Sublime

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

Oswald Iding ruled Northumbria for eight years, from ad 634 to 642. In that time he was recognised as overlord of almost all the other kingdoms of Britain: of Wessex, Mercia, Lindsey and East Anglia, of the Britons of Rheged, Strathclyde, Powys and Gwynedd, the Scots of Dál Riata and the Picts of the far North. A famed warrior, the ‘Whiteblade’ or

House-monasteries tentatively suggested at late Roman villas such as Frocester, Chedworth and Halstock hint at the private devotions of landed families. The density of small settlements bearing the names of very obscure saints in Cornwall and north Wales, in particular, is suggestive of the idea that élite families were expected to sponsor their ow

By the late sixth century, we know, Frankish princesses were crossing to Kent as brides for its kings. They cannot have arrived without bearing gifts, and behind their betrothals lurks the toing and froing of diplomats and traders.

Conversion brought other benefits, too – not least the legitimizing prayers and political clout of the Gallic church, itself an entrenched landed élite – while subsequent Christian Frankish kings found themselves in a position to be indulged by the far distant emperor in Byzantium, whose immense powers of patronage and political interest, even at s

In return for the promise of ‘a faire Portugal maiden’ Ala-uddin Shah connived at this move to the extent of detaining a Portuguese emissary who might have alerted his fellow countrymen.

See Higham 1995, 74ff for the argument that King Edwin of Northumbria had the list drawn up in about 627 by Bishop Paulinus in the aftermath of his war against Wessex. The perceived crime was an assassination attempt on Edwin by a Wessex ambassador in 626, vividly described by Bede in HE II.9.