The historic King Arthur, if he existed, was successful for a time in stemming the Anglo-Saxon advance across England. However, by the sixth century, the 'heptarchy' of seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was taking shape. This heptarchy has in fact been mentioned more than once this century as a possible model for a devolved modern Britain. Northumbria was one of the seven kingdoms, and, like Mercia and Wessex (the last to be formed) survives today in the names of police or health districts - and as a convenient and romantic name for the North East as a whole. Anglo-Saxon Northumbria lay between the Humber and the Forth; originally the northern part was called Bernicia (of the mountains), the southern was known as Deira (of the waters). These are British, not Saxon names.
Ethelfrith (d. AD 616), the grandson of Ida, was the real founder of Northumbrian power. He had succeded to the throne in AD 593 and gained a great victory over the Britons at Degsastand (probably Dawston in Liddesdale) in AD 603, and later conquered Deira, thus becoming king of all Northumbria. He also defeated the Britons at Chester in AD 605. In AD 617 the warlike king was slain by Edwin, the exiled heir to Deira and Redwald of East Anglia, who may be the occupant of the famous Sutton Hoo ship burial.
Edwin (AD 617-33) succeeded to the throne of Northumbria and extended the frontiers to the west of England. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Edwin conquered all Britain except Kent alone, thus becoming one of the three Northumbrian kings to bear the title of 'Bretwalda' (Lord of Britain). During his reign Northumbria was the most powerful kingdom in England. Edinburgh is derived from Edwinsburgh, though the northern capital of Northumbria was lost to the Scots in the 10th century. Edwin was baptised by Paulinus at York in AD 627, and this was succeeded by the rapid, if temporary, conversion of North East England to Christianity. The famous simile comparing human life without religious faith to the flight of a sparrow from darkness into darkness is ascribed by Bede to a nameless noble present at York. Interestingly, Bede describes King Edwin's colours as a broad lattice of red bars on gold. This is probably the oldest known flag design in Britain. The colours were adopted by the first Earl of Northumberland and are sported today on sweat shirts and cars of patriotic Northumbrians.
Near Yeavering, in Northumberland, was the site of King Edwin's palace, Ad Gefrin, where Paulinus stayed with the monarch for 36 days. There is nothing now visible of the excavations, but the place is of great archaeological interest. Some wooden walls at least were lined with fine white plaster. This palace's successor was at Maelmin near Milfield. After Edwin's death in battle against Cadwallon and his Mercian allies in AD 632, Paulinus escorted Queen Ethelburga back to her native Kent and served as Bishop of Rochester until his death in AD 644.
Oswald had won the throne in AD 633 by defeating the Welsh king Cadwallon at Heavenfield. St Oswald's Chapel, near Wall, commemorates this victory of Christian over heathen. The defeat of Edwin had broken the link with Roman Christianity in Kent: Oswald had become a Christian at Iona and, with the help of St Aidan (q.v.), he founded the bishopric at Lindisfarne and established Christianity throughout Northumbria.
After Oswald's death (AD 642) near Oswestry at the hands of the heathen Mercian king, Penda, the kingdom disintegrated and did not recover its former glory until Oswy (or Oswiu) (AD 655-70) defeated and killed the formidable Penda in AD 654. Oswy's second wife, incidentally, was St Ethelrida (c AD 630-79) abbess and founder of the religious house of Ely. Neither of her marriages were consummated. She is also known as Saint Audrey, from which we derive our word 'tawdry', denoting cheap goods bought at St Audrey's Fair. Oswy was the third and last of the Northumbrian Bretwaldas.
At the battle of Nechtansmere in Fife (AD 685), the Picts put an end to Northumbrian expansion and in doing so marked the beginning of Scottish identity. In Northumbria, under King Aldfrith (AD 685-704), arts and learning flourished. The Lindisfarne Gospels of AD 698 are surpassed in grandeur only by the Irish Book of Kells. They are one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum. An Anglo-Saxon gloss was added in the late 10th century in the Northumbrian dialect, the translation being by Aldred, provost of Chester-le-Street - the first translation of a sacred text into English.
The famous Bewcastle Cross in Cumbria refers to Alcfrith, son of Oswy. Professor Pevsner considered that this cross, and that at Ruthwell, 30 miles away in Dumfriesshire represented the greatest achievement of their date in the whole of Europe, that date being the late 7th century. Northumbria was also for a long period the chief seat of learning and missionary activity in England. Benedict Biscop, Bede, Saints Cuthbert and Wilfrid among others flourished at this time and are dealt with elsewhere. The first known Christian poets are Northumbrian and it may be that much of the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) poetry which has survived, including the great poem Beowulf, took shape at the Northumbrian court.
As has been truly said: ' A barbaric people may have great poetry - they cannot have great prose.' The nearer we come to the date of the Norman invasion, the more eloquent and distinguished are the prose records. For chronicle, sermon, biblical translation, scientific and philosophical works, the English vernacular cannot be surpassed at this time by any language in northern and western Europe.
In 1066, the Anglo-Saxons were in a position to teach the Normans everything about the arts of metal and enamel work, carving, embroidery (the Bayeux Tapestry is English work) and pre-eminently about manuscript painting: the Normans, for their part had practically nothing of a cultural nature to offer. The treasures of England in 1066 reminded the Normans of 'what they had heard of the riches of Byzantium or of the East'. The art of Northumbria was enormously influential in both Ireland and Pictland; it crossed the Channel to the monasteries founded by Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy and even Russia. Here in turn they produced illuminated manuscripts that later generations thought had been painted not by men but by angels.
After Aldfrith's reign, the political influence of Northumbria rapidly declined and with the death of Eric Bloodaxe in AD 954, the separation of Northumbria from England was ended, though it did not become really integrated until the reign of William the Conqueror.