Eadwulf of Northumbria - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Eadwulf was king of Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

from death of Aldfrith

Aldfrith of Northumbria

Aldfrith sometimes Aldfrid, Aldfridus , or Flann Fína mac Ossu , was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning, and some of his works, as well as letters written to him, survive...

in December 704

704

Year 704 was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 704 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Asia :* Armenia: Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik invades...

until February or March of 705

705

Year 705 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 705 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Asia :* Armenia: The Umayyad general Muhammad ibn...

, when Aldfrith's son Osred

Osred I of Northumbria

Osred was king of Northumbria from 705 until his death. He was the son of King Aldfrith of Northumbria. Aldfrith's only known wife was Cuthburg, but it is not certainly known whether Osred was her son...

was restored to the throne.

Osred was a child when his father died, and it is assumed that Eadwulf usurped the throne. Eadwulf's relationship, if any, to the ruling dynasty descendants of Ida

Ida of Bernicia

Ida is the first known king of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which he ruled from around 547 until his death in 559. Little is known of his life or reign, but he was regarded as the founder of a line from which later Anglo-Saxon kings in this part of northern England and southern Scotland...

is not known, but it is quite possible that he was indeed of royal descent as two or more other branches of the Eoppingas are found as kings of Northumbria after the extinction of the main line.

Initially Eadwulf appears to have had the support of ealdorman Berhtfrith son of Berhtred, presumed to be the lord of the north-east frontier of Bernicia, in Lothian

Lothian

Lothian forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills....

and along the Forth

River Forth

The River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...

. However, a crisis soon arose. Bishop Wilfrid

Wilfrid

Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon...

, exiled by Aldfrith, wished to return to Northumbria. Eadwulf aimed to keep the bishop an exile, but Berhtfirth appears to have supported Wilfrid's return. A short civil war, ending with a siege of Bamburgh

Bamburgh

Bamburgh is a large village and civil parish on the coast of Northumberland, England. It has a population of 454.It is notable for two reasons: the imposing Bamburgh Castle, overlooking the beach, seat of the former Kings of Northumbria, and at present owned by the Armstrong family ; and its...

, was won by Berhtfrith, Wilfrid and the supporters of Osred, and Osred was restored as child-king of Northumbria.

Eadwulf appears to have to have been exiled to either Dál Riata

Dál Riata

Dál Riata was a Gaelic overkingdom on the western coast of Scotland with some territory on the northeast coast of Ireland...

or Pictland

Picts

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

as his death is reported by the Annals of Ulster

Annals of Ulster

The Annals of Ulster are annals of medieval Ireland. The entries span the years between AD 431 to AD 1540. The entries up to AD 1489 were compiled in the late 15th century by the scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, under his patron Cathal Óg Mac Maghnusa on the island of Belle Isle on Lough Erne in the...

in 717. His son Earnwine was killed on the orders of Eadberht of Northumbria

Eadberht of Northumbria

Eadberht was king of Northumbria from 737 or 738 to 758. He was the brother of Ecgbert, Archbishop of York. His reign is seen as a return to the imperial ambitions of seventh-century Northumbria and may represent a period of economic prosperity. He faced internal opposition from rival dynasties...

in 740. Eadwulf's great-grandson Eardwulf

Eardwulf of Northumbria

Eardwulf was king of Northumbria from 796 to 806, when he was deposed and went into exile. He may have had a second reign from 808 until perhaps 811 or 830. Northumbria in the last years of the eighth century was the scene of dynastic strife between several noble families, and, in 790, the...

and Eardwulf's son Eanred

Eanred of Northumbria

Eanred was king of Northumbria in the early ninth century.Very little is known for certain about Eanred. The only reference made by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the Northumbrians in this period is the statement that in 829 Egbert of Wessex...

were later kings of Northumbria.

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