Summary: Today’s episode will take place in the turbulent years from 686 to 692 and the main characters will be... Aldfrith - King of Mercia, son of Oswiu, brother of Ecgfrith, and scholarly dude. Wilfrid - Former Bishop of York, friend of the terrifying pagan king Caedwalla, and man you really don’t want to cross. and Aethelred - King of Mercia, son of Penda, brother of Wulfhere, and (despite his rather pious upbringing) he really was his father’s son. Today we’ll focus mostly upon our bully turned bookworm. Northumbria. Right now, Ecgfrith’s brother (Aldfrith son of Oswiu) is ruling the Northern Kingdom. As you might remember from earlier episodes, Aldfrith (who is also known to the Irish as Fland) was never intended to be King. And the fact of the matter is that he wasn’t exactly the clearest choice for the throne. He was an illegitimate son of Oswiu and an Irish princess, he was the 4th son of Oswiu, he was trained to enter a holy order rather than politics, and he had spent a lot of time in foreign lands (being trained in Wessex, and even living in Ireland when Ecgfrith was killed in battle). This wasn’t exactly someone being groomed to rule Northumbria. He definitely wasn’t groomed the way Ecgfrith was. And when Ecgfrith took the throne, the transfer of power was peaceful and quick because everyone expected him to rule. But now that Ecgfrith had died without a son, things were a bit more complicated and this must have been a time of anxiety in Northumbria. I mean, they were still reeling from losing one of the sons of Oswiu in battle against the Mercians at the Battle of the Trent, and now they had just lost another major battle again the Picts in which they had lost their King and a number of their nobles, /and/ the King had died childless. This was a disaster!
