son, and are Deiran. Isn’t this fun? Alright, it’s 642 and in Wessex, King Cynegils of the West Saxons died, and his son, Cenwalh succeeded to the throne. Cynegils was a surprisingly resilient King, as was Cwichelm… both of them had survived Battle with Penda and his Mercians, and Cwichelm had even survived Edwin’s vengeance following his failed assassination attempt. But now King Cynegils was dead and Cwichelm was… well… it isn’t clear. He sort of vanishes in short order. But this was a pretty big year because you have a large transfer of power in the Kingdom of Wessex and now King Cenwalh reigned as king (a man whose line, despite the lack of clarity regarding his father’s lineage, still stretches back to Cerdic, though exactly how it goes is subject to debate). So things down south were changing in 642… and this was also the same year of the Battle at Maserfield. So in addition to Cynegils dying… Oswald and Eowa had also died, in their cases it was in battle, and Pagan King Penda was the last noble standing in that power struggle… he was the unquestioned king of Mercia now. And you can almost imagine him looking with some level of confusion at the conversions that were occurring all around him. Wasn’t this proof that his gods were powerful? He was victorious… repeatedly… against powerful Christian leaders. He must have wondered where the Christian god was on the battlefield. For proof of his gods, all he needed to do is listen during a storm… he could often Thunor striking his hammer. And fun fact here, we still talk about Thunor when we have large storms… we just use the modern term for it. Thunder.

It’s been about 2 years and 100 episodes since I did a recap episode to remind you where we were, what the flow of history was, and give you a forest view of the whole thing. Seriously, 100 episodes! And since then, we have gotten to know the Anglo Saxons and their culture really well. Even though our sources are limited, we still are getting a sense for what makes them tick. And we are also learning about the events were occurring in their political lives that shaped their home lives. Support the Show

This is a recap of the last approximately two years of episodes and history! For Part One (covering the first year of the show) check out "Episode 42 - Wait... Where Are We?" Here's a direct link: http://thebritishhistorypodcast.com/?p=312 Since we did the last recap, a ton of stuff has happened and we've really gotten to know these people rather well. But with all the crazy events and uncertain sources, I'm guessing you've lost a bit of your sense of place and time in the story. So today we're going to fix that!

116 – Wait, Where Are We? Part two of the history of Britain so far.

Edwin, Osric, Eanfrith, Eadfrith, Cadwallon, Sigeberht, Ecgric… Following Hatfield Chase, we have seen a blood letting of the aristocracy of Anglo Saxon Britain of epic proportions. And we are only hearing about the very highest echelons… but how many Thegns, AEthlings, and minor nobles have also lost their lives in these power struggles? If the life of Edwin is indicative of how these power struggles tended to go, it wouldn’t have just been the Kings and their warbands who died in the struggle. Their entire dynasty could find themselves in danger if a victor was feeling particularly ruthless. And that seems to have been rather common since even Oswald, who is portrayed as Saintly by Bede, was a bit ruthless and dangerous to rival dynasties, if we read between the lines. And throughout all of this, a change was occurring… not only did you have men calling themselves Kings, but you had Kings who were, themselves, the sons of Kings. So there’s a shift in how society is being structured. And actually, we can even see in the use of words… See the thing is that King is derived from an Anglo Saxon term… Cyning. And as you might remember, “ing” basically means scion of, or child of. So for example, AEtheling… with AEthel (meaning noble) and Ing (meaning son of)... means the son of the noble line, right? With that in mind we can see that Cyning means the Son of the Kin… Kin meaning the family or the People, basically. As a result, Cyning is a pretty fascinating term, and it can be looked at a couple of ways, either the heir to the dynastic line if you use Kin in a very restrictive way… but another translation would be the son of the people… the son of all of us.

Edwin, Osric, Eanfrith, Eadfrith, Cadwallon, Sigeberht, Ecgric… Following Hatfield Chase, we have seen a blood letting of the aristocracy of Anglo Saxon Britain of epic proportions. And we are only hearing about the very highest echelons… but how many Thegns, AEthlings, and minor nobles have also lost their lives in these power struggles? If the life of Edwin is indicative of how these power struggles tended to go, it wouldn’t have just been the Kings and their warbands who died in the struggle. Their entire dynasty could find themselves in danger if a victor was feeling particularly ruthless. And that seems to have been rather common since even Oswald, who is portrayed as Saintly by Bede, was a bit ruthless and dangerous to rival dynasties, if we read between the lines. Support the Show

115 – Maserfield: Blood Makes The Grass Grow

Alright, so things have gotten pretty exciting. We’ve had the downfall of Cadwallon of Gwynedd and the rise of Oswald of Northumbria and the return of Christianity to the North as well as the spread of it throughout the south with only a few holdouts, like Mercia and the Isle of Wight staying Pagan. This is an enormous time of change. And as you might imagine, those changes were getting mixed reactions. For example, the death of Cadwallon by Oswald pleased the people of Northumbria so much that the area where Oswald erected the cross before the Battle of Heavenfield became a holy site that was known for miracles, and splinters from the cross were said to heal men and livestock. There was even a church erected at the spot believed to be where the cross was placed. So yeah, that battle was a big deal for Northumbria, and also it should give you an indication of how brutal Cadwallon might have been. Because the people really did go nuts for the guy who took him down. And while all of Northumbria seems to have been pretty excited about this event, my guess is that there must have been even bigger celebrations in Bernicia. Because, after nearly two decades of Deiran domination, now Bernicia was back on top and was ruling over Deira. The center of power was moving back to north Bamburgh (a fort that was named after Oswald’s step-mother, actually) and just as importantly... power was moving away from York. And this must have been a big relief for the Bernicians, and a moment of concern for the Deirans. Don’t forget that while we refer to these kingdoms collectively as Northumbria… and overtime they WILL be permanently connected… they had only been ruled over by a single ruler for a few decades, so they had a long history of being separate kingdoms, with (probably) their own distinct cultural differences and they probably also saw themselves as different peoples. But yeah, Bernicia and the House of Ida was back on top. And so was Christianity.

This is going to be one of those episodes that has a lot of moving parts and you might want to listen to it twice. Just a heads up. Alright, so things have gotten pretty exciting. We’ve had the downfall of Cadwallon of Gwynedd and the rise of Oswald of Northumbria and the return of Christianity to the North as well as the spread of it throughout the south with only a few holdouts, like Mercia and the Isle of Wight staying Pagan. This is an enormous time of change. And as you might imagine, those changes were getting mixed reactions. Support the Show