12 October in military history: the Battle of Hatfield Chase, 633

12 October 633 · 1393 years ago

King of the English and the Britons

Bede writes that Edwin ruled the English and the Britons gloriously for seventeen years, six of them as a soldier of Christ. The historian Catherine Cubitt notes how Bede praises his rule: the union of Deira and Bernicia, his authority over the southern English kingdoms and the islands of Man and Anglesey, and the peace he kept wherever that authority reached. Cubitt notes that Bede credits Edwin's conversion to Paulinus, a missionary of the Gregorian mission, and the Laud Chronicle says that Paulinus baptized him; the Historia Brittonum, she adds, says that Edwin was baptized by Rhun son of Urien, of the royal family of the British kingdom of Rheged.¹

Against him, Bede writes, rose Caedualla, king of the Britons, helped by "the vigorous Penda, of the royal race of the Mercians, who from that time governed that nation for twenty-two years with varying success", in Sellar's translation. Plummer remarks that Bede speaks of Penda "merely as Cadwallon's assistant", and that the twenty-two years count from the battle, since Penda fell in 655. Sellar's notes, Cubitt and the Historia Brittonum make Cadwallon king of Gwynedd.²

On the plain of Haethfelth

Bede's sentence is short: "et conserto graui proelio in campo, qui uocatur Haethfelth, occisus est Æduini die IIII Iduum Octobrium, anno dominicae incarnationis DCXXXIII, cum esset annorum XL et VIII; eiusque totus uel interemtus uel dispersus est exercitus": a heavy battle was joined on the plain called Haethfelth, and Edwin was killed on the fourth day before the Ides of October, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 633, aged 48, and his whole army was either slain or scattered (our translation). Plummer prints "Oct. 12, 633" in his margin and his notes, and Sellar translates "on the 12th of October". Plummer notes that the Old English version of Bede makes Edwin forty-seven.³

In the same war, Bede writes, Edwin's son Osfrid, "a warlike youth, fell before him"; another son, Eadfrid, went over to Penda under compulsion and was later killed by him in Oswald's reign, against his oath. The Welsh tradition differs. The Historia Brittonum says that Edwin's two sons fell with him "in bello Meicen", in the battle of Meicen, killed by the army of Catguollaun, king of Gwynedd; the Annales Cambriae record "Gueith Meiceren", the battle of Meiceren, where Etguin was killed "cum duobus filiis suis", with his two sons, and Catguollaun was the victor (our translation).⁴

The Laud manuscript (E) of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the fullest entry for 633: Edwin "was slain by Cadwalla and Penda at Heathfield (Hatfield chase?), on the IInd of the Ides of October (Oct. 14th)", and his son Osfrith with him, in the translation of its editor Benjamin Thorpe. The Parker manuscript (A) says only that Edwin was slain and that Paulinus returned to Kent and took the bishop's seat at Rochester.⁵

"More cruel than a pagan"

A great slaughter followed in the Northumbrian church and nation, Bede writes, "chiefly because one of the chiefs, by whom it was carried on, was a pagan, and the other a barbarian, more cruel than a pagan". Penda and all the Mercians, he says, worshipped idols, while Caedualla, though he called himself a Christian, spared neither women nor innocent children and roamed the land for a long time, "intending to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain". The Laud Chronicle says that Cadwalla and Penda "laid waste all the land of the Northumbrians".⁶

Edwin's head was brought to York, Bede writes, and later laid in the chapel of Pope Gregory in the church of St Peter, which Edwin had begun and Oswald finished. Plummer infers that Edwin's enemies had cut off the head, and notes that his body was later translated to Whitby.⁷

Flight by sea

With the kingdom in turmoil and no safety, it seemed, except in flight, Paulinus took Queen Æthelburh back to Kent by sea, Bede writes, under the escort of Bassus, "a most valiant thegn of King Edwin", with Edwin's daughter Eanfled, his son Wuscfrea and Yffi, the son of Osfrid. The Laud Chronicle also has Paulinus take Æthelburh by ship to Kent, where Archbishop Honorius and King Eadbald received him with honor and gave him the see of Rochester.⁸

Æthelburh later feared the kings Eadbald and Oswald, Bede writes, and sent Wuscfrea and Yffi to Gaul to be brought up by King Dagobert, her friend; both died there in infancy and were buried in a church "with the honour due to royal children and to Christ’s innocents". Paulinus also brought away Edwin's treasures, among them a large gold cross and a golden chalice that Bede says were still shown in the church of Canterbury.⁹

Thorpe's Chronicle records for 634 that Osric took the kingdom of Deira and Eanfrith, son of Æthelfrith, Bernicia, and that Oswald reigned nine winters, the ninth counted to him because of the heathenship of those who had ruled for one year between him and Edwin. Cubitt writes that Osric and Eanfrith, though Christians before, renounced the faith, and that both were killed by Caedwalla, who held their kingdoms for a year until Oswald defeated him. She calls Hatfield "one of the worst disasters in Northumbrian history".¹⁰

Which year, which field?

The Chronicle manuscripts also enter Edwin's death under 633. Plummer nevertheless wrote: "The real year is probably 632, as Ann. Camb. puts the battle of Hatfield in 630"; he adds that the Annals of Ulster also place it in 630 and Tigernach in 631, with a query, and that the Welsh and Irish authorities run "two to three years behind". The historian Kenneth Harrison explains that R. L. Poole's theory that Bede began his year in September would move an October death to 632, and Oswald's to 641, "a date which now seems to be generally accepted".¹¹

Harrison rejects the change: "there is no manuscript evidence in favour of emending the date." In June 634, he notes, the pope still seemed unaware of Edwin's death; "if his death was in October 632, it seems very unlikely indeed, whatever the circumstances, that the news should have taken twenty months".¹²

Plummer identifies Haethfelth, with the caution "Supposed to be", as Hatfield Chase north-east of Doncaster, and Sellar's note reads "Generally identified with Hatfield Chase, north-east of Doncaster". Plummer adds that Robert Talbot, a sixteenth-century annotator of the Chronicle, placed it in Sherwood Forest, which, he notes, may once have reached further north. The Welsh texts name the fight after Meicen or Meiceren. The Annales Cambriae enter it under their year CLXXXVI, which their editor John Williams ab Ithel marks in the margin as A.D. 630. Cubitt reports Alex Woolf's hypothesis that an alliance between Northumbria and the British kingdom of Rheged, with Edwin as the senior king, provoked Cadwallon and Penda's attack.¹³