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FROM ENGLISH CHRONICLERS 43
defiles of inaccessible mountains, and was killed along with
l
the chief part of the troops which he had brought with him ;
in the fortieth year of his life, and the fifteenth of his reign,
on the thirteenth day 2 before the Kalends of June.
And indeed, as I have said, his friends protested against
his entering upon this war ; but since in the previous year
he had refused to hear the most reverend father Egbert and
refrain from attacking Scotland [Ireland], a country which did
of his sin not
him no harm, it was given to him in punishment
to hear those who wished to call him back from destruction.
And from this time the hope and valour of the kingdom
of the Angles began to " ebb, recede and sink." 3 For both
the Picts and the Scots who were in Britain recovered the
4
of the
land of their possession which the Angles held ;
was lost, while he was at Carlisle with queen Eormenburg
; Bede, V.S.C.,
XXVII, E.H.S. ed., ii, 101-104 ; Anon. Life of St. C., 37, ibid., 279. A year
before, Cuthbert had prophesied the death of Egfrid and the succession of
Aldfrid ; V.S.C., XXIV, u.s., 96-98 ; Anon. Life, 28, u.s., 274-275. Neither
of these events therefore appeared probable in 684. Aldfrid " was then in
exile among the islands of the Scots for the study of letters," V.S.C., u.s.,
"
he was then in the island which they call lona," Anon. Life, u.s., 274.
97 ;
He was a pupil (Three Frag, of Ir. Ann., Ill) and a friend (Reeve's Adamnan,
185) of Adamnan. But " for no short time he had applied himself to reading
in the districts of the Scots, suffering voluntary exile for the love of wisdom,"
V.S.C., u.s., 98 : cf. Metr. Life, XXI, ibid., 25 and had been in Ireland ; also,
W. of M., G.R., i, 57.
He wrote poems in Gaelic ; cf . Plummer, Bede, ii, 263. His mother,
Fina, was an Irish princess ; cf. Reeve's Adamnan, 185 ; Ann. of Innisf.,
s.a. 694 : while his father was apparently the great-grand-uncle of Brude
mac Bili, the reigning Pictish king, who was the son of the daughter of Talorg
mac Anfrith.
The campaigns first in Ireland, then in Pictland, might suggest that
Egfrid suspected a conspiracy to put Aldfrid in his place ; and the sug-
gestion is not contradicted by the result.
1 A.S.C.,MS. E, s.a. 685 :
" . . . and in the same year on the thirteenth
before the Kalends of June king Egfrid was slain, to the north of the sea [i.e. of
Forth], and a great army with him."
"
a few escaped by flight and reported it at home."
W. of M., G.R., i, 57 :
"
S. of D., i, 32 : But . . . king Egfrid was killed, with the chief part of
the forces which he had led with him to harry the land of the Picts, ... at
Nechtansmere, which is the swamp of Nechtan . . . and his ;
body was buried
in lona, Columba's island." Stagnum Nechtani is located in Dunnichen
Moss (pronounced Dun-nechan,) near Forfar.
2
20th May. So A.S.C., MS. E ; Ann. of Lind., in M.G.H., SS., xix, 504 ;
S. of D., i, 32.
This was a Saturday ; Ann. of Ulst., s.a. 685. Tigh., s.a. 686.
3
Vergil, ^Eneid, II, 169.
4 "
For the Picts recovered their land, part of which the Angles held " ;
H. of H., 106.
John of Tynemouth, in Raine's York, i, 503, understands this as fol-
"
lows : For then the Angles of that province were driven out and slain ;
and the part of the kingdom of the Bernicians from the Scottish sea to the
Tweed, till then subject to the kings of the Northumbrians, was altogether
taken from them. And not even to our day has it been possible to bring it