The First Kingdom

Pictish symbol stonesv have been found here, including the Crawstane – depicting a salmon riding on the back of a fantastical water beast

Kentish kings exercised their lordship in at least three locations – at Canterbury itself, where the old Roman theatre provided a suitably grand assembly place; at Lyminge, where recent excavations indicate a likely royal presence, and at Rochester, seat of one of the earliest bishoprics. Æðelberht is likely to have enjoyed royal residences in all

Mag Fortrenn was the cultural coreland of the northern Picts, whose widespread and abundant sculptures were adorned with exuberant, if enigmatic, symbols of rank, nobility, fantasy and warrior prowess.

The best-known inventory of the food renders expected from a land unit is found in the very comprehensive late seventh-century laws of King Ine of Wessex, which detail annual dues from every ten hides of land and give some idea of the range and quantity of agricultural surplus claimed by lords of their clients: Ten vats of honey, 300 loaves, 12 amb

Bernician kings of the mid-seventh century were wont to install their sons as equivalent subreguli in Deira, partly as a policy of devolved dynastic government, partly as training and partly so that they could keep an eye on potential rivals coming up on the rails.

Gregory was later to write to Æðelberht, ‘this end of the world is approaching, many things are at hand which previously have not been; to wit, changes of the air, terrors from heaven, and seasons contrary to the accustomed order of times, wars, famine, pestilences, earthquakes in various places’. Letters of Gregory the Great Book XI, Letter 66.

Dunadd’s stone-cut footprint, supposedly employed in inauguration rituals, and the incised Pictish bull carved beside it are decidedly heathen in sensibility.d

No king before, perhaps, Constantine II of Albad or Æðelstan of Wessex in the tenth century, shows any sign of attempting to conquer and unite – or even imagine – a nation entity like ‘England’ or ‘Wales’ or ‘Scotland’. Their desire was to force submission by any means necessary, in order that they might enjoy lordly rights over other kings and the

Within a year of the battle at Chester, whether or not Æðelfrið’s campaign had been directed at Edwin or at those who would shelter him, the exiled prince left, or was encouraged to leave, the protection of his British sponsors and seek sanctuary with a king whom he must have believed lay beyond Æðelfrið’s reach. Rædwald, he of the Sutton Hoo ship