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WITHDRAWAL
OF THE ROMANS — PREHISTORIC REMAINS IN THE BORDER COUNTIES : CAVES, CAMPS,
PREHISTORIC TOWN ON EILDON, BROCH AT TORWOODLEE, THE CATRAIL, STAND!NG-STONES,
CUP-MARKINGS, CISTS, MISCELLANEOUS FINDS — LEGENDARY OR SEMI - LEGENDARY
CHARACTERS: KING ARTHUR, MERLIN—IDA—THE KINGDOM OF BERNICIA—THE KINGDOM OF
NORTHUMBRIA—BATTLE OF DEGSASTANE.
From the
fragmentary reports which have reached us of the events of the succeeding
years, three things are plainly apparent : the demoralisation of the central
power, the enervation of the Romanised Briton, and the increasing
uncontrollableness of the unsubdued natives to the north of Antonine’s Wall.
As the Empire hastened faster and faster towards disintegration, so these
natives grew more and more audacious, until we even hear of a predatory
inroad made by them upon London itself, already at that time a flourishing
city. The repressive measures of Theodosius the Elder, father of the emperor
of that name, restored for a time the province of Valentia. But it was not
for long. The world was now in a turmoil, the end of the old order was
already in sight, and in the first ten or twelve years of the fifth century
the very connection of Rome with what are now the Border counties may be
said to have been formally and finally terminated by the Emperor Honorius’s
withdrawal of his troops from Britain, and his recommendation to the
colonists to seek the protection of the more settled country lying to the
south of the southern wall. Thus Valentia by that name disappears from
history.
It has
already been said that this period of our local history is swallowed up in
night. True it is that certain monuments, or memorials, frequently assigned
to it, remain, and that in the Border counties these are numerous. But they
remain for the most part only to confront us with insoluble enigmas, and to
provoke unavailing conjecture. For whether they do indeed belong to the
period which we have now reached, and not to some more remote, pre-Roman
period; whether they present the native handiwork of those Caledonians who
faced the Roman arms, or of some earlier pre-Celtic people of whom no record
is preserved,—it is alike impossible to say. In these circumstances, all
that can be done is to supply the reader with a brief descriptive catalogue
of such local remains—the briefer in that a separate volume of the present
series has been set apart to deal generally and exclusively with the like.
Possibly
the most ancient among such puzzling works of antiquity are the artificial
caves which may be seen cut in the old red sandstone of the banks of Teviot
and of four of her tributaries—namely, the Ale, the Jed, the Kale, and the
Oxnam. That they are indeed artificial is established beyond a doubt, whilst
the ruinous condition of by far the greater number of them, caused by the
natural processes of weathering and denudation, seems to speak to an origin
exceedingly remote. Upon careful examination1 they have been
found to conform to a general type. Thus most of them are approximately at
right angles to the present face of the cliff; whilst their floor-levels
invariably follow the surface of the rock-beds, which here are very nearly
horizontal. With a single exception, the longer axis of all the caves is a
straight line; their height — of an average of 7 feet — varies only to a
trifling extent, and the angles formed by the junction of floor and sides
are slightly rounded. The length of the most perfect floor is 27 feet. The
roofs incline to the barrel-shape, and there is reason to believe that in
the original plan the entrance was by a low and narrow passage, from which
the caves afterwards bulged out, each having thus somewhat the shape of a
bottle with a short neck. At Grahamslaw, on the Kale, the caves are placed
in two tiers, the one above the other, and it is thought that the upper tier
was entered from above. Besides that no known geological cause would account
for the existence of these caves, their human origin is proved by the fact
that their walls and roofs show marks of an excavating tool, though one
unknown to modern use.
The caves
at Crailing were discovered only some thirty years ago, their mouths being
up to that period concealed by the brushwood by which the cliff is
overgrown, and on this ground it has been suggested that other caves of the
same type may exist unknown in the neighbourhood. In Crailing House are
preserved various bones of animals, and fragments of charcoal and glass,
besides portions of a spur, a comb, and a tobacco-pipe, found in the caves
at the time of their discovery. Some of these articles of course prove a
comparatively recent occupation, and it is therefore thought that the
ancient caves may have been brought into use again as refuges and
hiding-places by persecuted Covenanters and smugglers.
The
prehistoric forts, or “British camps,” of the Border country, as they are
less peculiar to the district, although very numerous there, need not be
considered in detail. They are found distributed over the three counties
under consideration, though a large area of Selkirkshire, comprising the
upper and middle valleys of Ettrick and Yarrow, is without them. Dr
Christison supplies a list of seventy-six of such camps in Peeblesshire
alone, and has also made a careful study of many others in the counties of
Selkirk and Roxburgh. Of the former we learn that the great majority are
found in elevated situations, not, indeed, upon the higher ridges or
table-lands, but on the “terminal spurs”
of the above, or on isolated hills. A few are also found situated on gentle
slopes, or at the bottom of valleys. Their situations are generally chosen
so as to command an extensive view; and as each fort is, generally speaking,
within sight of others, it is thought that intelligence may have been
signalled between them. As regards form, the circumvallations are almost
invariably curvilinear, tending, when uncontrolled by the nature of the
ground, to the circle or ellipse—one of the few exceptions to this rule
being noticeable in a single side of the fort at Mill Rings. Our authority
inclines to believe that at least two-thirds of the forts were originally
constructed mainly, if not wholly, of stone, and he cites examples of stone
chevaux-de-frise
which may be seen at West Cademuir and at Dreva. The earthen construction,
on the other hand, is met with at Harehope Rings and Harehope Fort, and a
mixed architecture at Milkiston. In very few instances is the inner
enclosure less than 150 yards in circumference, whilst in several cases it
exceeds 400 yards. The arrangement and details of the defence-works are
different in almost every case—comprising concentric circumvallations placed
close together, as at Harehope Rings and Northshield; the same with wide
intervening spaces, as at Blythbank Hill and Milkiston; ramparts intended to
serve merely as a parapet, as at Harehope Fort; ramparts widened and
levelled at the top, so as to afford standing room for the defenders, as at
Northshield and Blyth Hill and many other varieties. Chambers inclined to
divide the forts of his county into two classes, assigning to the period of
the Roman invasion the smaller and more simply constructed class, and the
larger and more complex varieties to the period when the natives might be
supposed to have profited by observing the methods of the conquering race.
He further notes that the situations of forts of the latter type —such as
Northshield Rings and Milkiston on Eddleston, and Whiteside and Henderland
on Lyne—are chosen as if with a view to defending the passes into the
interior of the mountain district from enemies on the west and east, perhaps
Scoto-Irish in the first instance and Angle or Frisian in the second. On the
other hand, a secondary’ system, consisting of forts of the smaller type,
among which may be specified Cademuir and Janet’s Brae, follow the line of
Tweed, and seem to have been destined for defence against enemies from
another quarter. Plausible, however, as this theory may be, it can scarcely
be accepted as established.
Of the
remaining forts, it may suffice to say that they are most frequently found
near the smaller streams, being particularly numerous on those which run
from the Cheviots to the Teviot, and on the head-waters of that river. But
though near the streams, the forts are generally placed at a considerable
height above them. Including those on Teviot itself, they number fully a
hundred, whilst on the northern slopes of the Cheviots, at the head of
Bowmont, are thirteen more. On Ettrick and Yarrow, on the other hand, there
are but nine, all, as has been said, upon the lower waters of these rivers.
Out of so large a total of camps it is only possible to particularise a few
which present special features. Thus the small one at Muirhouselaw, of which
three sides remain, is rectilinear, and exhibits a scarp sloping at various
inclinations.1 At Oakwood Mill there is another rectangular work.
The fort at Kirkton was probably of stone, whilst in the large and elaborate
works at Rink Hill the use of stone is also very apparent. Here the
fortifications consist of a main defence, which was probably formed by a
mound of earth and stones, with a stone wall on the top, protected by a
trench and an outer rampart. The single entrance was skilfully defended, and
there are also traces of external works. 1'he fort at Ringley Hal! on the
Tweed, a little below Rutherford, is of the type which rests on the
unfortified edge of a steep descent to a river as a base, and has a triple,
semi-oval, terraced fortification on the landward side. This terrace-work
serves to ally it to the “ motes,” or fortresses defended by palisades, of
which the best-known local example is the flat-topped mound which forms, so
to speak, the citadel of the town of Hawick. It has been erroneously
described as a sepulchral tumulus,3 but I believe that there is
no known instance in Scotland of a similar heap of earth having been thrown
up, in prehistoric times, for burial purposes.
But the
most important of all these fortresses, and indeed the largest known example
of its kind in Scotland, is that which, from the crown of the easternmost
Eildon, dominates the pass, by the river Tweed, from the open country of the
Borders to the hill district of central Scotland. And that the importance of
the position was recognised by the natives is proved by the existence of
this fortress, or fortified town, no less than the existence of the Roman
remains at Newstead shows it to have been recognised by the Romans, with
whose great north road noticed above the pass communicates. The system of
defence adopted in the stronghold is thought to have been by palisades,
crowning the three terraces which form a circle round the summit of the
hill, and whose circumference extends to nearly a mile. Within the enclosure
thus formed rises a high plateau of ground, on which are noticeable a large
number of horseshoe - shaped marks or hollows, held by antiquarians to
indicate the site of huts constructed of perishable material. And in
confirmation of this theory it may be stated that digging within the circles
has brought to light charcoal, clay, and a fragment of coarse pottery’ of
the kind known as early British. It is also noticeable that the old town was
self-contained to the extent of possessing its own water-springs.
The
single example of a “broch” known to exist in our three counties must not be
passed over in silence. At Torwoodlee, on the north-eastern confines of
Selkirkshire, on a commanding situation about 300 feet above the river Gala,
were recently discovered the remains of a circular building of this class,2
of which the total diameter measured some 75 feet, and that of the enclosed
court 40. The enclosing wall will thus be seen to have been of an average
thickness of 17 feet 6 inches. The entrance passage, placed on the east
side, bears traces of arrangements for a door, whilst at right angles to it
is a second small passage, communicating with a guard room, contrived within
the thickness of the wall. A second chamber, on the south-west side,
similarly contrived, but following the curve of the wall, contains remains
of a staircase for communication with the upper galleries of the tower. The
wall appears to have been faced with large boulders and lined with smaller
stones, the interval being filled with loose rubble; and it is remarked that
the entrance is placed at the lowest point of the slope on which the
building rests, so that it may serve to draw off moisture from within. The
broch itself stands in a large enclosure formed by mounds and a ditch, and
the whole is further strengthened by a secondary in-trenchment at some
distance, of which, however, but a portion remains. The articles found in
the interior differ in a striking manner from those found in similar
buildings in the north—the fragments of pottery belonging to an advanced
stage of civilisation, and being undoubtedjy of Roman make, whence it is
suggested that they may have been introduced from the Roman station at
Newstead, some six miles off. Articles of native manufacture found beside
them belong to the late Celtic period. It thus appears that the broch, a
building of Celtic origin, was in use at a time when Roman civilisation
still existed in the country. To the inhabitants of the locality the works
are now known as Torwoodlee Rings, or Eye Castle.
Connected
with the fortifications at Torwoodlee, which are held to form its
starting-point or extremity, is the mysterious earthwork called the Catrail,
or Picts’ Work Dyke, than which perhaps few monuments of antiquity have more
exercised or perplexed the antiquarian. The work consists of a double mound
with intervening trench; and though often broken or effaced—for the forces
of order and disorder, the strife of the natural elements, and the labour of
the hand of man, have conspired against it—it continually reappears, so that
its course has been traced for a distance of no less than forty-eight miles,
when, by a winding and circuitous route through the counties of Selkirk and
Roxburgh, it reaches Peel Fell in the Cheviots, on the borders of
Northumberland. According to the late Professor Veitch, who made a careful
examination of the ground, the breadth of the work in its broader parts,
taking from the centre of one rampart to the centre of the other, measures
from 23 feet 6 inches to 18 feet 6 inches, whilst the breadth of the ditch
is 6 feet, and the slope from the centre of the rampart to the centre of the
ditch-bottom 10 feet. Professor Veitch, collated with Mr Craig - Brown and
Mr Smail,2 gives the following as the line of its course. Passing
north-westward from the slope of Peel Fell, where intrenchments may be seen
resembling in character those at its northern extremity, it intersects the
Wheel Causey, and crossing the Caddron and Dawston burns, proceeds up the
left bank of Cliffhope burn, where, after being very plainly marked at “ The
Abbey,” it disappears for a long way. During part of this distance it is
thought that it may have been transformed into the Galloway Road, an old
road by which coal used to be transported on galloways from the English pits
to Hawick. Reappearing near the head waters of Slitrig, it crosses Leap,
Harwood, and Langside burns, passing the foot of Maiden’s Paps, and climbs
Pike Fell, a hill 1500 feet high, being at this, its most plainly marked
point, so distinct as to be visible six or eight miles off. Where it has
been levelled, it is said to be generally traceable by a difference in the
shade of its vegetation, bents being lighter in colour on its track and
grass greener, whilst snow is also found to lie there longer unmelted.
Descending Pike Fell, it runs on with occasional breaks, crossing Allan
Water and Teviot, winding up Com-monside Hill, and passing to the east of
Broadlee Loch by Hoscote burn into the valley of the Rankle burn! Hence it
takes an almost due northerly direction as far as Nether Deloraine, and
again as far as Yarrow Church, whence, curving to the eastward, it touches
and is intersected by an intrenchment occupied by Wallace in 1296, and
called by his name. Thence, inclining southward, it passes to the south of
the Three Brethren and of Linglee Hill, where it turns again and runs north
by east to the fortifications on Ri ik Hill. From this point it has been
much defaced, yet it is on record that within living memory a blind man with
the aid of his staff might have followed it from here to Mossilee, from
which point it winds home to Torwoodlee.
A work so
remarkable for its extent, and still more for the obscurity of its purpose,
has naturally not escaped the attention of antiquarians. It has, in fact,
given rise to a world of speculation, and to theories of which the number is
apparently not yet exhausted, and of which the most plausible are those
which have in turn pronounced it a road, a boundary, and a work of defence.
Of these the first may probably be rejected without hesitation. For not only
must the Catrail have been at all times ill adapted fur traffic, but it is
evident also to such as have followed its course that it makes no attempt to
avail itself of fords or to steer clear of precipices, being continued to
the verge of these, as to that of impracticable places on rivers, and
resumed with apparent indifference upon the other side—objections to the
road conjecture which appear unanswerable. Again, against the theory of its
use as a boundary pure and simple there is urged the arbitrary character of
its course, which runs across country in apparent defiance of all such
natural aids to a line of demarcation as the course of rivers and the ridges
of hills. If a boundary at all, thinks Professor Veitch, it was a military
one. He thence assumes it to have been strengthened by palisades, after the
manner in use at the time; and despite the obvious difficulty of defending a
line of such extent, this theory certainly seems to derive great support
from the fact that the Catrail is found to rest against a succession of
fortified works, of which those at Rink Hill, Raelees, Swinebraehill, and
Teindside burn are quoted as examples. These forts are placed, as a rule,
near the summits of hills, whilst the line of the defensive work runs along
“mid - brae,” and on the eastern face of the hills. And this last fact has
led Professor Veitch to assign its authorship to the period following the
evacuation of the country by the Roman legions, when the Cymri, or Britons,
pressed upon by the inroads of the Angles on the east, had withdrawn into
their western fastnesses, and there, as we must suppose, intrenched
themselves. In confirmation of which theory the same authority also fancies
that he sees in the Catrail an imperfect copy, by a feebler hand, of the
earthworks attached to the great southern wall of Hadrian. This attempt to
solve a mystery, which time may almost be said to have consecrated as a
mystery, has at least the merits of clearness and plausibility to recommend
it. At the same time, it must not be held to have finally disposed of the
difficulties of the subject, which as a field for investigation and
speculation continues up to the present still unclosed. It only remains to
add that the name Catrail does not help us much towards the elucidation of
the thing to which it is applied ; for though the search for its meaning has
evoked much erudition, in the very wealth of various conjecture there lurk
the seeds of mistrust. Suffice it, then, to say that Professor Veitch finds
the nearest approach to the word in the Cornish
cad,
signifying “battle,” and
treyk,
“to turn”;
whence Catrail, “a battle-turning,” “a defence.” Another investigator has
observed that by those who have lived in the vicinity of the work, and who
may therefore be supposed to follow the ancient custom in the matter of
pronunciation, the word is invariably spoken with the accent on the second
syllable.
Among
other prehistoric remains, or remains reputed as such, in the Border
counties, besides the eirde-house at Newstead already noticed, it is
sufficient merely to enumerate, for example, Standing-Stones—such as the
small circle on Hownam Steeple known as the Shearers and the Bandster, to
which, by the way, popular imagination has attached a legend of judgment
against Sabbath-breakers; or the single upright stone at Midsbiels on the
Teviot; or those on Sheriff Muir in Peeblesshire, which Chambers thinks may
have been placed as monuments over the graves of native heroes; or those,
again, on a moor near Yarrow Kirk, where in the end of the eighteenth
century some twenty cairns were supposed to mark the resting-places of those
who had fallen in a battle, the graves of the leaders on either side being
marked by standing-stones. In Peeblesshire, again, on a flat stone lying on
the slope of the fort at Lour, are two “cups,” measuring
2½
inches in diameter and an inch in depth, and exhibiting
perfect symmetry in their form and position on the stone: they have been
thought to be genuine examples of “rock-markings.” As for cists, as lately
as the spring of 1885 one which contained human bones was turned up in
ploughing at Mosstower, near Eckford; whilst later in the same year a field
called the Manse-hill in the same neighbourhood yielded two more.
This
brings us to the department of “finds,” and here also — as is evidenced by
the finding of two cinerary urns at Chesters on the Teviot no longer ago
than in 1897, and of another on the northern slope of the Dunian Hill in
1885— the antiquarian may be encouraged to hope for many further
discoveries. These urns, which contain the remains of charred bones, are
ornamented with no little art, and are of a height of 12 or 13 inches, with
wide mouths upon which they stand, supported by a slab or saucer. Besides
other specimens of the above, the local museums show the usual collections
of implements, weapons, and ornaments of the Stone and Bronze Ages, in
addition to which there may be specified, as of particular interest, two
bronze shields dug up at Yetholm, and some gold ornaments from Peebles or
its neighbourhood, which are preserved in the Museum of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland.
It is to
the period to which we have assigned the Catrail that the first among the
legendary, or semi-legendary, heroes of the Border country belongs; whilst
it is primarily to the labours of a recent investigator, Mr Stuart Glennie,
that that country owes it that she may now formally put forth the claim,
heretofore advanced only in a tentative manner, to be the scene of some of
King Arthur’s exploits. At the same time it must not be forgotten that,
large as is the place filled by that hero in romance, his mere existence as
a historical character may be said to rest upon the exiguous evidence of a
passage in the history of Nennius, in which that author, writing probably in
the eighth century, deals with events supposed to have happened early in the
sixth. The reader may recall the story which tells how, in the period of
terror succeeding the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the British king,
desiring aid against the Piets and Scots of the north and west, had given
the Jute, Hengist, a footing in his kingdom (449). Yortigern, who in the
pages of Nennius figures as a type of British demoralisation, had soon cause
to repent of his bargain. The followers of Hengist, barbarians wholly
untouched either by Roman civilisation or the softening influence of
Christianity, quickly multiplied in the land, and it was in the long wars
arising out of their immigration, and that of other Teutonic tribes which
followed them, that first Ambrosius Aurelianus and then Arthur came to the
front. Ambrosius claimed descent from the last Roman Emperor of Britain. The
birth of Arthur, which must be dated somewhere in the latter part of the
fifth century, was less distinguished; for we are informed that it was to
merit, not to blood, that he owed his advancement. Of course it would be
easy to invest with interest a hero in whose honour the treasures of
romantic imagination have been so lavishly expended, but we must
Arthurian place-names, and upon the results of Mr
Skene’s critical studies of the ancient Welsh writings. But the validity of
these conclusions remains for the present an open question.
Fordun’s
account is somewhat different. He makes out Arthur to be, so to speak, of
the blond royal, though not direct heir to the crown (Chronicle of the
Scottish Nation, book iii. chap, 25), take leave
to remind the reader that it is solely with Arthur's local connection and
historical character that we are here concerned. Twelve times, then, as we
read, was he chosen commander, and in as many battles was he victorious. Of
these battles, though they are most of them supposed by our authority to
have been fought in the south of Scotland, it happens that the scenes of at
most two are identified as within what we here call the Border counties. The
first is the battle of Coit Celidon, or the Wood of Celidon, identified by
Mr Glennie with the district of which Ettrick Forest formed a part. It is in
the next battle after this—namely, that of Castle Guinnion in Wedale (or the
Vale of Gala) — that Arthur appears in the character of the champion of the
Christian faith, bearing the image of the Holy Virgin on his shoulders,
putting the heathen to flight, and pursuing them with great slaughter all
day long.1 After four more battles, peace with the enemy was
established, and Gildas, the supposed contemporary historian — whose
ignoring of Arthur in his history of these times is one of the greatest
difficulties in the way of our accepting that hero as other than a mythical
character—at least bears out Nennius in so far as to state that, after the
last of these battles, which he mentions by name, a long peace between
Britons and Angles supervened. Nevertheless, war broke out again in another
direction. How Modred, Arthur’s nephew, whom, according to Fordun, he had
blamelessly supplanted on the throne, now avenged himself by perverting the
queen and raising a rebellion—this is familiar to all lovers of romance. In
a battle fought against the rebels, Arthur fell, but not as meaner warriors
fall; for legend tells that, in a vault beneath the Eildon Hills, he still
awaits in an enchanted sleep, surrounded by his knighthood, the bugle-blast
which some day shall arouse him to live and act once more.
Indissolubly associated with Arthur in the popular imagination, though in
reality belonging to a somewhat later period (he flourished about 570), is
Merlin, the poet and prophet of the old British kingdom. The tradition which
connects his name with the Borders may be stated in few words. At this time
there still lingered, side by side with Christianity, in the northern parts
of the kingdom, the old religion of the country, and hence, the
representatives of two royal houses having come forward as respective
champions of the rival faiths, a civil war arose. In this contest Merlin,
who espoused the cause of paganism, found himself confronted with St
Kentigern. A battle was fought, which has been localised at Arthuret, near
Carlisle, where Merlin’s leader was routed and slain. Grief deprived the
poet of his reason, and he fled across the wilds of Liddesdale to Ettrick
Forest, and there wandered distraught. There his few remaining companions
perished, and finally he himself was attacked by the shepherds of Meldred, a
neighbouring chieftain, and stoned to death, his body, impaled upon a stake,
being cast into the Tweed. It was afterwards buried at Drummelzier, in
Tweeddale, where his traditional grave, a large green mound over which grows
an aged thorn, is still pointed out. His character has been thought to
represent the old British type of the poetical or intellectual temperament
in conflict with a rude age. After his death, the Britons, gradually ousted
from their northern possessions, sought a last refuge in Wales, where the
traditions which they carried with them are supposed to have adapted
themselves to their new local surroundings.
We now
turn to the eastern division of the Border-land, and it is important that
the line of cleavage which at this time divided that country be clearly
borne in mind. As a part of the country lying between the two Roman Walls,
what we now call the Border counties had already figured in a kind of
No-Man’s-Land—now formally included within the pale of the Roman influence,
and again abandoned to its fate; and they were destined still to split into
various fragments, and to form part of various dominions, before becoming,
so to speak, finally crystallised in their present shape as southern
counties of Scotland. While the events just described may be supposed to
have been happening, a line which we have ventured to identify with the
Catrail, running in a north-westerly direction, seems to have marked off
portions of the present shires of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles as
belonging to the kingdom of Strathclyde—the name given by the ancient
inhabitants of the country to the remnant of their former possessions which
they still held. To the east of that line the progress of the invasion from
the country which we would now call North-West Germany had been rapid. The
invasion, so far as it is known to history, had begun with the landing of
Hengist, though there is some ground for suspecting that, even before his
time, a settlement of Frisians in the valley of the Tweed had been effected.
This, however, is little more than surmise, and the details even of what we
know to have happened are meagre enough. It is certain, however, that the
great bulk of the invaders of the northern part of the country were
Angles—natives, that is, of the land lying between the Elbe and the
Eider—and that by the year 547, Ida, their chief, had succeeded in
establishing himself as King of Bernicia, a district so called from its old
British name of Bryneich, which comprised the entire eastern half of the
country between the Firth of Forth and the Tees.
Ida
vaunted his descent from Woden, God of War. From his base of operations on
the proud rock of Bebbanburh, or Bamborough, which he had fortified, we can
picture him passing by the low ground which lies between the Cheviots and
the German Ocean to push his conquests up the .rich valley of the Tweed.
Nennius enumerates his many sons; but these belong to the history of the
country at large, and have no special place in Border story. Among them
reigned Theodoric, whose title of the Flame-bearer suffices to indicate the
ruthlessness of his devastation. Ethelfrith, Ida’s grandson, added the
adjoining kingdom of Deifyr, or Deira, extending southward to the estuary of
the Humber, to his own possessions, which were thenceforth known as
Northumberland. vEthelfrith had inherited the warlike traditions of his
race; for it is to him that Bede applies the terrible words of Scripture,
“Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey,
and at night he shall divide the spoil.’’ Against him came forth to battle
Aidan, the British king of Strathclyde. He had called to his assistance the
Scots, who had now established themselves to the north of his kingdom, and
the united force, advancing up the valley of the Liddel, met that of
Ethelfrith at Degsastane, or Dawstane, in the hill district of southern
Roxburghshire. Hitherto the fortune of the war had fluctuated, but
Degsastane annihilated what hopes remained to the North Britons of regaining
their lost dominions. The rout was complete, Aidan’s army being cut to
pieces. In the opposing rank fell Theobald, |
