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A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

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A History of Britain Before 1066: Volume 2--The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: 410 A.D.-802 A.D.

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A History of Britain Before 1066: Volume 2--The Anglo-Saxon Invasion: 410 A.D.-802 A.D.
Leonaur Original
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Author(s): Charles Oman
Date Published: 2021/05
Page Count: 196
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-965-2
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-964-5

The second volume of Oman's trilogy

Professor Charles Oman's exemplary credentials as an historian require no elaboration. His substantial volume of the history of Britain, embracing over 1,000 years of history and culminating in the Norman Invasion of 1066, is a masterful, authoritative work on the subject. Mindful of the specialised interests of readers and students of history, Leonaur has divided that work into three separate books, each one of which concentrates on a principal troubled period in detail: The Roman Invasion, The Anglo-Saxon Invasion and The Danish Wars. The second volume commences with an account of the invasion of 410 A.D. before describing the settlements of the conquerors and their first wars. In 577 A.D. another advance began bringing about the fall of Ceawlin at the Battle of Deorham and Aethelfrith's victories at Dawston and Chester. Oman then discusses the power balances between Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex prior to the domination of Mercia in the 8th century.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

Some have seen in this ceremonial a claim of Edwin to take up the old Roman dignity of the dux Britanniarum, or even of the emperor himself, which might be claimed, without too much presumption, by a monarch whose suzerainty was owned over every foot of land which had once formed part of the old province of Britain.
But Edwin’s greatness was to have a disastrous end. Cadwallon of Gwynedd returned from Ireland and raised rebellion against him. He was joined by Penda of Mercia, the greatest of the English vassal kings, and one who was a staunch adherent of paganism. This prince was a man of marked character; he had succeeded to the Mercian throne at a very advanced age—he was fifty, we are told—in the year 626, but had from the first shown himself able, ruthless and ambitious. He had no scruple in joining with the Welsh, the old enemies of his nation, and in their company advanced towards York.
Edwin, apparently cut off from the succours of his other subject allies, gave him battle at Heathfield (Hatfield, near Doncaster), but was utterly defeated and killed, along with his eldest son Osfrid (Oct. 12th, 633). All his army was slain or scattered, the city of York fell into the hands of the victors, and for many weeks the whole of Deira was cruelly devastated. The Christian Cadwallon, we are told, showed himself a more pitiless enemy than the heathen Penda He aimed at nothing less than exterminating the whole nation of the Northumbrians, and his Welshmen spared neither women nor children, and took no captives. Indeed, he intended to make the whole land Celtic soil once more, and cared nothing that the tribe whom he was trying to extirpate were Christians.
Aethelberga, the wife of Edwin, fled to her native Kent, accompanied by his infant family and Archbishop Paulinus. Their two sons died young, but Edwin’s daughter Eanflaed survived to wed his worthy successor, Oswiu. The Deirans rallied for a moment under Osric, the cousin of Edwin, and his nearest adult male relative; but the Bernicians called back from exile Eanfrid, the eldest son of Aethelfrith, and the representative of the house of Ida, which Edwin had driven out. Both Osric and Eanfrid reverted to paganism, though the one had conformed during his cousin’s reign, and the other had been baptised by the Irish monks of Iona during his exile. Apparently, they judged that the conversion of Edwin had brought him ill luck, and that the Northumbrians would fight better against the Christian Cadwallon in the name of their old faith.
Indeed, the conduct of the Welsh king had estranged many new converts and led to a widespread reversion to paganism. Hardly one of Paulinus’s missionaries had remained behind, when their leader fled, and Christianity seemed almost extinguished in the land. (Bede only mentions one, James the Deacon, of whom he has much to tell.) But the days of the two apostate kings were few and evil. Osric, at the head of his Deirans, beset Cadwallon as he lay encamped at York; but he was slain in a sally of the Welsh after a reign of only six months. Eanfrid that same autumn (634), after being defeated in battle, came with twelve of his thegns to offer homage to the conqueror, but Cadwallon refused to grant him grace, and ordered him to be beheaded.
The Bernicians, thereupon, saluted Oswald, the next brother of Eanfrid, as their king. This prince, unlike his predecessor, was a devout and zealous Christian; he rallied his countrymen for one more battle, and set up as his standard a great wooden cross, under which, on the banks of the Deniseburn, near Hexham, he gave battle to Cadwallon.