User:Simoncursitor/Northumbrian wars

Northumbria was one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of pre-Conquest England.

Its first unified king was Athelfrith of Bernicia, who conquered Deira around 604CE. He was killed in battle around 616 by Raedwald of East Anglia, who installed Edwin, son of a former Deiran king, as Northumbrian king.

It is rumoured that Raedwald was opposed, among others, by forces from the Northern Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd: certainly Edwin was to attack Gwynedd in the 620s.

Edwin accepted Christianity in 627CE, and conquered the Isle of Man and the North Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd before being defeated by an alliance of Gwynedd's exiled king, Cadwallon, and Penda, king of Mercia. The two then proceeded through Northumbria, defeating two putative successors to Edwin, Osric and Eanfrith. Cadwallon sought to set himself up as the king, but in 634-5 Eanfrith's brother Oswald rose up and killed him at Heavenfield, near Hexham. Eight years later Penda, in turn, defeated and killed Oswald, but fell, in the same year, in battle to one Oswiu.